Scandal linked to recording of federal defendants infects U.S. Senate race [View all]

Mounting evidence that federal prosecutors in Kansas for years listened to covertly recorded confidential conversations of defendants and their attorneys moved from courtroom to the campaign trail in the 2020 contest for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Pat Roberts.

The Kansas Republican Party blasted Democratic candidate Barry Grissom, the former U.S. attorney for Kansas, after U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson ordered the current U.S. attorney’s office held in contempt after an inquiry showed federal prosecutors in the Kansas City, Kan., office had listened to privileged conversations between defense attorneys and their incarcerated clients recorded at Leavenworth Detention Center.

In addition, Robinson denounced prosecutors for engaging in a “wholesale strategy to delay, diffuse and deflect” the independent inquiry into the office’s conduct that she authorized. She said prosecutors’ tactics were part of an effort to derail the investigation and deny individual litigants their day in court.

Shannon Golden, executive director of the Kansas GOP, said misconduct occurred while Grissom led the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas as an appointee of President Barack Obama. Until July, Golden was communications director for Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican also seeking Roberts’ seat in the U.S. Senate.

Read more: https://www.cjonline.com/news/20190817/scandal-linked-to-recording-of-federal-defendants-infects-us-senate-race
(Topeka Capital-Journal)