Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) on Tuesday said he thinks the racketeering charges brought against former President Trump and his allies in Georgia were too broad and being incorrectly applied.
“This charge is really a nuclear bomb where a bullet would have been appropriate,” Buck said in an interview on MSNBC. “And I think the scope of this charge is really something that should have been done at the federal level, if it was going to be done at all.”
“In my view, as a former federal prosecutor and state prosecutor, the federal indictment could have been a RICO indictment. They didn’t choose to go the RICO route, and I think properly so,” Buck said, referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. “RICO was meant to cover mafia cases, it was meant to cover international drug organizations.”
The RICO charges play a central role in the latest indictment, which a Georgia grand jury handed up Monday.
The case, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), implicates Trump and 18 co-defendants on charges related to their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
While the federal RICO Act was crafted with the intention of fighting organized crime in 1970, the state RICO law in Georgia can be used to go after any criminal “enterprise,” and Willis has successfully brought RICO cases in the past to target webs of criminal conduct.
Buck, a conservative lawmaker with an independent streak, said he thinks “there’s a lot to be concerned about” when asked about the many legal cases mounting against the former president and leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate.
“Any time a grand jury brings charges, you’ve got to be very concerned. I think that some of these cases are more likely to be successful. I think the case involving the classified documents is a case that has fairly straightforward elements to it. And if in fact, the facts that are alleged are true that’s a very difficult case to defend. I think these other cases involve speech and really the President’s mental state,” Buck said. “And I think to show his mental state in both the federal election case, as well as this election case, is going to be very difficult.”