U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a Windsor Republican and chair of the Colorado Republican Party, says it’s not an impeachable offense for the president of the United States to ask a foreign government to investigate his political rival, and he doubts that is what President Donald Trump asked of Ukraine.
“Whether it’s appropriate or not, the voters can decide. It’s not impeachable,” the congressman said in a phone interview Thursday morning, a day after public hearings in the impeachment inquiry began.
The congressman declined to say whether he believes it’s appropriate for a president to ask such a favor, calling that a hypothetical scenario. A quid pro quo, as Democrats allege Trump engaged in, would only be an impeachable offense if it rises to the level of a crime, said Buck, a former prosecutor.
“In other words, if I’m the president of the United States and I say to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin, ‘If you go and kill these three political opponents of mine, I will give you aid, or I will stop giving Ukraine aid,’ yes, that’s a crime,” the congressman said.
The U.S. Constitution specifies only that grounds for impeachment include “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors” — which in the 18th century meant an abuse of the power of the public office.
Buck compared the allegations against Trump — that he withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine because the Eastern European ally would not investigate the son of Joe Biden, a possible Trump opponent — to conditions the U.S. government routinely places on foreign aid, while reiterating that he does not believe Trump withhold the money in order to force an investigation into the Bidens.
“For example, we put tariffs on Mexico and say to Mexico, ‘Help us stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States’ and Mexico agreed to do that and has been doing that and the president withdrew the tariffs. That’s a quid pro quo. It’s not illegal. In and of itself, a quid pro quo does not violate the law,” Buck said. Over the summer, Trump threatened to place tariffs on all Mexican goods, but backed off after an agreement was reached on immigration enforcement.
In a hearing for the history books Wednesday, William Taylor and George Kent, two top U.S. diplomats with decades of experience, testified that Trump requested the Ukrainian government investigate the Bidens and that a shadow foreign policy was carried out by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Public hearings in the House Intelligence Committee will continue through at least next week. When they end, the committee will send its findings to the House Judiciary Committee, the panel tasked with writing articles of impeachment, if impeachment is warranted. Buck is a member of the Judiciary Committee, along with Rep. Joe Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat.
“I thought their testimony was powerful and compelling and devastating to the president,” Neguse said in an interview Thursday morning, referring to the words of Taylor and Kent the day before.
“I think there is significant evidence that the president abused his power, that he betrayed his oath of office and ultimately the Constitution, in my view, by virtue of his conduct, essentially pressuring a foreign government to intervene and interfere in our election,” Neguse added. “That not only calls into question our elections and our electoral system, but also, in my view, undermines our national security.”
Neguse stopped just short of endorsing Trump’s impeachment and removal from office, saying, “It’s important to let the investigation play out and hear from these witnesses next week.”
Buck, who has struck up an unlikely friendship with Neguse, despite their almost diametrically opposed politics, agrees on that last point. Buck says he’s unsure how he’ll vote on impeachment.
“I was a prosecutor for 25 years. I prosecuted a lot of cases where people said, ‘Oh, you don’t have the evidence’ or ‘Oh, this is unfair,’ or ‘Oh, there are other motives for these prosecutions.’ I go where the evidence takes me and I will go where the evidence takes me in this case. If that means voting for impeachment, so be it. I don’t see that at this point and this is political theater,” the Republican congressman said.
As evidence of his open mind, Buck points to his decision last month to not cosponsor a censure motion against Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee. Most Republicans in Congress demanded Schiff be censured, but Buck didn’t think his conduct in the impeachment inquiry rose to the level needed for censuring, even if he disagrees with the impeachment inquiry.
“You don’t overturn the will of the people 11 months before an election based on the conduct that we’ve seen,” the congressman said Thursday. “I think that’s my point in all this.”
