The House Freedom Caucus has booted Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) from its ranks, The Epoch Times has learned.
The Epoch Times was told Mr. Buck was removed due to an attendance issue.
The outgoing Colorado congressman has bucked his own conference on various hot-button issues, such as opposing the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He also opposes the House Republican effort to impeach President Joe Biden over alleged foreign influence peddling.
The Freedom Caucus move comes despite Mr. Buck leaving Congress after this week.
Mr. Buck announced his resignation on March 12.
“Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week,” he said. “I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado and with my family.”
Mr. Buck spoke with CNN’s Dana Bash to explain his timing.
“Everywhere I go in Colorado, Dana, I hear that people are not happy with Trump and they’re not happy with Biden. ... We have to have better candidates, up and down the ballot, not just a president, but Senate, House, local offices. We’ve got to find better ways to elect candidates and bring America together.”
Mr. Buck’s departure will leave the GOP with just 218 House members and a two-seat majority.
When asked why he’s leaving now, given his party’s slim majority in the lower congressional chamber, he said that “it’s important to get in the mix of this election cycle and start talking about the issues that people recognize are such a problem right now.”
Mr. Buck has represented the state’s Fourth Congressional District since 2015.
He worked on the Iran-Contra investigation in the 1980s for then-Rep. Dick Cheney (R-Wyo.) and then became a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice before joining the Colorado U.S. Attorney’s Office. In 2004, he was elected for the first of three terms as the district attorney for Weld County.
“Americans are rightfully concerned about our nation’s future and are looking to Republicans in Washington for a course correction,” Mr. Buck said in his resignation video, going on to assert that the country is “on a collision course with reality.”
Mr. Buck then pointed the finger at members of his own party, whom he has been unafraid to go against. He was one of three Republicans to vote against the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“Too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, describing January 6 as an unguided tour of the Capitol, and asserting that the ensuing prosecutions are weaponization of our justice system. These insidious narratives breed widespread cynicism and erode Americans’ confidence in the rule of law,”
In a Nov. 1, 2023, interview following his initial announcement that he wouldn’t seek reelection, Mr. Buck told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that one of the primary reasons was his frustration over the legislative body’s ability to get its job done.
“I always have been disappointed with our inability in Congress to deal with major issues,” he said.
In his video announcement at the time, he said he believed Republicans had suffered a “significant departure from the enduring principles of conservatives.”
“We belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. ... The Republican Party of today, however, is ignoring self-evident truths about the rule of law.”
He said he believes the exceptionalism of the nation that he has served for more than three decades lies in “answers developed from the government, not the government.”
Over the past few years, Mr. Buck has been vocal in his criticism of Democrats, saying that the party engages in extremist strategies in order to polarize Americans. In addition, he has criticized the implementation of critical race theory in the military and has expressed concern about the fentanyl epidemic in the United States.
