Wamego ? Dr. Milton Wolf, a tea party-backed former Senate candidate, confronted U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran at a town hall meeting Monday over the Kansas medical board’s past investigation of Wolf’s license but declined to say whether he’s planning to challenge the incumbent in the Republican primary next year.

Wolf, a Leawood radiologist, gave fellow Sen. Pat Roberts a tougher-than-expected race in last year’s Republican primary, which Roberts won with 48 percent of the vote to Wolf’s 41 percent in a four-person race. In July 2014, just weeks before the election, a State Board of Healing Arts inquiry about Wolf became public, involving Facebook postings by him in 2010 of X-ray images of fatal gunshot wounds and other medical injuries.

The Topeka Capital-Journal first reported on the Facebook postings in February 2014; Wolf publicly apologized, but Roberts made them an issue. Moran in 2014 was chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which backed Roberts in the primary, and Wolf contends the investigation was part of a smear campaign by GOP insiders.

Wolf said last week that the board notified him that it ended its investigation without any findings of wrongdoing. He promised to attend Moran’s town hall meeting Monday in Wamego, about 30 miles west of Topeka, to question the senator. The event drew more than 60 people; Wolf sat in the front row, then stood and delivered a short statement when Moran called upon him for a question.

“I’d urge you to shoot straight with us,” Wolf said. “Were you aware, did you have any knowledge of any of this false, Facebook-X-ray line of attack before it was published?”

Moran said he didn’t know about it until the first stories were published and never talked to anyone with the medical board.

“I’m pleased that you’re exonerated,” Moran said. “We need every doctor in Kansas that we can have.”

Moran’s re-election campaign later released an emailed statement saying that Wolf had “created a sideshow” to discuss his “conspiracy theories.”

“Unfortunately, his bizarre interruption took time away from the other Kansans who came to ask questions and share concerns,” said campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Patton.

The medical board declined last week to release a copy of any letter to Wolf, citing a state law requiring its investigations to remain confidential in their early stages. The investigation of Wolf became public when a board attorney sent a letter to the Topeka Capital-Journal, asking it to turn over information in its possession.

Moran is seeking a second, six-year term in the Senate and had nearly $2.35 million in his campaign fund at the end of June. He has no announced challengers, but some Republicans view Wolf as a potential candidate.

Wolf received 51 percent of the vote against Roberts in Pottawatomie County, where Wamego is located. During the town hall meeting, Bob Awercamp, who owns a manufacturing business in nearby Belvue, chastised Moran over multiple issues, including trade and President Barack Obama nuclear deal with Iran — despite Moran’s strong opposition to it.

“You need to be defeated and you need to resign,” Awerkamp said, later telling reporters that he’d be interested in any challenger for Moran.

But Wolf declined multiple times to say whether he’ll run.

“My priority right now is that Kansans know the truth,” Wolf said, referring to the investigation of him.