Adam Taff, a two-time Republican candidate for Congress, has been indicted in federal court on charges of converting political campaign contributions for personal use and wire fraud.
U.S. Atty. Eric Melgren said that in December 2003 - the year between his two failed campaigns - Taff agreed to buy a Lake Quivira home from John Myers, Leawood, founder and chairman of Myers National Mortgage Company. While applying for a mortgage, Taff claimed among his assets two bank accounts, totaling $311,000, that actually belonged to his campaign for the 3rd District congressional seat.
According to Melgren, what followed was a complicated financial transaction on Feb. 10, 2004, in which Taff drew on $175,000 in campaign funds for a $300,000 bank check made out to Myers.
The check was never intended for Myers, Melgren said. Instead, Taff and Myers met with a closing agent from an Overland Park title company. The agent altered the check to make it appear the money was payable to the title company. The agent also prepared a closing statement, sent to a mortgage company, stating Taff had paid $300,000 to the title company for payment to Myers.
After sending the false statement to the mortgage company, Melgren said, Taff returned the money to his campaign accounts at Metcalf Bank.
Taff, a moderate Republican, was his party's candidate to challenge U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan., in the 2002 election to represent the district covering part of Douglas County, along with Wyandotte and Johnson counties. Taff lost in the 2004 primary to Kris Kobach.
Myers was charged with one count of wire fraud in the case, Melgren said.
The wire fraud charge carries a a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison and a fine up to $1 million. Taff also faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the charge of converting campaign funds.
Comments
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The_Original_Bob (anonymous) says…
Wow. I guess "War Hero" only gets you so far in life. Corrupt politicians. I guess I could have dropped the corrupt and it'd be all the same.
staff04 (anonymous) says…
Whoops...
bearded_gnome (anonymous) says…
Good bye mr. mooshy moderate! if you are "middle of the road" you are gonna get hit by some passing vehicle! bye bye!
gop4life (anonymous) says…
I always knew the RINOs were corrupt, now we have proof!
MtOread (anonymous) says…
Here's an example of a Democrat (in fact, the leader of the Democratic Party) placing the party ahead of the good of the nation...
DNC Chair Howard Dean: "It Looks Like Today, And This Could Change, As Of Today It Looks Like Women Will Be Worse Off In Iraq Than They Were When Saddam Hussein Was President Of Iraq." (CBS's "Face The Nation," 8/14/05)
Surely, one has to admit that this is indicative of Dean attempting to scare the crap out of Americans. Perhaps he should ask our soldiers if they agree with his assessment.
Or, if you don't agree with that, then surely you would admit that Dean has attempted to spread hate throughout our country. For example...
"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for" (Maggie Haberman - Daily News City Hall Bureau)
Baille (anonymous) says…
RINOs? It is not just limited to those you Unreasonable Republicans want to purge from your party. ALL Republicans are corrupt - except for Tom Sloan and my doctor. They are both nice guys with good heads on their shoulders.
merrill (anonymous) says…
The new non-republicans of which I include the Bush/Reagan people love to be indicted are intrigued with high profile crime such as Watergate. However it is good to be reminded of such things.
The lying about Iraq will probaly bring up some other matters, outing of CIA agents and this:
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/...
LawrenceMommy (anonymous) says…
You seem to forget that Taff LOST the nomination in 2004 because many Republicans, myself included, voted against him because he was far too liberal to be a true Republican. This whole thing has reaffirmed that I definitely made the correct choice. I just knew something seemed to "Democrat" about him...LOL.
merrill (anonymous) says…
It is the republican party that his this long list of serious criminal activity that due to the nature of the crimes put the nations security at risk. Lying about the WMD's and then attacking a country that did not attack the USA has tainted our government. It may take years to establish credibility with the world at large. Americans have short memories however others do not.
merrill (anonymous) says…
Savings and Loan Scandal :
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war...
Wilbur_Nether (anonymous) says…
Bearded_gnome and gop4life, help me understand why degree of conservatism is some sort of litmus test for "true" Republicans? Help me understand how Lincoln, Eisenhower, (Teddy) Roosevelt, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, etc. met the standard of "conservative enough" to be "true" Republicans? How does calling moderates "RINOs" and cackling at the downfall of a former Republican candidate demonstrate compassionate conservatism?
Baille (anonymous) says…
I can not believe you are appropriating "Wilbur Nether" for your own use. I am coming back for the alumni scrimmage and kicking your ***.
:)
captain_poindexter (anonymous) says…
Yeah, Clinton's close personal friend killed himself (heh), boxes of documents disappear from the clinton's offices in Arkansas (whitewater), clinton definitely didn't lie under oath, clinton definitely wasn't asleep at the switch when bin laden was running around the mideast untouched, FDR definitely didn't pack the court with corrupt judges to get his "deal" through (oh my gosh, I did attack the god-like FDR)....etc. etc.
we can go all night long talking about whose party is more corrupt. the fact is that power breeds corruption in many ways.
bush didn't lie about iraq.
clinton lied about something silly and shouldn't have been impeached.
yadda yadda.
pointless
AdmBalls (anonymous) says…
With all of the self-righteous, holy-book thumping, name-calling, religious fundamentalism in the Kansas Right wing-nut brigade, it seems like we have a mirror image of the Taliban movement in the 90s. Go to church, praise your God, be happy, and be good to others. Keep your evangelicism out of my party.
If Taff gooned something up -- with no harm or risk to anyone else, according to the indictment -- he is a big enough man to accept the consequences.
Get over yourselves. "Judge not, lest....." y'all should sure know the rest.
MyName (anonymous) says…
Let's start with the quote:
No-facts Novak:
"...According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives."
In contrast, former CIA official, Larry C. Johnson, identifies Plame as a "non-official cover operative [NOC]" He explained, "...that meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed."
for further details about the quote, and why it was bad for the U.S. that Plame's identity was uncovered consult:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_...
And did you even read the article you linked to? Actually, it looks like you did, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to take it out of context so beautifully. To quote:
Plame worked as a spy internationally in more than one role. Fred Rustmann, a former CIA official who put in 24 years as a spymaster and was Plame's boss for a few years, says Plame worked under official cover in Europe in the early 1990s - say, as a U.S. embassy attache - before switching to nonofficial cover a few years later. Mostly Plame posed as a business analyst or a student in what Rustmann describes as a "nice European city." Plame was never a so-called deep-cover NOC, he said, meaning the agency did not create a complex cover story about her education, background, job, personal life and even hobbies and habits that would stand up to intense scrutiny by foreign governments. "[NOCs] are on corporate rolls, and if anybody calls the corporation, the secretary says, 'Yeah, he works for us,'" says Rustmann. "The degree of backstopping to a NOC's cover is a very good indication of how deep that cover really is."
In other words, One of Plame's former bosses said that Plame was a spy, a "non-official cover" agent, just not a really deep-cover spy. But it's a big stretch (one could say, almost delusional) to think that just because she's not a "deep-cover" agent, that what she was doing was not classified, or that what Rove did was kosher and above board. Or, to further quote the Time article you linked to:
"Some Bush partisans have suggested that the outing of Plame is no big deal, that she was "just an analyst" or maybe, as a G.O.P. Congressman told CNN, "a glorified secretary." But the facts tell otherwise."