Another recording surfaces in Sedgwick County scandal; Capps threatens GOP leaders

Following the release of an explosive recording in which three Republican elected officials planned a cover-up of their role in a plot to smear Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple with a falsified attack video, GOP leaders have released a second recording.

In the newly-released audio recording, one of the three officials threatened to drop a “nuclear bomb” on the party if it called for his resignation.

In the recording, made Nov. 1 of last year, Rep. Michael Capps is heard threatening to bring down the entire party if county Republican leadership were to carry through with a call for Capps to resign after his role in the Whipple smear was revealed in a Wichita Eagle report.

Capps issued his ultimatum to Sedgwick County GOP Chairman Dalton Glasscock and Ben Sauceda, executive director of the county party. He told them they would “set into motion something that can’t be walked back.”

Glasscock and Sauceda had called the meeting to inform Capps that the officers of the county Republican Party had voted to issue a unanimous call for Capps to step down because he had disgraced the organization with the video. The party, Glasscock said, would make a public statement that day asking him to step down.

“If you make your public statement, I will start my naming,” Capps told them. “And I guarantee you none of us will survive. ... It will track back to everybody.”

“I will not resign,” Capps is recorded saying. “I will tell you now that the minute that you make a statement, I will drop my bombs. ... I’m just giving fair warning because this is a nuclear bomb that’s going to drop that’s not going to be pretty.”

The party released the statement. Two days later on Nov. 3, 2019, Capps, Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell and Wichita City Council member James Clendenin met to plot ways to frame party officials for the video that falsely accused Whipple of sexually harassing interns while serving as a state representative.

A secret recording of that Nov. 3 meeting, in which the trio agreed to set up Glasscock to save their political careers, was released Friday.

Reaction was swift. Over the weekend, the Sedgwick County Republican Party called on the three Wichita Republican officeholders — Capps, O’Donnell and Clendenin — to resign. The Wichita Chamber of Commerce joined in Monday afternoon.

Also Monday, the District Attorney said that he is investigating whether the three can be ousted from their elected positions. Of the three, only O’Donnell is up for re-election.

The Wichita Eagle has been reporting on the smear video for over a year, connecting the ad to Capps, City Council member Clendenin and County Commissioner O’Donnell. The three officials have repeatedly denied and downplayed their parts in the conspiracy.

The plot to save their political careers might have worked except both meetings were secretly recorded.

Sauceda recorded and released the Nov. 1 meeting. Capps’ former campaign manager Matthew Colborn secretly recorded the Nov. 3 meeting where the plot was hatched to frame Glasscock. Colborn’s attorney released that recording on Friday saying his client was being made the scapegoat.

‘Gutter politics’

During the Nov. 1 meeting with Capps and party leaders, Glasscock said, “the party is not going to respond to threats,” the recording shows.

Glasscock also demanded to know who exactly was behind the attack ad, but Capps would not tell.

“You do not want those names,” Capps said. “I’m telling you right now, this is not something small, Dalton. You don’t want those names.”

The ad was meant to boost the re-election chances of then-mayor Jeff Longwell, following a Wichita Eagle article that Longwell had steered a large city contract to his friends.

Longwell suggested in an email Saturday night that the shroud of suspicion thrown over his campaign hurt his chances for re-election.

“I could make the argument that because of the media and speculation of who was involved that I was hurt by the fabricated video and had nothing to do with any of it,” he said.

Longwell said Topeka lawmakers were floating rumors about Whipple to his campaign. But he decided he wanted to run a positive campaign, he said.

“I am never good with gutter politics from anyone on either side of the aisle,” he said.

Campaign coordination allegation

On Nov. 3, 2019 — two days after Capps was asked to resign and two days before the mayoral election — Capps set the conspiracy against Glasscock into motion.

Capps went on the John Whitmer radio show and publicly accused Glasscock of approving the anti-Whipple ad, a charge that, if true, could have major legal implications for Glasscock.

Glasscock worked as a media consultant to Longwell’s campaign.

If he had been involved in the video with Capps, O’Donnell and Clendenin, it would have been a violation of campaign-finance laws that prohibit coordination between official campaigns, which must disclose their donors, and outside third parties that work to influence elections on behalf of anonymous contributors.

The video was produced by Matthew Colborn, a young entrepreneur and Republican activist who also served as Capps’ campaign manager. On the Whitmer show, Capps knowingly lied to cover up his campaign manager’s role.

“I have no reason to believe Matthew Colborn is involved in this video,” Capps told Whitmer. “I have no idea who produced that video.”

In the newly released recording, Capps told Glasscock that he knew Colborn was involved in the video but he would continue to deny it in public until Colborn’s involvement was “corroborated.”

By then, one of the actresses in the Protect Wichita Girls ad had already told The Eagle that Colborn made the video. She also provided a receipt of payment she received from Colborn the day the video was made to support her story.

“Matt’s not corroborated in the public,” Capps said. “I’m not going to throw him to the wolves until he is. I’m willing to take the arrows for him at this point. He’s a young conservative that’s trying to help the party, whether he did something good, bad or indifferent, he meant well. And until such time as I have to cut him, I will not cut him.”

“It would be easy to cut and run on him,” Capps said later in the recording. “But I’m going to do everything that I can to protect him, and in public, when I walk out the door, by God I will protect him. He does know fully and completely that if there’s corroboration of his involvement, he’s done.”

After Colborn admitted in court records to producing the video, Capps continued paying him $500 a month to be his campaign manager, a position he kept until Capps lost the August Republican primary for state representative.

‘Three corrupt liars’

Nearly a year ago, on the John Whitmer radio show, Capps blamed Glasscock.

“I do find it’s very ironic that the very person calling for my resignation is the one that approved this ad going out in the first place,” Capps said.

“So you’re saying that Dalton Glasscock knew about the video?” Whitmer asked.

“Yes,” Capps said during the radio show. “Chairman Glasscock not only knew about this ad, Chairman Glasscock approved the ad and he went on to support the ad until it began generating heat and controversy. Right now, all I can really suspect is that he’s trying to cut and run. He’s turning to attack me since I’m an easier target in his view, a conservative Republican, loyal to our party, loyal to our values, just to save his own hide.”

Capps had been fed that line earlier in the day by O’Donnell, who said: “I think you can say, ‘Dalton knew everything, was supportive until the heat got turned on. And he decided to use me as the proverbial sacrificial lamb to cover his own butt.’”

Over the weekend, Whitmer said he now feels used by Capps, O’Donnell and Clendenin and that they should resign because their misdeeds could give Democratic candidates ammunition to run against Republicans who weren’t involved in the video.

“These three corrupt liars used this show, and our listeners, to perpetuate their fraudulent story and there is no excuse for that. They used me, they used this show and worst of all they used you,” Whitmer said on his Sunday night show.

‘We have to change a culture’

Glasscock and Sauceda have both told The Eagle that they were disgusted by the anti-Whipple ad.

In the secret Nov. 1 recording, Glasscock said if the party accepted these false attacks, it would deter good candidates from running for office.

The fake ad, launched on Facebook and YouTube about two weeks before the November mayoral election, used paid actresses posing as legislative interns to falsely accuse Whipple of sexual harassment when he was a state representative.

One of those actresses told The Eagle she was paid $50 to read the script under the pretense that it would be used in a public-service message denouncing violence against women.

The script lifted accusations from a Kansas City Star/Wichita Eagle story about alleged Statehouse harassment by Republican senators and those accusations didn’t involve Whipple.

Capps admitted to Glasscock that he knew the video started out with a falsified smear that had nothing to do with Whipple.

In the Nov. 1 recording, Glasscock told Capps that because Capps knew about the project and didn’t give up the names of those involved or try to stop it, he was hurting the Republican Party.

“We have to change a culture where this is acceptable,” Glasscock said.

“I want people exposed that were involved in this,” he said later in the recording. “What they did to Brandon (Whipple) has to quit. ... If we believe that we need to create a culture where we can get good people to run for office, where people don’t feel like they have to give up their entire life to do this, this has to stop here. This has to stop now.”

Capps calls out a perceived double standard

In an attempt to talk Capps down, at one point in the Nov. 1 meeting, Glasscock brought up O’Donnell, who had been indicted in 2018 on federal charges of money laundering, bank fraud and wire fraud related to his campaign for a state Senate seat.

“I had this exact same conversation with Michael O’Donnell prior to his trial,” Glasscock said. “We had the exact same conversation.”

“Really,” Capps said. “Can you send me the link where you sent out the call for resignation? Send that to me, please. I haven’t seen it yet.”

Said Glasscock: “We had conversations prior, between Michael and I, that was different than this as well —”

“Yeah, he was under a (expletive) federal indictment,” Capps retorted. He said his problem was related public relations, not federal charges.

“You and I are not going to reach the same conclusion,” Glasscock said.

A federal jury later acquitted O’Donnell of several of those charges, but deadlocked on five charges that were not refiled.

Throughout the trial, the Sedgwick County Republican Party did not call on O’Donnell to step down.

‘The bite is gone after Tuesday’

At one point during the meeting, Glasscock and Capps speculated on whether the fallout from the video would continue past the 2019 mayoral election.

Capps asked Glasscock to delay calling for his resignation until after Election Day. He suggested those behind the video might be more willing to step forward after the election.

“Those names, I cannot imagine they will not inevitably show their faces at some point,” Capps said. “But let’s be real. They’re holding on, knowing full well the bite is gone after Tuesday. There’s no bite after Tuesday.”

“If Brandon (Whipple) wins, I would probably give you that,” Glasscock said.

But if Whipple was defeated by Longwell after the smear ad, it would likely continue to be a problem for the party, Glasscock said.

Capps didn’t think it would be a problem either way, he said.

“Jeff (Longwell) has been smart,” Capps said. “He has made sure he kept distance from day one. Jeff’s fine with it, regardless, after Tuesday, if he wins.”

Longwell said in an email Saturday that he never talked to Capps about the video.

“I have never had a conversation with Michael Capps,” Longwell said. “I never knew about a fabricated video and our campaign team made it clear if anyone on our team was involved that we would be done with them.”

This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 6:12 PM.