Ex-Kansas Senator: Top Brownback Aide Being Investigated By FBI

FILE - In this July 14, 2014 file photo Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback talks to supporters during a campaign rally in Olathe, Kan. The Alliance for Freedom, a Washington-area group with ties to veteran Republican operativ... FILE - In this July 14, 2014 file photo Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback talks to supporters during a campaign rally in Olathe, Kan. The Alliance for Freedom, a Washington-area group with ties to veteran Republican operatives, is spending at least $246,000 on radio and television advertisements in Kansas praising Brownback in the final weeks before the state's Aug. 5 primary election. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) MORE LESS
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A former Kansas state senator said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating a top aide to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) over receiving financial compensation from three insurance companies that were involved in Brownback’s health care reform, known as KanCare.

The Republican former senator, Dick Kelsey, said Thursday during a news conference that he had talked with the FBI about David Kensinger, Brownback’s former chief of staff who serves an advisor to Brownback’s re-election campaign and is a lobbyist, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

“The FBI called me. The investigation is very real,” Kelsey said according to the Kansas newspaper. “It’s not a political thing with them at all. They do not want government that is corrupt. I am confident it’s not finished.”

Months earlier the Capital-Journal reported that Kensinger was being investigated for being involved in clandestine dealmaking concerning Brownback’s push to privatize Kansas’s $3 billion Medicaid program.

The reform program, KanCare, offered contracts to a trio of for-profit insurance companies. Those companies were charged with providing Medicaid to 380,000 Kansans who were poor or disabled, according to the Capital-Journal.

Kensinger served as the chief of staff to Brownback during the early stages of KanCare before quitting just a few months after the contracts with United Healthcare of the Midwest, AmeriGroup Kansas, and the Sunflower State Health Plan were signed.

Kensinger, according to Kelsey, was compensated financially by the three insurance companies, according to Kelsey. Kelsey said the FBI knew that.

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