April 03, 2023 12:41 PM UTC

Ken Buck Gets Brutally Acosta-ed Trying To Defend Trump

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Fresh from Rep. Ken Buck’s drubbing last week at the hands of CNN’s White House correspondent Phil Mattingly over Buck’s trophy AR-15 and Buck’s dreadfully inaccurate recounting of Colorado’s “red flag” gun safety law, Buck was back on CNN this weekend to defend former President Donald Trump in the wake of Trump’s indictment last week by the New York DA on criminal charges related to Trump’s “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels–a scheme for which Trump former attorney Michael Cohen went to prison.

As readers know, Rep. Buck has a knack for unintentionally blowing himself out of the metaphorical water while trying to defend Trump going all the way back to Trump’s first impeachment back in 2019, when Buck established while questioning Robert Mueller that Trump could face charges in the Ukrainegate scandal after he left office. Yesterday, CNN’s veteran political reporter Jim Acosta confronted Buck over Trump’s indictment, and Buck thought he had some clever prosecutorial-sounding arguments.

But Acosta was ready:

Ken Buck: The problem with having an elected District Attorney review a case like this as the final arbiter of whether to go forward or not, is he was saying during the campaign that he was interested in pursuing a case against Donald Trump. You just don’t have the same level of comfort in a state prosecution that you do with a Federal prosecution.

Jim Acosta: But of course when the focus was on Hillary Clinton back in 2016 you and other prominent Republicans were taking it to the Democratic nominee at that time. I’m gonna bring up a comment of yours from a Trump rally in 2016. It was reported at that time. You said to the crowd quote- and this was October 26, 2016- “Lady Justice doesn’t see black or white. She doesn’t see male or female. She doesn’t see rich or poor. But soon, Lady Justice will see Hillary Clinton.” Setting aside the fact that Hillary Clinton was never charged with any wrongdoing, why not demand accountability in this Trump case, no matter who the prosecutor is?

This is a textbook example what’s known as “bringing the receipts.” Of course Buck’s burning desire to see Hillary Clinton prosecuted for any conceivable wrongdoing makes his strained protestations of Trump’s indictment by a grand jury look hypocritical. Buck is far from alone in this hypocrisy. But what we have a right to not expect from a former prosecutor serving in Congress, even a prosecutor once reprimanded for misconduct, is to be bald-facedly lied to:

Buck: Well, I think there should be accountability in this case but Hillary Clinton was being investigated in the federal system, and as I said there are layers and layers of protection for defendants in the federal system that make sure that we’re not just targeting someone because of their former status as a government official. Uh, that same protection doesn’t apply. So we’re not dealing with a blind- a blindfolded Lady Justice in this situation. We’re dealing with a political prosecutor who has stated that he’s going after President Trump. I haven’t seen the indictment. I can’t give an opinion as to the strength of the indictment at this point. But I am suspicious when the former federal prosecutor walked away from this case, the former DA Cyrus Vance the Manhattan prosecutor didn’t prosecute this case, [Pols emphasis] and now this District Attorney after making a campaign promise is prosecuting this case.

As we know from former DA Cyrus Vance’s comments since the indictment, Buck is totally mischaracterizing Vance’s decision not to prosecute Trump. From Meet the Press yesterday via the Independent:

Mr Vance replied that the Department of Justice, which typically holds seniority when it comes to investigating crimes, had asked his office to stand down its investigation into numerous aspects of the former president’s activities, presumably including the hush payments to Ms Daniels. Mr Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen would end up going to prison as a result of those payments, which prosecutors argued were illegal campaign contributions for reasons of both their size and secrecy…

But Mr Vance went on to say that he was surprised by – and apparently disagreed with – the decision of federal prosecutors not to pursue criminal charges against Mr Trump over the matter at the time. [Pols emphasis]

“I was somewhat surprised after Mr Cohen pleaded guilty that the federal government did not proceed on the areas in which it asked me to stand down,” said the former DA.

The reason the previous DA didn’t press charges against Trump is Trump’s Justice Department asked him not to, and then “surprised” DA Vance by failing to file criminal charges against Trump themselves. That’s completely opposite of the impression Buck gave that Vance didn’t think the case was worth prosecuting.

As for all these “layers and layers” of oversight that supposedly exist at the Justice Department…isn’t a grand jury supposed to remove prosecutorial bias from the equation?

Acosta: But wasn’t there a grand jury looking at this? You’re not saying the grand jury is political?

Buck: I’m not saying the grand jury is political at all. I have a great deal of respect for grand jury investigations. [Pols emphasis] The grand jury only receives information and only is able to really decipher the information its given by the prosecutor. There may have been one or two witnesses on behalf of President Trump but defense attorneys are never gonna put their full case in front of a grand jury.

Folks, this is gibberish. As a former prosecutor, Buck cannot throw shade directly on the grand jury process, which is intended to provide precisely the “layer” of oversight Buck claims did not exist. First, Buck lied by claiming the DA is “The final arbiter of whether to go forward or not.” That’s the grand jury’s job. Then under questioning, Buck suggested that grand juries only know what prosecutors tell them–which sounds an awful lot like an attack on the grand jury’s credibility? Acosta saved his question about the grand jury until after Buck had gone so far to impugn the indictment process that he couldn’t take it back, and as a result Buck’s whole argument fell apart in a heap.

It’s not the first time we’ve marveled at Ken Buck wrecking his own side’s case in the process of trying to defend his fellow Republicans. Acosta walked Buck right into this rhetorical trap, but it was a trap of Buck’s own making.

Once again, Ken Buck managed to do more collateral damage than he would by simply keeping quiet.