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GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
GLENN: From Radio
City in Midtown Manhattan, hello you sick twisted freak.
Welcome to the program, the third most listened to show in
all of America. Glad you're here. Congressman Duncan Hunter
is with us. He was on Capitol Hill last night. It's kind of
a sleepy place today, isn't it?
HUNTER: You know, the Senate's always a little bit sleepy
there, Glenn Beck. How are you doing?
GLENN: Very good, sir. Congressman, yesterday I didn't even
know -- I didn't even know how to watch the testimony coming
out of the hearing that you were in with Johnny Sutton on
the Compean and Ramos story. I didn't know how to even
process it, and I told Lou Dobbs this last night on TV. I
found myself asking what everyone's motivation was in the
hearing. I really, I'm to a point -- this is sad. I'm to a
point to where I really didn't trust that very many people
in that room had the people's best interests at heart.
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Border Patrol Fundraiser Shirt
***All of Glenn's proceeds from the
sale of this shirt will be donated
to a legal defense fund for Agents
Ramos and Compean.***
To quote Col. Nathan Jessep--Jack
Nicholson's character from, A Few
Good Men--"Son, we live in a world
that has walls, and those walls have
to be guarded by men with guns."
That's true, and some of the men
guarding our walls are U.S. Border
Patrol Agents. Thing is…if one of
those Border Agents tries to protect
our walls with their guns, they
might just end up in prison for the
next 11 years. That's what happened
to agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose
Compean. You've heard me talk about
the injustice done to these brave
men, and you know that I'm outraged.
I invite you to join me in showing
both your anger and commitment to
setting them free by wearing one of
these t-shirts: "U.S. Border
Patrol…To Protect And Serve Time."
It's the least we can do for two men
who have done the most…men with
families who are unfairly paying the
price for doing their duty, showing
their bravery, and trying to keep
all Americans safe. |
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HUNTER:
Well, let me tell you, I know what I'm doing, Glenn, and
that's this. Is when the President didn't issue a pardon to
these two agents, I pulled our lawyers in on the House side
and I said, can congress issue a pardon? And they went back
and looked at it and they came back. They said, some law
indicates you can and some indicates you can't and it may
end up going to the Supreme Court. I said, let's try it, and
we drafted up a congressional pardon. I introduced that bill
a couple of months ago. In fact, the day they went into
prison, I introduced the -- I wrote that pardon bill up, and
right now we have 100 cosponsors. That is 100 members of
congress on the house side that have sponsored a
congressional pardon for Compean and Ramos, and I thought
the interesting thing about that hearing was even if you
believed the drug dealer side of this story, these two
border patrol agents wounded a drug dealer as he was
bringing in 750 pounds of narcotics and they were given
basically murder sentences. That is, they were given 11 and
12 years in the federal penitentiary, which is more than the
average convicted murderer in America. So the point is even
if you believe the drug dealer side of the story, this is an
extreme injustice to have these guys in jail. Ramos has been
beaten up and so here's what we're doing, Glenn. I've got
100 cosponsors on my bill to pardon them. We're going to
fight to get 50 more cosponsors over the next 30 days. We
think we can get a hearing, maybe get this thing marked up
and get a vote on it in the house of representatives and
hopefully the Senate in the next couple of months.
GLENN: What happened? I watched Dianne Feinstein and she
seemed genuinely sincere and really hacked off at Johnny
Sutton the way this whole thing has been handled, the way
the drug dealer was given a humanitarian pass where he could
come back and forth across the border. The guy is involved
with a drug cartel, and we knew it. And we give him a pass.
HUNTER: Yeah, back after he became a State's witness, he was
involved with another load of drugs coming into the country
and that's one place where I think, you know, what's
happened with Johnny Sutton and happens with prosecutors a
lot is in the end they just want to win. They just want to
get that ball across the goal line, but they had more of an
obligation than that. And, you know, these two guys went to
jail based on the drug dealer's testimony that he had no
weapon on him, and they took -- he was never searched, he
was never frisked and so Johnny Sutton's saying that this
guy was disarmed or was unarmed is only based on the drug
dealer's testimony. When they caught this guy the second
time bringing drugs across the border, I think Johnny Sutton
had an obligation to go to the court and say this guy's
blown all the credibility he might ever have and we can't
use him as the key witness in prosecuting these two border
patrolmen. I think that was an obligation he had.
GLENN: Johnny Sutton said to me -- and he's going to be on
the program tomorrow -- he said to me face to face, eyeball
to eyeball, we don't have any evidence that he was bringing
drugs over the second time.
HUNTER: Okay, I tell you what, I'm going to give you -- I'm
going to send you the police reports that I have on the
second load of drugs. I'll send that to you so you've got
that when you talk to him.
One other thing you should ask him, Glenn, is this: The
senators didn't ask him after I left the hearing yesterday.
You know, I let off the hearing, then I had to take off to
the Pentagon, but he said seven times in his statement that
this guy was unarm. Ask him how he knows that because nobody
frisked that drug dealer. Nobody searched him. He's in the
-- he's coming across the Rio Grande in a part of Texas
which is almost a free fire zone. The small town across from
Laredo, Texas, Nuevo Laredo has had something like 600
unsolved murders, most of them drug-related. A lot of those
guys carry automatic weapons with them and so for Johnny
Sutton to say that a drug dealer driving 750 pounds of
narcotics was unarmed is just his guess.
GLENN: Well, it is his guess.
HUNTER: He's taking the word dealers' word for it.
GLENN: I will tell you this, congressman, that I have asked
him that question and his response is that drug dealers just
don't carry guns anymore because they know that our laws are
so tough and they are minimum sentences required that if
they carry a gun or they pull a gun, they will go to jail
for a very long time. So there are no drug smugglers that
now carry guns. That's his response.
HUNTER: You know, that's about the weakest statement I have
ever heard and about the weakest justification for saying
that a guy is unarmed. So ask him. Pin him down on this
thing. Say, did you search him, did anybody search him and
so if you didn't search him, how do you know he's unarmed.
And hit him with that. And, you know, the other question I'd
ask him, if that's true, how did those 600 people die in
Nuevo Laredo, most of them in drug-related murders if guns
weren't used? Do these guys choke to death on their Wheaties
in the morning?
GLENN: Let me -- before I switch topics, let me ask you, do
you believe that this hearing, anything will change for
Compean and Ramos and, two, that we will stop giving people
passes when they are linked to the drug cartel and we stop
allowing them into our country unsupervised because they
will testify against one of our border guards? Do you think
either one of those things will change?
 HUNTER: Yeah, I think there will be some nips and tucks on
the law with respect to letting these people come in, but
with respect to Compean and Ramos, what we've got to do is
get those guys out of prison, and the only way that's going
to get done is to get more people to cosponsor the
congressional pardon. And if we can get that number up to
150, I think we can get the legislation marked up and have a
chance of getting it passed in the house of representatives.
So that hearing in the Senate is not going to result in
these guys getting out. It may change -- it may result in
some reforms on how we treat these drug dealers and these
guys that come across, get immunity in exchange for their
testimony.
GLENN: You know, congressman, I will tell you this. There
are a lot of people in my own audience. I mean, I started
selling -- in fact, if I may, I would like to offer you a
T-shirt. It's a $20 donation goes directly to their legal
defense fund. It's a T-shirt with a U.S. border patrol
symbol on it and it says To Protect and Serve Time, and
every dollar goes to their legal defense fund. I'd like to
send you one, sir, if I may.
HUNTER: Glenn, please do. And, you know, Glenn, I called up
the bureau of prison the night they went in and I said, you
have to separate those guys immediately from the general
population or they're going to be beaten up. The bureau of
prisons sent me a letter the next day, and the staff
director talked to Mr. Lapin, who is a director of the
United States bureau of prisons, and they said we assure you
they will be protected. We've got a special program. And
they didn't tell me they were putting Ramos back in with the
general population and as you know, he was beaten up by five
guys. And so those guys, they've now served six months in
the federal penitentiary. It's time to get them out. And if
we can get an additional 50 cosponsors, that means if people
will call their congressmen, ask them if they've gotten on
the bill to give a congressional pardon to Compean and
Ramos, that helps those two gentlemen enormously. So help us
sponsor that bill. Let's get that one across the finish
line.
GLENN:
I will tell you this, Congressman. What I was going to say
to you is I put these T-shirts up for sale and you are
asking people to call in to your -- you know, call your
congressman to cosponsor this bill.
HUNTER: Yes.
GLENN: There are a lot of people in my audience -- and I
have a very conservative audience -- that say these guys are
criminals, that these guys broke the law and they should do
time. That, you know, we don't want out-of-control border
guards. Make the case that what they know is false because
honestly that's where I was. When this story first broke, we
got on it for about a day or two and then I got off it real
quick because I started hearing things about this case that
we got off and I said, you know, something's not right. We
got back into it because I still had that feeling
something's not right and I said, drop in and really look at
this story and find out what's wrong. There are too many
things, too many loose ends, but the general public really
is confused between Johnny Sutton and their story.
HUNTER: Yeah. Okay, let me make the case, Glenn, and let me
frame this thing. This was two U.S. border patrolmen on our
side of the border. They saw a van come across. It turned
out the van had 750 pounds of narcotics. The agent Compean
had a scuffle, arrested the -- or stopped the driver, the
drug dealer, had a scuffle. The drug dealer took off
running. Ramos came running up. He saw that his partner was
on the ground. He pulled his gun. Compean and Ramos, from
there you have two divergent stories. One is from the drug
dealer who claims he was just running and he was unarmed.
That's the guy whose word Johnny Sutton takes. Compean and
Ramos claimed he whirled around and had a gun in his hand
and they fired at him. He was wounded in the rear end,
continued on to Mexico, ran off into Mexico, was contacted
several months later by the U.S. attorney's office, was
given immunity and came back in and testified against
Compean and Ramos and the police report that I saw reflected
another drug vote brought in by this guy in which he was
identified by one of the witnesses as being the guy who
broughts second drug load in after the first incident.
Now, here's -- let me tell you I've got a background in
these cases because I've been on the armed services
committee of the United States House of Representatives for
26 years. The last four years as chairman. So I've seen a
lot of cases involving our Marines and soldiers where they
are brought to trial under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice for discharging their weapons, for shooting at
civilians and whether or not they had the right to discharge
a weapon, whether they were in danger, whether they had
reasonable fear.
Here's the problem. When you have a law enforcement officer
making a split-second decision as to whether a person has a
gun in his hand or not, you have to give the doubt, the
presumption in favor of the law enforcement officer. This
guy's not sitting back in an easy chair reflecting on facts
three weeks after it happens or two months after it happens.
He's in the field. The adrenaline is flowing, he's in a free
fire zone there in the Rio Grande where lots of people have
been killed in this multibillion dollar drug trade. Most of
these guys, most of the drug traders carry automatic weapons
or carry at least side arms and so you're in a free fire
zone. You think that guy's shooting at you and as a result
of that, you shoot at him and you wound him.
GLENN: Okay.
HUNTER: Now, if we put this decision, this split second
decision, make that the difference between a law enforcement
officer getting a medal for valor or giving to prison for 11
or 12 years, you are not going to get anybody to join the
border patrol and I've never seen a case involving Marines
or soldiers where the service person was treated as
unfairly, in my judgment, as Compean and Ramos
 GLENN: You have left out a part of the story and this is the
part that bothers people, and my response to Sutton was
because it's afraid of Sutton and they are afraid of the
system and there were supervisor on site while they did this
but Sutton dismisses both of those things. The thing that
bothers people is they went and they picked up the bullets.
They picked up all of the shell casings and that leads to
the "Cover-up" that Johnny Sutton talks about.
HUNTER: Yeah. And I think that's -- I think that's
ridiculous. In the first place, if they're charging them
with picking up their shell casings, then that's -- you
know, if you don't pick up your shell casings or if you
don't report an incident, the average punishment for not
reporting your incident is something like five days
suspension. It's not a big piece of your life in the federal
penitentiary. So they gave them murder sentences. So, you
know, Johnny Sutton jumps to mat picking up your brass to
justification of a murder sentence being given to somebody.
More time in jail than if you took a gun out and shot
somebody between the eyes with malice aforethought. That's a
total breakdown in logic by Johnny Sutton. You know, let's
assume those guys didn't think this was an incident that
they wanted to have reported. They didn't bring the drug
dealer back. They didn't want to have to go through the
paperwork. I'm presuming everything in Johnny Sutton's
favor. They didn't want to have to go through the paperwork
of an investigation. How many marine units and Army units
are out in the field that don't come back with a 30-page
report of their daily operations? That's human nature. That
does not justify a murder sentence. There's no way you can
take those two sets of facts and support the sentence that
these guys had. When they're handed down, they are going to
spend a big piece of their life behind bars. There is no
long I can. There is no fairness in that.
GLENN: Johnny Sutton's going to be my guest on tomorrow.
We're talking to Congressman Duncan Hunter from California
who is --
GLENN: Glenn, when you get Johnny Sutton up there, ask him
if anybody searched those guys and pin him down on this.
GLENN: I will.
HUNTER: Don't let him say as a matter of practice we think
drug dealers don't have guns. That's about the dumbest
response I've ever heard. Make him answer you the question
as to whether anybody actually searched the drug dealer.
GLENN: Congressman, you know that he is so rehearsed and so
good in answering these questions, this is his life. I had
probably the most amazing conversation I've had with anyone
where I said stuff that I never, ever thought would spill
out of my mouth before with that man and I told him, I said,
Johnny, you have -- and this was all off the air after an
interview on Headline News. I said, you have no idea what
you're dealing with with the American people. You have no
idea the load of bricks that is going to come down on the
heads of everybody in Washington. That includes the
President and you and Gonzales. You and Gonzales and Bush,
you got the little ring going on here where y'all report to
each other and that's it and nobody trusts anything that's
going on on the border and you have no idea the load of
bricks that's coming down on your head. And you know what,
congressmen? You know it and I know it that ABC is reporting
that we have Iraqis being smuggled in on our southern
border. The day that we have a terrorist problem in this
country with someone who has come across these borders
illegally -- that's north or south -- there's going to be
hell to be paid on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
HUNTER: Well, and Glenn, you understand that I wrote the
bill that mandates the border fence.
GLENN: I know.
HUNTER: 854 miles of border fence and as President I will
complete that fence in six months. I know how to build a
fence, Glenn.
GLENN: I know you do. Duncan Hunter, best of luck. Good luck
on your campaign, sir, and thank you for all the hard work
you are doing on this case.
END TRANSCRIPT |
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