No criminal charges for Kansas Governor

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, left, and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer
 at a Capitol press conference last year. | John Hanna AP

Federal prosecutors will bring no criminal charges after an investigation into loans made to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s re-election campaign by his lieutenant governor, the U.S. Attorney’s office said Wednesday.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas has completed an investigation involving loans made by Kansas Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer to the Brownback re-election campaign,” said Jim Cross, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Wichita. “No federal charges are expected to be filed.”

That statement came after Colyer and Brownback, on the governor’s officials website, said in a joint statement the U.S. attorney’s office was bringing no charges after completing its investigation “regarding campaign finance matters.”

Colyer and his attorney did not respond to phone and email messages Wednesday.

He made three loans totaling $1.5 million to the campaign. That raised eyebrows not only because their size was 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.

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