Sen. Michael Bennet is about to receive some help in the form of a very large ad buy, targeting Ken Buck with a charge recycled from the GOP primary:

$750,000 Ad Buy in Colorado Starts Today; Matches Rove-Led Group’s Attack Ad Against Sen. Bennet
Washington, DC– Campaign Money Watch, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform watchdog, launched a hard hitting major television ad campaign today to expose Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck’s past ethical problems.
“Because of Ken Buck’s irresponsible actions, a corrupt gun dealer got off the hook-a gun dealer who has contributed to Buck’s Senate campaign,” said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch. “Coloradoans should wonder whether Ken Buck would let the special interests off the hook if he gets to Washington, D.C.”

The Buck campaign responds:

Michael Bennet can’t win on his record of $13.5 trillion of debt and 9.6 percent unemployment. That’s why he and his Washington friends are attacking Ken Buck by misleading voters about this case. The facts of the case have already been examined by Coloradans, and report after report has found that Buck’s actions were ‘not intentional.’ This is just an extension of Bennet’s all-negative-all-the-time campaign.
The facts presented in the Denver Post story on June 24th speak for themselves. Ten years ago Assistant U. S. Attorney Ken Buck got caught in the crosshairs of a politically ambitious democrat, Tom Strickland, who became U.S. Attorney in between two unsuccessful runs for the U.S. Senate.
Coming to the office on the heels of the Columbine tragedy, Strickland set out to build a “tough on guns” reputation as U.S. Attorney. As a result, he wanted to go to trial against an Aurora gun dealer even though his democrat predecessor and the senior attorneys in the office would not go to trial because they felt the government could not get a felony conviction.
Ken was among that group. He let it be known that he felt the case could be settled without a trial. He thought justice would be served without an expensive trial. That view put him in the crosshairs of Strickland.
The Denver Post story describes the details of what happened as a result. In the process of urging the parties to plead the case out instead of going to trial, Ken made an unintentional error and U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland went on a crusade to make Ken pay for the mistake.
Strickland charged ahead with the felony prosecution. The case finally ended up about the way Ken Buck had predicted. Instead of multiple felony convictions the government ended up with a single minor paperwork misdemeanor conviction requiring one day of probation.
After Strickland left the U.S. Attorneys office to again run unsuccessfully for the U. S. Senate his successor, John Suthers, was charged with closing the file.
So one-and-a-half years after the fact, Ken received a reprimand from Suthers, who was careful to point out that Ken’s “conduct was not intentional.” He called it, “an aberration in your professional career.” Earlier, Ken Buck invited the Denver Post to go through his personal files on the incident and write the story. Coloradans can read the story and come to their own conclusions about Ken’s record.

Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute, a widely recognized authority on Second Amendment issues as well as a lawyer, had this to say when the issue was first raised in June during the GOP primary:

I think if [the issue] does stick to Buck, he will win the Republican primary and the general election. This is a real gut check for character on the part of Ken Buck, and of Jane Norton, and it strongly shows better character on Buck’s part. The victim of the United States Attorney [Tom] Strickland’s persecution that the Buck case grows out of is Greg Golyansky. He’s been a friend of mine for fifteen years; we’re still on the board of directors of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers together. So I know a lot about this case.
Greg was a pawn dealer. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms brought a case against him. The U.S. Attorney office declined to prosecute. Henry Solano, the Clinton-appointed United States Attorney, agreed with that, said there’s nothing here. Indeed, the only witness against him (Golyansky) was a mentally ill homeless drug addict with severe credibility problems.
And then Tom Strickland comes in on the theory that “I’m going to be the big tough U.S. Attorney and prosecute gun cases.” And he takes a case that not one single career attorney in the United States Attorney’s office in Colorado was willing to prosecute, so he brings in two of his little hand-picked minions who came in with him to bring felony charges against three people.
It was an outrageous abuse of power.
Now Ken Buck violated the protocol by talking about it outside the office. And I agree that was a violation of the U.S. Attorney’s protocol.
But when you say, when is a guy going to make a mistake, I like a guy who makes a mistake on behalf of someone who was being unfairly, unjustly, and politically persecuted.
And then for Jane Norton to turn around and say this is some terrible issue against Ken Buck — well, it just reminds me that Jane Norton’s husband was the guy who before Strickland came into office, probably had the worst record in Colorado history of being an abusive, out-of-control, way over the line, United States Attorney, Mike Norton.
You know, and for somebody who cares about Second Amendment issues, you’ve got on one hand, a guy who said something out of the office he shouldn’t have, in defense of a gun dealer who was being inappropriately prosecuted, and on the other side, you’ve got somebody who’s basically saying how swell the prosecution was, and criticizing the guy who properly stood up for the innocent victim of persecution. …
[Buck] got a letter of reprimand, and he made a mistake. But you say, when somebody makes a mistake, what was behind it. Was he trying to take unfair advantage of an innocent person, or was he standing up for the innocent person. And I think that’s a good sign. Especially with prosecutors, who usually have so much unbounded power, that a guy, when he made what may be the only professional error of his life, made it on the side of due process and fairness. [emphasis added]

National Review Online’s Jim Geraghty added:

There are times when there is nothing ethically problematic about prosecutors and defense attorneys talking about potential cases, but this wasn’t one of them. Buck was given a letter of reprimand and instructed to attend ethics class. Buck has expressed regret over the decision. But that hardly makes him a bad prosecutor, or a bad guy. Strickland’s successor, then–U.S. Attorney John Suthers, wrote in the reprimand, “I have chosen not to impose any more serious consequences on the basis of my determination that your conduct was not intentional, my review of mitigating information you have presented and in consideration of your previous records as an (Assistant U.S. Attorney), as Senior Litigation Counsel and as Chief of the Criminal Division. This incident appears to be an aberration in your professional career.” [emphasis added]
Oh, by the way, Ken Buck and the other career prosecutors appear to have been correct in their assessment that it was a weak case; the penalty imposed on the pawn-shop owners is almost comically minimal: “Two years after the original felony indictment, Greg Golyansky pleaded guilty to a paperwork misdemeanor and was sentenced to a day of probation. The charges against Leonid Golyansky and Dmitriy Baravik were dropped.”
A two-year battle to impose one day of probation: your tax dollars at work!
For this, a radio ad for Norton calls Buck “a government lawyer who doesn’t follow the rules” and declares he “left office under a cloud.” Come on. If this is his biggest mistake in years and years of work as a prosecutor, he’s exemplary.