This week Congressman Ken Buck auditioned for Dirty Jobs, the television program that showcases occupations where workers handle dangerous chemicals, viscera, biting animals, or raw sewage.
He deftly handled the latter when he responded to the Colorado GOP’s recent email “Call to action for all county officers, elected officials, and concerned citizens.” The email solicits signatures for a letter to Colorado Members of Congress regarding the treatment of individuals jailed for their involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
The rambling petition, penned by Todd M. Watkins, Vice Chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, contends these “prisoners” are being “mistreated and abused.” Hundreds are “still detained without bond, most for misdemeanor offenses” or they have not been formally charged. Many have “suffered physical abuse and injury at the hands of their jailors or been denied medical treatment.” They are unable to meet with their attorneys. Their constitutional rights are being violated. They are being silenced for political dissent. America “is a despotic, tyrannical, banana republic,” the petition concludes, that “looks more like The Gulag Archipelago than “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Congressman Buck responded to these excretal claims in a lengthy letter in hopes that authors “will cease disseminating false information.” Specifically, Buck explained all January 6 defendants were charged before being arrested. The number of detainees has dropped from 56 in the spring of 2021 to 20 this summer. Those who remain in custody have been charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer or conspiracy or possession of a deadly weapon on Capitol grounds, all felonies. They remain behind bars because they pose a danger to the community or are a flight risk or are likely to obstruct justice.
Buck handily dismantled the Walkins’s claims of abuses, violation of constitutional rights, and unequal treatment. He criticized the GOP call to action email for making irresponsible, false, and misleading claims and for misdirecting “the energy and resources of Republican activists at a time when this country is facing crises after crises as a result of the failed policies of the Biden administration.”
The congressman could not be more right. President Biden’s time in office has been characterized by foreign policy mistakes and unconstitutional domestic policies shot down by the courts. Since Democrats plan to field this unpopular, sometimes confused octogenarian in 2024, the GOP should be focused on Biden’s blunders and GOP solutions.
Instead, the Colorado state GOP is appending new plot lines to an absurd conspiracy theory.
First, we were told the mysterious deep state, election equipment companies, foreign powers, Democrats, election workers, and other nefarious characters rigged the election results for Biden with such skill they left no evidence behind.
Then we were told a peaceful protest on January 6 was crashed by armed Antifa and undercover federal agents. Maybe a few righteous patriots got a little too enthusiastic and entered the Capitol. ‘Twas a misunderstanding, a mere contretemps to which far too much attention has been paid.
Now for the sequel: Hundreds of innocent patriots from the January 6 “incident” are being held as political prisoners without charge, deprived of due process, denied medical care, given only bread and water, beaten and berated, crowded together in unheated prison cells in the frigid north. You know, like in The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a former prisoner of the Soviet prison system who lived to tell. Just like that.
Will the rebuttal letter by Congressman Ken Buck, a respected conservative, disabuse deluded Colorado Republicans of these embarrassing fantasies? Hope springs eternal. As long as conspiracy theorists helm the state party, it is more likely Buck will have to return to the dirty work of dispelling disinformation. Keep the shovel handy, Congressman. And keep up the good work.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer. She joined a lawsuit this week to attempt to keep Donald Trump off the Colorado ballot in 2024 based on his violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment while he was president of the United States.
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