Michael Capps (politician)

In 2018, Capps ran for the seat in House District 85, giving his address as 3103 North Governeour, Wichita, with a mailing address of 6505 E Central Ave #110.[2] He had filed to run for seat 97, but after Weber resigned, he said he lived at the Governeour street address, a home which had been scheduled to be sold at auction on June 27, 2018. Democrats complained it was not Capps' true address, but the state Objections Board, composed of Lieutenant Governor Tracey Mann, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Secretary of State Kris Kobach, all Republicans, refused to uphold the complaint.

Capps received 54% of the vote to 46% for Democrat Monica Marks.[3] In 2018, Capps was endorsed by the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas, Kansans for Life, and the National Rifle Association. The Kansas Policy Institute gave him a 94% fiscally conservative evaluation in 2019.

The Sedgwick County Republican Central Committee appointed Capps to fill the remainder of the term for the 85th district after the resignation of Chuck Weber, effective July 14, 2018.[4] Not long after his appointment to the vacant seat, allegations of child abuse surfaced. The Kansas GOP cut ties with Capps after it was revealed that he was found responsible for child abuse in 2017. The party asked him to withdraw from the November election to retain his District 85 seat. "Unfortunately, he has chosen to remain a candidate," the party's letter said. "Mr. Capps has been made aware that his decision to stay in the race is not supported by the Kansas Republican Party." The Kansas Department for Children and Families had found Capps responsible for child abuse but the state had overturned the decision for technical reasons.[5]

Capps was sworn in to serve a full 2-year term as a Kansas State Representative on January 14. 2019. Prior to the start of the 2019 legislative session, Capps pre-filed his first piece of legislation, HB 2025,[6] aimed at including a person who has filed a petition for adoption in the definition of an interested party in the child in need of care code. While HB 2025 never emerged from committee, Capps spoke frequently during the 2018 election campaign on the importance of reforming the Kansas Department of Children and Families. Capps also introduced HB 2285, a bill creating the Kansas legal tender act; providing for sales exemption from and modification for sales of specie legal tender. This will was ultimately consolidated into other legislation passed in the 2019.

In addition to legislation sponsored by Capps, he joined colleagues in co-sponsoring numerous bills, including:

1. HB 2110,[7] Amending the Kansas no-call act to restrict text message solicitations and certain uses of automatic dialing-announcing devices.
2. HB 2165,[8] Providing membership in the KP&F retirement system for security officers of the department of corrections.
3. HB 2274,[9] Requiring notification to patients that the effects of a medication abortion may be reversible.
4. HB 2288,[10] Creating the Kansas student and educator freedom of religious speech act.

While sponsoring or co-sponsoring a total of 6 bills, Capps also co-sponsored 6 House Resolutions,[11] which included a total of 164 votes.

During a intensely contested Wichita, Kansas mayoral runoff nonpartisan election to be held on November 5, 2019, in an attack on the challenging candidate, Brandon Whipple, a Democrat, a salacious video appeared on-line.[12] The anonymously produced and circulated video was created by Matthew Colborn at the behest of Wichita Republican political officeholders.[13]

The video made a false claim of sexual harassment against Whipple. The allegation had, in fact, been copied word-for-word from an actual claim, made against an anonymous Republican state senator in a Kansas City Star article two years earlier.[13][14][15]

Elaborate covers had allegedly been implemented by the perpetrators of the smear against Whipple, in Wyoming and New Mexico, where state laws permit registered agents for mail forwarders and corporation principals to conceal the actual identities of the parties they represent.[16] An investigation by the Wichita Eagle revealed that the producer of the defamation was Capps. The video had been filmed a downtown Wichita office building that Capps shared with Wichita City Councilman James Clendenin, an alleged ally of the then-incumbent mayor, Jeff Longwell.[14][15]

After the Sedgwick County, Kansas Republican party chair, Dalton Glasscock, publicly called for Capps to resign, Capps then falsely claimed, less than two days before the November 2019 election, that it was Glasscock who had actually approved the production of the video, an allegation which Glasscock denied.[17]

However, in August 2020, Colborn originally said that he was first approached by Glasscock to make the video, for which he was given a script and promised $20,000 for the work.[13] Colborn further said that Capps had nothing to do with the making of the video,[13] but that Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O'Donnell, provided him with the intended script. Colborn said he was paid by a $10,000 check drawn on a firm owned by Capps.[13] Glasscock truthfully denied any role in the making of the video.[13]

When a Wichita Eagle reporter went to the claimed Capps' residence in the wake of the October 2019 accusations about the fabricated attack video against Whipple, an unidentified young man living in the home said he was "house sitting" and hadn't seen Capps, "in a while."[18]

Whipple, who was elected Wichita mayor, sued videographer Colborn and two unnamed parties for slander.[13] In his suit, others were subpoenaed to testify. O'Donnell, who faced reelection on November 3, 2020, was subpoenaed and was scheduled to give testimony by October 15, 2020, though conditions specified in the judge's order made it unlikely that it would be made public before election day.[19] O'Donnell and Clendenin admitted they raised the money for the smear but had been misled to believe it was going to be used for billboard rentals.[19]

After the Wichita Eagle investigation revealed Capps involvement in the attack ad project, Sedgwick County Republican Party leaders unanimously decided to make a public demand for Capps to resign. Capps, however, when informed before the announcement, November 1, 2019, threatened to drop a "nuclear bomb" on the local party leaders if they followed through on the plan -- "naming" people, threatening to bring down the whole party with him. A surreptitious audio recording of the exchange had been made by Colburn, but would not become public for nearly a year.[20]

Two days later, on November 3, 2020, Capps met with co-conspirators Michael O'Donnell (by then Sedgwick County Commissioner) and Wichita City Councilperson James Clendenin, to find a way to attribute the blame for the ad on the county party chair, Glasscock. Unbeknownst to the three elected public officials, that meeting too, was secretly recorded by a fourth party—their video producer Colborn—for which evidence would emerge in late October, 2020.[20]

In February 2020—represented by the area's former U.S. Attorney, Randy Rathbun—now-Mayor Whipple brought suit against the person who produced the video, Matthew Colborn, and an obscure group calling itself "Protect Wichita Girls, LLC." In the process, Whipple's attorney issued a subpoena for e-mails between O'Donnell and Sedgwick County Republican Party Chair Glasscock.[21]

In October 2020, through Rathbun, Whipple amended the defamation and conspiracy lawsuit to include Capps, O'Donnell (now Sedgwick County Commissioner), and Wichita City Councilman James Clendenin as defendants. The suit alleged that the co-conspirators attempted to blame their complex, interstate conspiracy on the Sedgwick County Republican Chairman, Dalton Glasscock. It also alleged that they attempted to create marital discord in Whipple's own family, through false allegations.[22][23]

The amended lawsuit further asserted that O'Donnell wrote the script for the false ad, Clendenin raised money for promoting it, and Capps attempted to hide their identities by creating a cover organization in New Mexico.[24] [22]

October 23, 2020, a secret audio recording emerged of a meeting of the alleged conspirators, with their video producer, Colburn (who secretly recorded the meeting), discussing the attack ad project and cover-up. Extensive excerpts of the recording were published in the local newspaper[25] and played on local television,[26] showing that the three Republicans had, indeed, conspired largely as alleged, with O'Donnell heard saying:

"Like I’ve always learned in politics, it’s always avoid the truth at all expense, right? And just go on the attack."[25][26]

Whole copies and excerpts (audio and print), of the secret recording, were published online by local media, including the city's main newspaper, the Wichita Eagle[27] and Wichita's CBS-TV affiliate KWCH-TV.[26]

The revelation prompted immediate condemnations from throughout the Wichita area,[28][29][30] including calls from three of O'Donnell's four fellow County Commissioners (mostly Republican) for O'Donnell to resign, and withdraw from his re-election race.[28][29][31]

Similar demands were made by the Sedgwick County Republican Party,[28][32] which announced on social media, October 24, 2020:

"This week’s events bring to a head the malicious and dishonest actions of Michael Capps, Michael O’Donnell, and James Clendenin over the past year. We have stated from the beginning that this type of politics and actions would not be supported by the Sedgwick County Republican Party. We have said, and repeat, that those involved in this video ad campaign and the misinformation campaign are not fit to serve in public office and should step down."[29][33][31]

The Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce, and its political action committee, concurred.[28][29]

October 25–26, the Sedgwick County District Attorney announced a joint investigation—by his office, the Wichita Police Department and the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department—into whether Capps and his co-conspirators could be forced from public office. State statutes prevent the legal ouster of a state official within 180 days before the end of their term in office, or within 120 days after its start—with the result that Capps, and co-conspirator O'Donnell (who was running for re-election) were immune from normal ouster proceedings until the election, and—if O'Donnell were re-elected—immune from such proceedings during the first 120 days of his new term (Capps had been defeated in his primary election bid for re-election).[28][29][34]

By October 26, Sedgwick County Republican Party leaders released an audio recording of Capps' November 1. 2019 confrontation and threats.[20]

October 26, 2020, U.S. Congressman Ron Estes—a Wichita Republican who represented Kansas's 4th congressional district (which included the districts of Capps, O'Donnell and Clendenin) -- called for their resignations.[35]

During the next weekly Wichita City Council meeting, October 27, 2020, the council voted 5-0 to censure Capps co-conspirator Clendinin, a City Council member. (Clendenin and Mayor Whipple recused themselves from the discussion and vote.) However, the council remained divided on whether to call for Clendenin to resign. The council also voted to condemn Capps and O’Donnell for their roles in the plot.[36][37] On December 22, Clendenin resigned his seat, effective December 31, 2020.[38]

The next day, the Sedgwick County Commission unanimously (O'Donnell abstaining) passed a resolution censuring O’Donnell and formally requesting his resignation. The resolution also said that if O’Donnell were to win re-election in the next week's election, he should decline to serve the new term.[39][40]

On November 25, Mark Bennett, the Sedgwick County D.A. moved to have the state take up the case of the removal of Capps from office, since the D.A. is precluded from doing so by statute.[41]

Kansas A.G. Derek Schmidt also abnegated authority to remove Capps from office. Capps and Wichita City Council member James Clendenin had accessed considerable federal COVID-19 relief funding directly from federal agencies, as well as more funding that had been channeled through the state of Kansas and Sedgwick county levels, ostensibly to pay salaries of nonexistent employees. [42]