Live from Music Row, Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Tennessee Representative David Kustoff (R-TN-08) to the newsmaker line to give his reaction to the 15 ballots needed to elect a new Speaker of the U.S. House and the current double standard justice system.
Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line right now, Congressman David Kustoff from the 8th Congressional District of Tennessee. Good morning, Congressman Kustoff. How are you?
Kustoff: Good morning. Good morning from west Tennessee to middle Tennessee and all across the state.
Leahy: Are you in D.C. now, or are you back in God’s country here in Tennessee?
Kustoff: Yes, I’m in Tennessee, and I’m glad to be in Tennessee. (Leahy chuckles) Very glad.
Leahy: That week you spent with 15 ballots electing a speaker, what was your reaction to all that?
Kustoff: I actually thought that there were some positive things that came out of it. First of all, we all got a big civics lesson on how the House of Representatives operates. We found out a lot of things about the election of the speaker and how the members of Congress were actually sworn in.
But a lot of that dealt with changes that some of our members wanted to the rules of the way the House of Representatives operates. And I think about some of the rule changes that were made that came out of that 15 Speaker’s vote.
And I know you probably watched intently all 15 rounds of votes, but things like really waiting 72 hours before we are able to vote after a bill is posted. Now that’s really common sense.
And that gives us at least some leeway instead of having a 4,155-page spending bill dropped or emailed and then telling us to vote, and that we’ve got the time, at least in theory, to go through the bills before there’s a vote. And that would be the shortest time.
And I just talked about that big spending bill, what they call the omnibus that I voted against on December 23rd. Instead of having one big bill like that, the rules that came out of that Speaker’s vote dictate that there’ll be 12 different bills that fund all the branches and all the agencies of the federal government.
That’s the way it should be. I know democracy is a little bit messy, and 15 rounds was a lot, and that hasn’t been done in a long, long time in our nation’s history but in the end, I think Republicans came out more unified and united.
Leahy: I looked at that, and I said, oh, what a mess this is. And I talked to a lot of Independents. I said, oh gee, what’s the problem with the Republicans? And then a week ago Monday, after that, the news broke that the current President of the United States apparently had violated national security laws and rules because some classified documents were first discovered at the Penn Biden Center, which is right next to the Capitol. And then, oh wait, there’s more.
There were other batches in three different locations at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware. I think the tables have been turned totally. Your thoughts on the political momentum of this discovery and the “investigation into it?”
Kustoff: Well, there are a number of things. One is the rules are the rules. And so the Democrats and the Department of justice pounded on former President Trump for allegedly having classified documents in Mar-a-Lago. A number of differences to unpack, first of all, the documents that were found at the Penn Biden Center and then Biden’s garage near his Corvette.
And who knows what else may be out there? I think a lot of people need to be concerned. You made the point that the discovery, or the announcement or how you want to characterize it, was made about a week and a half ago, but, but, but, they knew about it November 2nd.
They knew about it before the November election. And I would think that the American people would have wanted to know that at the time the discovery was made because that very well could have been a factor in how they voted in the November election one way or the other.
We know that as the President of the United States, the president has the right to declassify whatever documents he wants to declassify. That is not true for the vice president or the former vice president.
And the comments that Biden made yesterday, that there’s nothing there and there’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s like the establishment has two sets of rules. One set is for the people that they want to protect and the other set is for everybody else. And I think that’s what really drives the American people crazy. They see this double standard of justice.
Leahy: Are you on any of the committees that are looking into these classified documents?
Kustoff: No. I’m on the House Ways and Means Committee. And so right now, the committees that will be charged are obviously the Oversight Committee to look into what’s going on, the Oversight Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and there’ll be a new select subcommittee that looks into injustices that are happening at DOJ and with some branches of federal law enforcement.
So I’ll be a part of that. And obviously, when there’s classified information for us to review or classified documents for us to look at, we’ll do it the right way. We’ll go into that room that they call the SCIFF where the documents that are viewed there, they stay in that room. They’re not transported out of the room.
Leahy: The Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility. We have a story at The Tennessee Star by our own Laura Baigert about the chain of custody for those documents. There should be a log of the transport of those documents.
And you know, when you start asking questions, you might want to take a look at that document because there are rules and procedures. And the Biden administration has so far we asked them said nothing about if they can produce that log for the chain of custody.
Kustoff: So that’s something. And obviously, we’ve got a special counsel who’s been appointed, apparently a pretty aggressive fellow who was a Trump United States attorney. And so there’s a lot more that we’re going to find out. One mistake that this administration makes, and they just don’t they don’t get it is there are so many bad and wrong things about it.
But the drip, drip, drip and the fact that the press secretary is marched out day after day and won’t provide any answers and treats the press and, frankly, the American people as if they’re not entitled to know the answers to these questions.
Again, if you’re an American citizen and you look at standards that are placed on other people versus people like the Clintons and the Bidens, you’re concerned. And you’ve got a right to be.
Leahy: Congressman David Kustoff, thanks so much for taking the time from your busy schedule to join us. Come in studio sometime, and I’ll make a halfway decent cup of coffee for you.
Kustoff: I look forward to that, and I appreciate you having me on.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “David Kustoff” by Eric Connolly.
