Brownback dodges criminal charges in campaign finance probe

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Federal prosecutors have completed their investigation into loans made to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s re-election campaign by his lieutenant governor and plan to bring no criminal charges, the governor’s office said Wednesday.

A statement released to The Associated Press said the U.S. attorney’s office had informed state officials that it was bringing no charges after finishing the investigation “regarding campaign finance matters.”

The AP was first to report about the federal investigation in January, after obtaining through an open records request a copy of a grand jury subpoena sent to the executive director of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. Brownback’s office issued a statement at that time saying the investigation “has no merit,” and that any loans were completed in compliance with Kansas law and ethics regulations.

Kansas Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and his attorney did not respond to phone and email messages Wednesday. The U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The three loans totaling $1.5 million raised eyebrows not only because their size is unusual in Kansas politics, but because the first two were repaid within days. Democrats speculated they might have been timed to inflate campaign finance reports. They came as the Republican governor in a deeply conservative state faced the real prospect of losing to the well-financed Democratic challenger, Paul Davis.

During the gubernatorial race, Libertarian candidate Keen Umbehr derided the loans as the “Colyer Hokey Pokey.” A spokesman for Davis, who narrowly lost the race to Brownback, said before the election that voters “deserve to know where this money came from.”

The Republican running mates have repeatedly refused to disclose the source of those funds, and the government’s decision not to file federal charges means the public will likely never learn what the grand jury discovered.

Colyer, a reconstructive plastic surgeon, told the AP in August that the first two short-term loans he made to Brownback’s re-election campaign are examples of the good stewardship Kansas residents expect from government officials.

“It was just simple cash management,” Colyer said at the time. “It’s good money management, that’s all. That’s what you’d expect for me to do with the state’s money, too, is to manage it well. We manage our campaign well, that’s it.”

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