The Scandal Club: O’Donnell, Capps, Clendenin don’t deserve to hold elected office
Disgraceful. Unethical. Cowardly. Wretched.
A leaked audio recording shows in shocking detail how three Wichita-area elected officials — Michael O’Donnell, James Clendenin and Michael Capps — plotted to frame a colleague for their smear campaign against a mayoral candidate.
It shows them ginning up a story — even fabricating details, playing roles and rehearsing lines — to point the blame elsewhere after a Wichita Eagle investigation linked Capps to the falsified video.
It shows them crafting a calculated narrative meant to mislead the public, cover their tracks and save their own political hides.
None of the three should continue to hold public office and make decisions for the people of Sedgwick County.
We deserve better.
O’Donnell, a Sedgwick County Commissioner with a pattern of questionable behavior and ethical missteps, says in the audio recording that his political strategy is to “always avoid the truth at all expense . . . and just go on the attack.”
That was O’Donnell’s plan when he used a charity to collect money for the political attack ads during the Wichita mayor’s race — a practice one expert in political ethics called “sleaze with a capital S.”
It was his strategy earlier this month when he told a Wichita television station: “On my father’s grave, I had nothing to do with this video.”
And it’s been his strategy this election cycle, when he shrugged off his own misdeeds and falsely accused his opponent of living outside their commission district.
Enough with the lies, Commissioner.
Capps, meanwhile, a state lawmaker whose resume of malfeasance is longer than Pinocchio’s nose, says in the leaked audio that lying and conspiring is “what we do — it’s the way the system works.”
Capps should have resigned his Kansas House seat long ago. Wisely, voters showed him the door in this year’s Republican primary.
The bombshell audio also shows Clendenin, a Wichita City Council member, brainstorming talking points for Capps’ appearance on John Whitmer’s conservative talk radio show.
Discussing how they could manufacture a meeting that never happened with Dalton Glasscock, the county Republican chairman, Clendenin steered options away from his private office.
The trio also nixed saying it was at the Candle Club, an east-side private club frequented by some political leaders, because they didn’t want to implicate the business.
How thoughtful.
What the recording reveals is a Scandal Club — pompous, loathsome elected officials intent on manipulating the truth and preserving their political careers at any cost.
“I’m just trying to keep us out of a refutable lie,” O’Donnell said during the private meeting.
Well, guess what? This audio is irrefutable.
This time, corruption and collusion were caught on tape. Constituents and voters should turn up the volume, listen closely and demand they step down.
This story was originally published October 24, 2020 at 11:19 AM.