🎥Kan. House Speaker critical of governor for not speaking out on ‘white powder’ letters

The State Finance Council approved expenditure of $170,000 by state fire marshal Doug Jorgensen in response to about 100 letters containing a white powder sent to Kansas political figures in June. House Speaker Dan Hawkins criticized Gov. Laura Kelly for not publicly denouncing the letters. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from State Finance Council’s YouTube channel)

TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly and a bipartisan group of Kansas legislative leaders agreed Friday to designate $170,000 to cover the cost of deploying hazmat teams in Kansas after an anonymous person mailed letters contained white powder and hostile text to about 100 politicians in the state.

(click below to watch a replay of the meeting)

The State Finance Council, which includes Republicans and Democrats from the House and Senate, unanimously approved the expenditure sought by state fire marshal Doug Jorgensen. He said the request was necessary because he lacked authority to spend more than $25,000 per incident from the agency’s emergency response fund without consent of the State Finance Council.

“In the recent event,” Jorgensen said, “we had eight of those hazmat teams active.”

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation in mid-June began an inquiry of suspicious letters sent legislators and public officials in Kansas, including Attorney General Kris Kobach. The KBI had 60 special agents, forensic scientists and colleagues working to collect, screen, manage and track evidence.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said preliminary testing showed the white substance was presumptively negative for dangerous biological agents.

Delivery of similar letters in Tennessee and Montana prompted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to take the lead role in the inquiry on June 20. So far, more than 120 Republicans in the three states have received the bizarre letters.

Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican who received one of the letters, said after the State Finance Council’s vote that he was pleased Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, denounced individuals responsible for mailing the letters.

“I appreciate what she did,” Hawkins said. “I sure wished I would have heard from our governor about that.”

Kelly said she appreciated the House speaker’s point of view and promised to issue a formal statement when the federal and state investigation concluded.

“You can rest assured that there is no way in the world that I would approve or condone this kind of action,” the Democratic governor said. “I am waiting for the KBI and FBI to complete their investigation so we can know all the facts in the case.”

After inviting the governor to comment and listening to her remarks during the State Finance Council meeting, Hawkins issued a statement faulting Kelly’s approach to an investigation that hadn’t produced an arrest in Kansas or elsewhere. Hawkins said the governor’s decision to await outcome of the investigation was an “excuse” to sidestep talking about what he considered an “act of terror.”