Ken Buck: Trump hush money trial, verdict set ‘dangerous precedent’

Former Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said former President Trump’s hush money trial and verdict sets a “dangerous precedent.”

“This is a dangerous precedent. If you don’t think Republican D.A.s and the Republican attorney general is going to turn this around, they will,” Buck said Friday on “Real Time With Bill Maher.” “And what I saw in Congress was I saw two impeachments that were unwarranted and the Democrats talking about that after the fact.”  

Buck, who retired from Congress in a surprise announcement earlier this year, said Republicans are trying to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and President Biden because “what one side does, the other side picks up on very quickly.”

“And that’s a bad slope,” he said.

Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, made history Thursday when he became the first former U.S. president to be convicted. He was found guilty on all 34 felony charges against him for falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to conceal an alleged affair with porn actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

The verdict throws the 2024 presidential election into uncharted territory, as both sides grapple with how to move forward.

Immediately after the decision, Trump began fundraising on the announcement and said he plans to appeal.

The judge set the sentencing date for July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention, where Trump is expected to take the party’s nomination. The former president said in a press conference following the conviction that the “real verdict is going to be Nov. 5, by the people,” referring to Election Day.

Trump may face prison time, though first-time offenders on similar charges rarely are incarcerated.

Buck said he doesn’t think the former president will go to prison.

“I don’t think he goes to jail on a white-collar crime like this. I just don’t think that’s the sentence,” Buck said. “If you look at the sentencing history for crimes like this in Manhattan, I just don’t think he gets jail time.”