Triad was the nerve center for connecting Brownback and other candidates with rich folks' money, hopefully without raising a stink - a hope that was dashed by good journalism. It's linked not only to Republicans, but also specifically to Oliver North, a felon whose conviction was overturned on a technicality but whose guilt has never been seriously doubted.

At least Triad did not claim tax-exempt status, which can't be said for the rest of the Republican-affiliated or Republican-slanted groups.

CREF (operated by Triad people) spent hundreds of thousands of dollars bashing Jill Docking - partly at taxpayer expense, since they claimed to be tax-exempt. Docking was Sam's opponent.

Citizens for Reform (also linked to Triad) slandered Democrat Judy Hancock - partly at taxpayer expense. Hancock ran against Snowbarger.

Altogether the committee issued ten subpoenas, only two of them against Democrats (the Clinton-Gore campaign and the DNC). All the rest were Republican groups - including Dole for President.

Brownback, by the way, is a member of the committee that issued the subpoenas. He claims to be a reformer of campaign finance. Here's his take on his committee's action: "I'm being singled out, I think, as part of a broader scheme to discredit people on the Governmental Affairs Committee." In other words, he suspects his committee is systematically trying to discredit itself.

Triad advertises itself as "an effective, comprehensive and new way for Republican donors to make their campaign contributions go further." Indeed!

Points to consider:

• Triad does not reveal its "clients," so there's no public record to determine whether Sam's in-laws Stauffers used Triad to locate Brownback-supporting PACs.
• Triad did identify some "clients" in their own promotional video. Those "clients" contributed thousands of dollars to the same PACs (such as the Free Congress PAC) that the Stauffers used.
• If the Stauffers used these PACs to knowingly contribute beyond the federal limit to their son-in-law's campaign, they broke the law.