GLENN BECK PROGRAM
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GLENN: We have the head guy of the border patrol, the president of the border patrol. Is it the border patrol union, T. J., or council?

BONNER: It's the union.

GLENN: T. J. Bonner is with us. He's a good guy, he's been on this border fence, our border patrol for quite some time and we appreciate your time today, T. J.. I wanted to see if you had any information on the arrest of quite possibly America's now most famous drug runner.

TJ Bonner is the President of the National Border Patrol Council. This organization is a union that represents over 12,000 United States Border Patrol officers.

BONNER: Well, we know that he was arrested yesterday for two separate occasions of bringing drugs into the United States back in September and October of 2005 when, by the way, he had a "Get out of jail free" card that allowed him to cross back and forth across that border without an escort an unlimited number of times.

GLENN: How did the arrest come down? Do you know who the officers that arrested or do you know where it happened?

BONNER: It happened in El Paso, actually Ysleta, which is down in the El Paso area. I assume that it was ICE officers but I don't know that for sure.

GLENN: Okay. But was he --

BONNER: And I have to say I'm a cynic on this. This is two years after the fact. It only took them two months to indict and arrest Agents Ramos and Compean but guess why they didn't move quicker on Mr. Davila. He was their star witness. Without his testimony, those two border patrol agents would never have been convicted. And if the jury knew that this guy was a three-time loser, there's no way they would have ever voted to send these two border patrol agents to prison. They would have discounted his entire testimony.

GLENN: Of course they would.

BONNER: Which they should have done and those two agents would still be on the job.

GLENN: Of course they would have. It's the same thing with the O.J. Simpson trial that's happening right now. All of these guys have been to jail before, all of these guys are bad guys and they keep saying, all the experts keep saying, once the jury finds out who these guys are, they will have no credibility. Well, gee, what about this particular case? I mean, here's a guy who was, while he was testifying, was still running drugs into the country. So T. J., let me ask you this, because something doesn't smell right.

BONNER: It doesn't.

GLENN: It's just not right.

BONNER: You are absolutely right, Glenn. The timing of this just stinks to high heaven.

GLENN: It does. So what is --

BONNER: Here we are a couple of weeks before the appeal for Agents Ramos and Compean is going to be heard and Johnny Sutton comes out and says, oh, I finally arrested this guy, two years after the fact. He --

GLENN: So what do you think it is? What is the motivation here? What's happening? What's the real story?

BONNER: I'm not quite sure. I mean, I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that during this appeal, it's going to come out that the Government's attorneys lied to the judge. I mean, that's one of the bases of the defense. Davila should never been allowed to plead the Fifth because he was granted limited use immunity. And when you are granted that type of immunity, you cannot plead the Fifth. The Government's attorney should have went to the judge -- I'm sure that what they are trying to say is, well, we had this investigation ongoing; the Government's attorney should have went to the judge and said, hey, look, we're investigating this guy, we want to prosecute him; that's why we can't do it. She didn't do that. She went up and said, oh, no, he wasn't granted limited use immunity, we accidentally gave him full transactional immunity and therefore he's entitled to plead the Fifth. He was never entitled to plead the Fifth. That was harmful procedural error. The judges at the court of appeals will in all likelihood toss the case just on that alone, and there are a number of other reasons they should toss the case. But it makes the government look really bad. They are trying to go in and backfill and salvage something out of this. I just don't trust them, Glenn.

GLENN: It's really frightening, isn't it, T. J.? I mean, when you talk to enough people who are not black helicopter living in their mom's basement kind of people, who are decent people, people like you who have, you know, served the country. When you are, you know, you're on the front lines, these border patrol agents, everybody says they support the troops. These guys are in just as much danger as our troops are overseas. These guys are on a border war. And when you talk to enough of them and they say something is not right, I believe them much more than the weasels in Washington, and that is frightening.

BONNER: Yeah, it is. It's frightening because our government is playing us for a bunch of fools. They keep telling us, oh, our borders are secure and yet we look around our communities and we see 12 to 20 million people in this country illegally. Not all of them are harmless people. We have some serious criminals in this country who are illegal aliens. Last year alone, Glenn, there were 986 assaults against U.S. border patrol agents, 986. That's an assault about every nine hours on average.

GLENN: Now, that number has gone dramatically through the roof, has it not?

BONNER: It has. It has. It's more than doubled within the past few years. I mean --

GLENN: Which, I mean, I know I don't have to ask this question but for the one dummy that might be listening, why do you suppose that happened?

BONNER: Well, it's pretty obvious. You know, we're not doing anything to the people who assault our agents. We're prosecuting our agents when they try and defend themselves. So it's open season on border patrol agents.

GLENN: All right. T. J., we'll talk to you again and I'd love to hear if you start to come up with some theories on this timing and what you think it is about. Please contact me right away but we'll be in touch after the holiday because we're going to make sure this just doesn't fall off the map and just disappear in the black hole. But I think there are so many people in Washington that want it to fall into the black hole of the holidays.

BONNER: Yeah, I don't trust them at all, Glenn, and no gold star for Johnny Sutton for fixing his mess belatedly. He created this and trying to justify what he did by coming after the drug smuggler two years later, it just doesn't cut it. Justice won't be served until the people responsible for putting Ramos and Compean in prison are severely punished.

GLENN: All right. T. J., thank you very much.

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