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GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
GLENN: And Johnny
Sutton is with us now. Johnny Sutton is the Prosecutor that
is responsible for Compean and Ramos going to jail for 11
years, 10 and 11 years or 11 and 12 years and he doesn't
have really a problem with that. Welcome to the program, Mr.
Sutton.
SUTTON: Hey, Glenn. Thanks for having me on
GLENN: You bet. I appreciate your willingness to come on and
face the fire because I told somebody just the other day
that if it wasn't for this situation, I think I would really
like you because you seem like a nice guy, but --
SUTTON: I'm happy to face the questions. You're a tough
questioner, but I'm happy to answer any questions and talk
to your guests in they want to call in.
GLENN: Okay. Here are a couple of questions, and I'm going
to -- I'll start with the easy ones. Did the -- did Sutton
-- or I'm sorry. Did Compean and Ramos know that they were
facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years because of
the -- what is it -- the 90 -- what is it?
 |
 |
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. |
|
SUTTON: 924c.
Basically it's the gun charge that whenever somebody commits
a crime and they use a firearm to commit a crime of
violence, they call it a 924c. It's a section of the code,
that's a mandatory minimum punishment that says if you have
a begun, if you use it.
GLENN: Right. Did they know that they were facing a
mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years?
SUTTON: Well, I can't imagine that they didn't. I mean, they
had four very, very aggressive, talented, good lawyers who
explained everything, who fought tooth and nail during that
two and a half week jury trial and, of course, obviously
they were charged with that in the indictment. So they knew
what they were charged with. I'm sure their lawyers
explained to them if they were convicted that they would be
facing a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison stacked on
top of any other sentence that they got convicted of.
GLENN: Right.
SUTTON: Obviously, you know, the prosecutors are not in on
discussions between them and their lawyers but I can't
imagine that they wouldn't know that.
GLENN: Right.
SUTTON: They rolled the dice and went to trial and lost,
that they were facing a whole bunch of time.
GLENN: And if they did know that -- or if they didn't, if
they weren't informed, they would have a very strong case
for a mistrial because of just incompetent lawyering?
SUTTON: Well, I mean, those are questions for appeals. A lot
of lawyers -- a lot of defendants, after they lose, they
love their lawyer until they go to trial and lose and then
they hate their lawyer and their lawyer's incompetent.
GLENN: Sure.
SUTTON: And they want another bite at the apple. Obviously I
can't make an opinion on that. The case is on appeal. So
we're still fighting.
GLENN: But not for that reason. They are not level that
charge that they didn't know?
SUTTON: You know, I'm not sure about that. I don't think
they are, but, you know, the appeal's very long and we've
got, you know, appellate lawyers that are working on our
brief right now.
GLENN: You added the 924c charge six months after the
original charge. Why is that?
SUTTON: The way that things work in the federal system is
once someone is arrested, there's a very short window of
time for you to bring an indictment. It's basically the
speedy trial. Once you arrest somebody, you can't just hold
them indefinitely until you charge them with something. So
our original prosecutor charged them with three counts of
assault and that was it. When the trial team came in and
looked at the case, they realized there was a lot more
crimes that these guys committed. So they added a number of
obstruction of justice charges, they changed the assault
charges to more reflect what the facts were and then they
put the 924c on. In fact, there was two more reindictments
after that. That's very typical to get those charges
straight. In this case there was a civil -- two civil rights
charges and those need to be reviewed by main justice in
Washington D.C. So there is some period of time we are
waiting to make sure the brainiacs in the civil rights
division had seen those.
GLENN: But the 924c charge was actually, the 924c, that was
actually brought into law to send a message to drug dealers,
don't ever carry guns. It was written for drug dealers to be
able to really hammer them to try to get the violence on the
border under control, was it not?
SUTTON: Well, that's one of the misinformation about what's
been said some in the public.
GLENN: You were the one who told me that, sir. You told me
that in our television interview.
SUTTON: Right. I mean, obviously 924c is to slam people who
commit crimes with guns, and what we do -- and when congress
was debating this, they decided, well, wait a minute, what
about police officers? Should it apply to federal agents and
police officers? They debated that and they decided that it
should. That if police officers or federal agents stepped
out of their role as law enforcement and started committing
crimes that they shouldn't be exempted from that.
GLENN: Okay.
SUTTON: Now again police officers, 99.9% of our police
officers, they do it right every day, they are in tough
spots, they make split second life-and-death decisions and
we don't second-guess them very often. In fact, you heard
Aguilar, Chief Aguilar say that border patrol agents, 144
agents have shot their guns and used deadly force, killing
13 suspects and wounding 15 and not one of those guys has
been prosecuted but because giving these agents the benefit
of the doubt they are well trained. But 924c applies to
anybody who commits a violent crime with a firearm and that
includes a police officer. Again it's rare we charge police
officers but occasionally we have to.
GLENN: So the charge is that they fired it at an unarmed
man. Was the drug smuggler searched?
SUTTON: No. He got away. They didn't catch him.
GLENN: He got away? Were there any witnesses to seeing him
at all? Did anybody else see him?
SUTTON: Well, obviously there was, you know, a number --
there was several witnesses. One, you know, Compean and
Ramos as well as Agent Juarez who were at the original, when
he jumped out of the ditch, everybody saw that.
GLENN: Yeah, but no --
SUTTON: You know, once the dope, dope smuggler ducks away
from Compean and takes off towards Mexico, the main witness
was, you know, the smuggler, the two agents who were charged
and Agent Juarez. Agent Juarez stayed on this side of the
levee. He saw quite a bit of it. But he did not see, he did
not see the smuggler. So at that point there was just a
smuggler and Compean and Ramos.
GLENN: Okay. So we're taking -- there was no search because
he couldn't because he went across the border where two cars
were waiting for him.
SUTTON: Right.
GLENN: There was no search. So you don't know if he had a
gun, you don't know if he had a cell phone, you don't know
anything which leads me to, we have to believe either the
drug smuggler, who was a member of the cartel, we have to
believe his testimony or our two agents. Is there anything
that would impugn the credibility of a cartel member that
was smuggling 600 or 700 pounds of dope across our border?
SUTTON: Obviously he's a scumbag drug smuggler that should
be rotting in an American prison right now.
GLENN: But we have to take -- we're taking his word. The
only one that really knows whether or not he had a gun on
him were either -- was him really or we have to take the
word of our border agents. And why are we taking the word of
the drug smuggler/cartel member?
SUTTON: And again that's why I really treasure opportunities
like this that you've given me to sort of explain that,
look. I mean, that's why we have jury trials, to sort out
questions of fact.
GLENN: I understand that. But you have to make --
SUTTON: The jury decides.
GLENN: You had to make the decision that we take this guy's
word that he was an unarmed man.
SUTTON: That's right. What was his --
GLENN: You had to take this man's word.
SUTTON: But Glenn, what you do is you look at all the
evidence. I mean, that's what you do in trial. For two and a
half weeks a West Texas jury looked at all the evidence, not
just the testimony of some --
 GLENN:
But they didn't. What you have said to me was that because
of 924c, nobody, no drug smugglers, they don't carry guns
anymore because they know they'll get the maximum 10-year
sentence. No, that's what you told me on television. And so
when you say that, I can understand that would maybe -- you
know, if you are bringing 10 pounds of dope in. But if you
are bringing 500, 600, 700 pounds of dope in, you are most
likely going to carry a weapon, and if they're not carrying
weapons, who are? I mean, why is it you work so hard to
exclude the evidence of violence on the border? Is it
because you knew the jury would then say, there's so much
violence on the border; if that many people are being killed
on the border by drug smugglers, why would I believe this
guy with 600 pounds of dope wouldn't have a firearm on him?
SUTTON: Right. I mean, I guess the first question is and
what the main problem for these guys is if -- let's assume
for a second that the smuggler had a gun. Why in the world
wouldn't Compean and Ramos say to everybody, hey, the guy
just pointed a gun at us and we shot him. I mean, you know,
again they would be cleared in five minutes if that was
really the facts. They weren't acting like agents who had
just gotten a gun pointed at them. Even their own buddies
who were conspiring to pick up shell casings and throw them
in the river. They asked them to pick them up and throw them
in the river and he didn't say to Vasquez, hey, that guy
pointed a gun at me. When they asked what happened, he said
they drew dirt in my face. There was no mention of a gun
until one month later when these two agents are in trouble
and they get arrested and they hear, oh, we thought he had a
shiny object in his hand and it was a gun. It's not just the
testimony of the doper. It's all of the evidence that was at
the scene.
GLENN: Right. I understand that. And what you're doing here
is you're saying, and it was only for a month later. It
wasn't like there was a big investigation in a month. It was
because -- no, sir, it is because Rene Sanchez, the agent
who turned them in, is a friend of the drug smuggler and I
believe they're related. Now, have you investigated, isn't
there some sort of law to disclose that? Was there any kind
of investigation? What has happened with Rene Sanchez, the
guy who, the drug smuggler's mother contacted who works for
the U.S. border? Is he at least working in Canada now?
SUTTON: There was an investigation of that, and I want to
make sure I'm not revealing anything secret. It was cleared.
Hopefully I'm not releasing something secret. I don't think
it is. But yes, that was looked at.
GLENN: Is he working on the United States/Mexico border, a
guy who has friends in drug cartels, is he still working on
the Mexican border or have we moved him up to the Canadian
border at least?
SUTTON: What's so sad about this is Rene Sanchez is the
border patrol agent who actually did the right thing. When
someone --
GLENN: He has friends in a drug cartel. He has friends in a
drug cartel. Have we at least moved him away from his
friends in the drug cartel?
SUTTON: That's what's so ironic is the guy who does the
right thing is vilified.
GLENN: He has friends. I'm not saying that he's a bad guy.
He has friends in a drug cartel. Do you think we should
maybe move him to the northern border?
SUTTON: Glenn, Glenn, Rene Sanchez grew up on the Mexican
side of the river, okay?
GLENN: This is not the question.
SUTTON: I imagine there's people that you knew from high
school that are probably in prison now. You knew them. Maybe
they were in your next-door neighbors. You know, does that
mean you're a criminal because you knew Floyd Jones who
ended up going to prison? No, it's not true.
GLENN: Unbelievable.
SUTTON: Rene Sanchez did the right thing.
GLENN: You know what, if I have friends who are bank
robbers, if I grew up with friends who are bank robbers,
CitiBank should not put me in charge of the security. It
doesn't mean that I'm a bad guy. It just means, you know
what, there's a risk there; we probably should minimize that
risk.
SUTTON: And I don't want to get hung up on this.
Unfortunately I feel bad for Rene Sanchez because he
actually got a call from his mother-in-law saying there was
a shooting and, you know, he did what he was supposed to do.
He reported to a supervisor and he's been vilified and it's
really been sad. I feel bad for him because he did the right
thing.
But back to your question about the gun thing. Look,
everybody wants to put in evidence that's kind of good for
their side. The defense attorneys want to say, oh, the
border's really dangerous down there. It's true, it is
dangerous. We want to say, look, never carry guns, and in
155 seizures, 43,000 pounds of marijuana seized, there's
been no guns. In fact, you can go back to 2001 and almost
500 seizures, one gun. Now, that doesn't establish that
Aldrete didn't have a gun. It just shows that mules in that
area don't carry guns and that's why we don't let that kind
of evidence in is we say, look, that may be --
GLENN: It's Patly -- you know what?
SUTTON: They need to know what happened in this case and
that's why we say the facts, lay it all out for a jury, let
the smugglers testify, let the agents testify if they want,
put all the people out there and then the jury decides if
they did it.
GLENN: You are --
SUTTON: And then the big question is why do you cover up,
Glenn.
GLENN: There was no coverup, sir.
SUTTON: Why in the world do you cover up --
GLENN: There was no coverup. You are spinning this. Homeland
Security, the memo is clear from Homeland Security. There
was no coverup. The people were there. They had to make a
verbal report if they are on -- no, sir, well, I agree with
you.
SUTTON: They both admitted that they did not tell their
supervisor. They both admitted that they didn't tell anybody
about the shooting. I mean, that's in the trial record
that's on the website. That's what's so funny about all
this.
GLENN: Why are they picking up the shells? According to
Homeland Security, there were people on the site that were
helping them pick up the shells. There's no indication that
there was a shooting? What are these, just shells they just
sprinkled around?
SUTTON: These are other agents who were conspiring to cover
up. It wasn't just these two that covered up the shooting.
There were several others that covered up the shooting, too.
That's what's so funny is your listeners have heard this
narrative of two American heroes going to prison for doing
their job.
GLENN: No, sir. You know what, my audience --
SUTTON: The facts, you realize thighs guys committed serious
crimes and they helped them cover up.
GLENN: My audience and I were very skeptical and on your
side at the beginning. I don't want a dirty cop. I don't
want dirty border agents. I don't want somebody with
connections to a drug cartel working for our government down
at the border. So I mean, I was willing to, and so was the
rest of the country, willing to say, wait a minute, if these
guys are dirty, let's throw them out, but something isn't
right here. Something isn't right.
SUTTON: Tell me what the problem is. I mean, the West Texas
juries do not convict police officers on a whim because I've
been --
GLENN: You have said, sir, that you wanted to send a
message, you wanted to send a message. Let me ask you this.
What message --
SUTTON: I never said that. I never said that.
GLENN: You have said it several times.
SUTTON: What I've said is this case is about the rule of law
and laws must be enforced and unfortunately sometimes they
must be enforced against our friends in law enforcement and
that's what sad is law enforcement are American heroes but
people who attach their wagon to these two guys paint the
rest who say, look, cops don't shoot people and cover it up.
GLENN: I agree with you.
SUTTON: Because they are afraid. We do not do anything to
them even if they're wrong. If they said, I thought it was a
gun, he really thought it was a wallet. We don't prosecute
them because in their position they thought it was a gun. So
that was righteous to shoot that person. It's a terrible
tragedy but nothing should happen to that cop. In I can
they're shooting at an unarmed guy running away who they
know is unarmed. They are just ticked and they are going to
teach him a lesson and, you know, that is something that we
cannot allow in law enforcement.
GLENN: Okay, Johnny Sutton, can you hang with us?
SUTTON: Sure. I'm happy to hang and I'll take questions if
y'all want.
GLENN: Hang on just a second. Back with questions with
Johnny Sutton in a moment. I've got a couple of questions
for him. We'll take your phone calls first.
<break transcript>
GLENN: Mr. Sutton, we have a lot of people that would like
to talk to you and I've got two minutes before the bottom of
the hour. I know you are a busy man. Can we hold you across
the bottom of the hour or not?
SUTTON: Sure, sure, as long as you need.
GLENN: Okay. So the phones are open. 888-727-BECK. I asked
you, how long ago was it that you were in my studio in New
York? Two months ago, three months ago? Time flies so fast.
SUTTON: A month or two, month and a half, two months.
GLENN: I asked you at the time, do you believe the sentence
was reasonable and you said you thought it was a pretty
powerful sentence.
SUTTON: Yeah, definitely it's a hard sentence
GLENN: It's a hard sentence, and I asked you at the time
would you make a recommendation and you said you haven't
been asked for a recommendation for the President on whether
he should commute the sentence or not.
SUTTON: No.
GLENN: Do you believe -- not pardon, and I believe they
would probably want to pardon, but would you recommend to
commute the sentence?
SUTTON: Well, and that's a tricky question for me and I want
to -- you know, I've been real up front and direct on
answering all your questions. The problem is at some point I
may be asked, and I'll make that recommendation. I just
don't want to make a recommendation publicly now until I am.
GLENN: Why will you --
SUTTON: When I'm asked that, generally that's an internal
deliberation, but absolutely I will make that answer if I'm
asked and, you know, there's a very elaborate DOJ process
that's set up.
GLENN: Well, not really. I mean, Scooter Libby, you know. It
kind of went out of the framework on Scooter Libby. So
you've already -- you have an answer -- I would imagine that
if you felt that it was too strong and you thought that the
sentence could be commuted that you would say -- you would
volunteer that and make that recommendation? So in other
words --
SUTTON: And again I'm not trying to be deceptive but I have
to volunteer that to the people who are the decision makers,
not to the --
GLENN: Will you volunteer that and not wait for somebody to
ask you? Will you volunteer that opinion to the President?
SUTTON: What we have is a very, very clear process in DOJ
and we have a pardon attorney. We follow that process.
Obviously that power is --
GLENN: All right.
SUTTON: Is unchecked and can be used but, you know, like I
said, I intend to follow that procedure.
GLENN: I imagine you are a man that you believe justice is
being served then. Otherwise you would make that
recommendation now. Hang on just a second.
<break transcript>
 GLENN:
Johnny Sutton is with us. He is the man responsible for the
case against Compean and Ramos, the two border agents that
are, I believe, America's first real political prisoners
but, you know, Johnny Sutton and a West Texas jury disagree
with that as he has pointed out several times, and I have to
tell you, Mr. Sutton, that while I disagree with you
vehemently on this, while I do not trust biased levels of
our government on anything when it comes to the Mexican and
even Canadian border, I will tell you that I have respect
for your courage to face the American people and I feel bad
for you, quite honestly, because I think you're getting a
lot of heat on this particular case that you won't get if
America trusted our government on doing something on the
border, but -- and a lot of people including me feel that
you guys are all trying to send a message to our border
agents of, don't do anything because we've got friends down
south of the border that we're trying to take care of.
Our number is 888-727-BECK. 888-727-BECK. Let's go to Cliff
in Toledo. Hi, Cliff. Go ahead, you're on the Glenn Beck
program with Johnny Sutton.
CALLER: John, if drug smugglers don't carry guns, then why
did our soldiers working Operation Jump Start on January 4th
on the Arizona border this year get shot at by illegal drug
smugglers on the border there? I have spoken to congressman
Tom Tancredo's office numerous times which I've been told
there are all kind of caches of weapons which have been
confiscated in some of the tunnels on the borders and
supposedly the congressman has actually even seen them and
they don't carry guns. And then you also got the border town
of Laredo that, you know, there's a drug war going on there
right now where hundreds have been killed this year alone.
Now, if they didn't use guns, what did they use? Sticks and
stones?
GLENN: Thank you, Cliff.
SUTTON: That's a very important point to make. I'm glad he
asked that question. I am certainly not saying drug dealers
don't carry guns. I mean, the cartels are absolutely some of
the most dangerous killers and assassins in the world. We
deal with these guys day in and day out. The police chief in
Nuevo Laredo lasted eight hours before he was assassinated.
Everybody knows the cartel is armed to the teeth. You know,
we are using every investigative technique in the world and,
you know, we a lot of times have warrants and wire taps and,
you know, we know what goes on in these cartels and that's
what we're trying to do is bring these folks down and that's
what we do every day. My point is in the Favens area, the
rules, the drivers of these loads who go from the river to
the stash house, most of those, 99% of those or more have
not carried guns in the last five years. Now, that doesn't
mean that there's not some out there that do, and I have no
idea how it goes in Arizona. Maybe everyone's armed to the
teeth. I mean, look. Drug dealers are dangerous. I am in the
business of putting them in prison. My office leads the
nation of putting them in prison and we're second in
immigration. These are all, most of these are Mexicans.
We're slamming them and putting them in prison and the idea
that somehow we're in cahoots with Mexico is laughable I
mean, because we put them in prison by the bushels.
GLENN: Well, you say you're second. You're second in putting
them in prison. For the love of Pete, man, you're in Texas.
Who's beating you? Kansas?
SUTTON: My brother, my brothers and sisters from the South
who have Brownsville to Laredo beat us out, but --
GLENN: I mean, it's not like you're in competition. You're
in Texas. Of course you're number one or two. I mean --
SUTTON: Right. That's my point, Glenn is, look, we're in
this business. I actually think it's ironic, a politician
discovered the area day it attacked because we don't care
about immigration, we're agents of the Mexican government,
et cetera, et cetera, and then someone behind us discovered
Operation Streamline which we've been doing in the Del Rio
sector of our district. Since 2005 we've convicted 20,000
illegal immigrants and that's the first time you come across
the border in Del Rio, you get arrested, you get put in
jail, you get convicted. None of this, you know, we caught
you, we're taking you back, try it again. It's, you go to
jail the very first time. And, you know, that's what's
ironic is that, you know, we're the only, only place in the
world in the United States where that was happening. And, of
course, now your listeners probably think, oh, they're all
agents of the Mexican government; they don't care about
immigration. I mean, we're on the front lines battling out
every day, and that's what's been sad and that's why I've
come to the defense of my team so strongly is that they've
been vilified, they've made it look like they've done
something wrong and they didn't do anything other than do
their jobs, and a jury trial was set out to --
GLENN: Oh, please stop with the jury trial, please. O. J.
Simpson was also found not guilty and, sir, I was on a jury
of an attempted murder trial. I sat on a jury, and I sat
there and I listened to the evidence and we made our
decision. And when I got -- I mean, within minutes after we
made the decision, we were told the whole story behind this
guy and all twelve of us looked at the judge and said, why
the hell didn't you tell us this? And he said, we couldn't
tell you this. We said, that completely changes everything.
You didn't -- you didn't tell the jury anything at all about
this drug dealer. You didn't -- well, let me ask you this
question: Did you find it important after the second
incident to at least alert the court that maybe there's a
problem with this guy's credibility because he's just been
nailed a second time delivering drugs into the United
States?
SUTTON: No, we need to spend time talking about that because
I think your listeners may have heard it. What Glenn is
talking about is when this smuggler had his first load, 743
pounds when he got shot, he got away. And once he began to
cooperate between the first time and the trial, there's an
allegation that he ran another load of marijuana in October
of 2005. All of that -- and, you know, Congressman Rohrbach
and others have said that I covered it up, that we've lied,
that we've hidden that from the jury, that we covered it up.
And all of that information was presented to the judge, the
defense attorneys were aware of it. Obviously they wanted to
put that in evidence and thought that would be good for
their side if they could get it in evidence. The judge made
a ruling that it was not admissible.
GLENN: Right.
SUTTON: That ruling is going to be reviewed on appeal by the
fifth circuit. The case is on appeal right now.
GLENN: Sure.
SUTTON: Glenn, that's what judges do.
GLENN: I understand that and that's why I was saying to you
a second ago that the judge -- I understand that and that's
-- but you weren't exactly -- you weren't exactly fighting.
You didn't -- I mean, again the credibility here, every bit
of this comes from the drug smuggler, and we again believe
the drug smuggler and that's why I say stop with the jury
trial thing because I was on a jury when I heard the judge
tell me in the chambers afterwards, and the rest of us. We
said, okay, what's the real deal? We've already delivered
our verdict. What's the real deal? And that's when he told
us. And we said, you don't think that was important? And he
said, I couldn't tell you. So don't tell me this is all
great and everything and the jury decided. The jury could
have very well been wrong because they didn't have all the
evidence.
SUTTON: And that's what we do. That's why we have appellate
courts to decide to review the trial record and decide if
there was an error. All you heard was damning evidence.
Usually it's the other way around where the prosecution is
trying to get in the fact that, hey, this guy's murdered
somebody before and the judge said, no, that's too
prejudicial and that's not relevant. The first murder case I
tried, it was a guy murdered, stabbed somebody with a knife
inside a crackhouse. My defendant had been to prison for 12
years for stabbing somebody, murdering somebody with a
knife. I was not allowed to bring that into evidence. Why?
Because it's absolutely prejudicial to the defendant.
GLENN: Yeah.
SUTTON: And just because he stabbed somebody else with a
knife --
GLENN: Doesn't mean he killed this guy with a knife, right.
Just because he was -- just because he was in a cartel and
delivering those drugs doesn't mean that -- well, okay. So
he's done it again, while we gave him a humanitarian pass on
the border so he can come and go.
SUTTON: Yeah, we don't know he's done it again. I'm the one
that -- look, there's nobody in America that would love to
fight Aldrete more than me.
GLENN: Wait a minute. Are you telling me you still don't
know if he's the guy that we nailed in October?
SUTTON: We do not -- well, first of all we didn't nail
anybody. He was never arrested. There was no -- they said,
oh, he was indicted.
GLENN: Was he there? Was he there?
SUTTON: That's what we're trying to establish.
GLENN: How long does it take you to establish if the guy was
there?
SUTTON: Because remember, Glenn, it's like the testimony of
a drug dealer that you think is not so credible.
Hypothetically if that's all you had was the testimony of a
drug dealer, you'd want to corroborate it just like we did
in this case and that's the key is if you go into court and
say, oh, well, a drug dealer says this --
GLENN: So wait a minute. You're telling me what we talked
about when you were on television, that he was stopped, you
guys took him to the, whatever you call it, the stash house
where the --
SUTTON: No, no, no, he was --
GLENN: None of that happened?
SUTTON: There was no arrest. There was no stop. And again I
don't want to say too much because I don't want to mess up
the case if we could ever make one.
GLENN: Okay.
SUTTON: You know, there was no arrest. There was no stop.
GLENN: Okay.
SUTTON: Law enforcement has no evidence other than what
other people are saying.
GLENN: Well, you know, that's great. Mr. Sutton, it is great
because the truth shall set you free, and someday I hope
that that truth comes out so it can set us all free. Hang on
just a second because we'll go back to the phones next.
<break transcript>
GLENN: We go right back to Johnny Sutton and Olivia. You are
on the Glenn Beck program with Johnny Sutton. And which one
did we lose? Hang on. Johnny, are you there?
SUTTON: I'm here.
GLENN: Okay, good. We lost Olivia. Let's go to Scott in
Richmond. Hello, Scott. Hello, Scott, are you there?
CALLER: Can you hear me?
GLENN: Yes, I can. Go ahead.
CALLER: Maybe I'm too much of a simpleton here but I see
somebody coming across the border illegally, not a citizen
of this country, allowed to sit under our courts, under the
protection of our Constitution and take on two Americans who
are trying to protect our borders. Johnny Sutton, does that
come across to you as just a little bit strange, or am I
missing something?
SUTTON: No, it's terrible. It's a terrible position to be in
and I'd much prefer that that scumbag dope dealer sitting in
prison like the other scumbag dope dealers that we arrest
every day in El Paso, that the problems is the reason he's
not is because these two agents didn't do their job. I mean,
they shot an unarmed guy and covered it up.
GLENN: Allegedly an unarmed man, we're taking the drug
smuggler's word at the unarmed thing.
SUTTON: Glenn, look.
GLENN: Yes, we are, sir.
SUTTON: Listen, Glenn, give me two seconds here. It's not
just that. It's all the behavior at the scene. Look, agents
were standing on top of the levee. If that drug smuggler had
a gun --
GLENN: They didn't see it, sir. Olivia, you're on the Glenn
Beck program.
SUTTON: Why didn't they say to their buddy --
GLENN: Olivia, you're on the Glenn Beck program.
CALLER: Thank you. I've been following this case closely
because I come from a law enforcement family and it sparked
a lot of interest here. Mr. Sutton, I have to be honest with
you. If this was such an honest case and your prosecution
was so justified, why all of the covering up and the
hyperbole and the misstatements on your part? You continue
to say that these men shot an unarmed guy as if he were a
innocent individual, in the back. Does that add the
prejudicial aspect of it because you need to justify why you
did this. He was shot in the buttocks as he was fleeing. It
was officers who felt they were reasonably in danger. You
keep saying that they covered it up and lied. What would be
their motivation in these officers wake up every morning to
patrol our borders to keep us safe. They are fathers of
three. They are military veterans. They spent years in
training to defend us. They didn't wake up that morning
deciding they wanted to randomly shoot someone. But this
drug smuggler woke up that morning and decided he wanted to
bring a million dollars worth of drugs across the border and
yet, you still decided to bring a sentence against these
guys that is worse than murderers and give a pass to a drug
dealer, turn a blind eye to the drug smuggler's relationship
with a sworn officer of the border patrol. I mean, the guy
grew up with him --
GLENN: Olivia, I've got to give him a chance to respond
because I've got to go into a hard break here and I've got
30 seconds. Go ahead. Do you want to respond to that?
SUTTON: I don't know where that caller is from, but in Texas
you've got a front and a back and the butt is on the back.
They said they covered it up.
GLENN: Oh, jeez.
SUTTON: They said they didn't report it. That's undisputed
that they didn't report it. That's what's so frustrating.
I've gone on TV, I've gone in front of the Senate to lay out
the facts. We have nothing to hide. The only thing I don't
talk about is an ongoing investigation because I'm still,
you know, trying to convict this guy of a crime.
GLENN: Okay.
SUTTON: Believe me, there's no one in America that wants to
get him in prison worse than me.
GLENN: I've got to go. We will continue our conversation,
the bravest man in America, Johnny Sutton. We'll see you
tonight on TV.
END TRANSCRIPT |
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