U.S. Rep. Ken Buck is having none of it.

The five-term Republican congressman from Windsor, a former chairman of the Colorado GOP, has spent the last week pushing back against a stew of false claims ladled out by fellow Republicans who maintain the federal government has mistreated defendants facing charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

From a point-by-point response to a letter circulated last month by state Republicans, to a stinging rebuke of a nationally prominent GOP lawmaker, Buck doesn’t appear to have pulled any punches in his attempts to set the record straight.

“I don’t want folks to get distracted from the issues that matter to most voters,” Buck told Colorado Politics. “We have a great opportunity in this election cycle to talk about inflation and the border and crime, and those are the things that we should be focused on. And so when I saw this letter, I just wanted to respond factually to it and make sure that the Republican Party is trying to win elections and not just argue about these issues.”

Written by El Paso County GOP Vice Chairman Todd Watkins, the Aug. 21 letter declares that regardless how anyone feels about Donald Trump or the events of Jan. 6, “it is impossible to deny the facts that many Americans have been grossly mistreated and abused by our legal system.”

Watkins’ letter makes numerous unfounded claims, including that “hundreds” of Jan. 6 defendants “have been and still are detained without bond, most for misdemeanor offenses.” Watkins alleged that many have been abused by their captors and denied medical treatment, and that almost all have been denied access to counsel “and any semblance of due process.” The government, Watkins alleged, has violated constitutional rights guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and 14th amendments.

“Our justice system has become a vehicle for vengeance and a tool for silencing political dissent: it has become a weapon to inflict fear on the American people writ large,” Watkins wrote.

Anna Ferguson, the Colorado GOP’s secretary, shared the letter in a “Call to Action” with the state party’s email list and asked those who agreed to sign their names, adding that she would forward it to the state’s DC delegation “so they can act on it at the federal level.”

In addition to Ferguson, initial signers included El Paso GOP Chairwoman Vickie Tonkins and state Reps. Scott Bottoms and Ken DeGraaf, both Colorado Springs Republicans. In a Sept. 4 Facebook post, Marie Watkins, Todd Watkins’ wife, said more than 250 Republicans had already signed the letter.

Buck was the only federal lawmaker who responded, she noted.

In a heavily footnoted, four-page letter, Buck rebutted each of the charges made by Watkins, conceding there was a germ of truth in a couple of his points but mostly dismantling the allegations.

“The letter makes a number of factually incorrect claims, and then proceeds to overstate the threat to our Republic based on these false claims,” Buck wrote. “There has been significant misinformation proliferated on the Internet about the status of the January 6th defendants, and I assume these Internet rumors are the source for much of the incorrect information contained in the letter. I hope this response will help clarify the situation and that you will cease disseminating false information.”

Contrary to Watkins’ assertions, Buck continued, “no defendants have been jailed ‘pending charges,’ and the vast majority of those still in custody have been charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer, a felony. While conditions in the DC jail are poor, Buck said, there is no evidence the Jan. 6 defendants have been treated worse than other inmates.

Buck, a former state and federal prosecutor, called it “irresponsible” for Watkins to allege without evidence that Americans were being “systematically denied their most basic Constitutional rights based on their political beliefs.” He noted that the majority of Jan. 6 defendants – including all those charged only with misdemeanors – have been granted bail on their own recognizance, despite Watkins’ contentions.

“I hope this letter clarifies the current status of pre-trial detainees in relation to the ongoing January 6 prosecutions, and also provides the context of why it is inappropriate to suggest that these defendants are being singled out for their political views,” Buck concluded, adding that he considered it “sad” that Republican leaders were “misdirecting the energy and resources of Republican activists at a time when this country is facing crises after crises as a result of the failed policies of the Biden administration.”

Buck told Colorado Politics that he’d spent much of the August recess meeting with constituents in the 4th Congressional District and heard plenty about inflation, but no echoes of the complaints in Watkins’ letter.

“Not only are they not saying let’s re-litigate what happened on Jan. 6, they’re not saying let’s talk about these terrible jail conditions,” Buck said. “The bottom line is that when there were Black kids getting thrown into the DC jail for drug offenses, there wasn’t anybody – well, there were very few people – who were screaming about the terrible conditions in the DC jail. And now that you’ve got a group of Jan. 6 defendants in the jail, now all of a sudden it becomes a major issue. The jail conditions are terrible, but people aren’t being singled out. It’s just terrible for everyone.”

Buck said that as a former prosecutor, he disagreed with decisions by Jan. 6 prosecutors to pursue misdemeanor trespassing charges against some defendants, including those who “wandered in as the riot was subsiding (when) no one was forcing them to stay out of the building,” but said it was “certainly within their rights” for prosecutors to press charges when a crime had been committed.

“But I think that the the defendants who assaulted a police officer should do a serious amount of time, and the defendants who broke windows,” Buck added. “You know, there were some terrible things – one person was building a gallows to hang Mike Pence. They’re just crazy things that were going on, and there should be consequences for those actions.”

Responding to Buck’s response, Marie Watkins insisted on Facebook that Buck “did not offer any true corrections,” rejecting his citations – Department of Justice reports and mainstream media accounts – as “Democrat leaning sources.”

“I do not have any appreciation for Congressman Bucks’ response,” she wrote. “I find it misleading, dismissive and sanctimonious.”

Buck told Colorado Politics that he never intended to shut down the discussion because “it’s really important that we have open dialogue in the Republican Party.”

Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams distributed Buck’s letter to the party’s email list on Sept. 5 at Buck’s request.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and former member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, tore into Buck’s response later that day in a series of posts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, saying she was “appalled at this factually wrong and completely out of touch letter written by Freedom Caucus member [Ken Buck] about the treatment of J6 defendants.”

Noting that Buck voted to certify President Joe Biden’s election on Jan. 6, 2021, after authorities had cleared the Capitol, Greene faulted the Coloradan for recently voicing opposition to an impeachment inquiry aimed at Biden. Greene also insisted that she’s seen “human rights abuses and constitutional violations” against Jan. 6 defendants awaiting trial at the DC jail.

“Draining the swamp means impeaching criminal politicians, stopping a communist weaponized government, and objecting to stolen elections,” Greene concluded. “Not apologizing for communists abusing their power to persecute their political enemies.”

During a Sept. 7 appearance on George Brauchler’s 710 KNUS radio show, Buck fired back at Greene’s criticism that he hasn’t visited the Jan. 6 defendants in jail like she has.

“Frankly, I have a lot of things to do, and I’m not going to go to the DC jail and talk to a bunch of people who assaulted police officers,” Buck said. “My sympathy is not with people who beat up cops. My sympathy is not with people that destroy a building that I consider sacred, the U.S. Capitol. My sympathies are not with people who want to stop a congressional function, which is counting the votes in an election.”

Buck then delivered a scorching response to Greene, who boasts 2.6 million followers on X and ran a CrossFit gym before her 2020 election to Congress.

“So, George, when when I was teaching law school, I learned and taught certain constitutional principles,” Buck said. “When Marjorie Taylor Greene was teaching CrossFit, she learned a whole different set of values, evidently, because my idea of what this country should be like is based on the Constitution, and she sees the world differently. She’s criticized me for, you know, voting to certify the election in 2020. The Constitution says Congress shall count the votes – it doesn’t say Congress may overturn an election result, it doesn’t say Congress can do whatever the heck it wants with this election. ‘Shall count the votes.’ That’s what the Constitution says. In her CrossFit class, maybe they didn’t cover that.”

“The Constitution also says that the impeachment of a president shall be based on treason, high crimes and misdemeanors. It doesn’t say it’s a political exercise,” Buck added.

“One of the beauties of Congress is you bring 435 people together from different backgrounds, and you try to reach a consensus on issues. When you’ve got people who care more about their social media accounts than they do about the Constitution, we have a real problem in Congress.”

Ernest Luning has covered politics for Colorado Politics and its predecessor publication, The Colorado Statesman, since 2009. He’s analyzed the exploits, foibles and history of state campaigns and politicians since 2018 in the weekly Trail Mix column.