New Scandal Hits GOP Gubernatorial Candidate

ABC News' Clayton Sandell reports:

It’s been a rough election cycle for GOP gubernatorial candidates in Colorado.

First, Scott McInnis acknowledged in July that huge chucks of a policy paper he wrote for a private foundation were plagiarized.  The foundation demanded back the $300,000 it paid McInnis, who lost the gubernatorial primary a few weeks later.

Now the man that beat him is facing the latest scandal of his own campaign.

The Denver Post reports that Dan Maes is backing off claims that he did undercover work for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation while working a two-year stint as a local cop in Liberal, Kansas in the 1980s.

A statement on his campaign website—since removed—said this:

"At one point in my 2 years there I was place (sic) undercover by the Kansas Bureau of Investigations (sic) to gather information inside a bookmaking ring that was also allegedly selling drugs. I got too close to some significant people in the community who were involved in these activities and abruptly was dismissed from my position.  I was blindsided and stunned to say the least."

When the Post asked Maes about the statement, he called it a 25 year-old “nonissue” but acknowledged the claim of working undercover was probably false.

"Those comments might have been incorrect comments," Maes told the newspaper.

An ABC News request to interview Maes was not answered by campaign spokesman Nate Strauch.

"It's not like he was jumping off of rooftops and taking small-arms fire," Strauch told the Denver Post.  "This was a small-time gambling operation he had inside information on. He was asked by KBI to look into the case further to provide them with information on an ongoing basis regarding the individuals involved in the alleged gambling ring."

The Post, however, interviewed the head of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation along with the former police chief and city manager of Liberal Kansas.  None has any record or memory of a case like the one Maes describes.

This isn’t the first hiccup for the Maes campaign.  In August he paid a $17,500 fine to the state of Colorado for campaign finance violations, including accepting prohibited corporate contributions and inflating travel expenses.

The stumbles and scandals — along with a third party gubernatorial challenge by former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo — certainly haven’t hurt the Democrat’s pick for governor: Denver mayor John Hickenlooper.

Even Colorado GOP head Dick Wadhams recently declared Hickenlooper “the luckiest guy in the world.”

- Clayton Sandell