Forget the dadgum cookies. In race between Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton, follow the money.

• “In a joint investigation, Kansas Reflector and MS NOW obtained audio recordings, photos, videos, screenshots of text messages and calendar items from 2020 — when Marshall first ran for his Senate seat — that appear to show the senator and his top aide repeatedly using congressional staff and government resources in ways that experts say likely crossed the line between official business and campaigning.”
• “Craig Holman, a campaign finance and government ethics expert at Public Citizen — a nonprofit consumer rights and good government group founded by Ralph Nader — said these accounts of Marshall and his office’s ‘blatant disregard’ for congressional ethics rules are ‘both breathtaking and seemingly very damning of Marshall’s character.’ ”
• “Both congressional and campaign staff — many using taxpayer-funded equipment like cellphones and computers — were summoned to the ‘MANDATORY ALL-STAFF CALL,’ as it appeared in their official email calendars. And video of the Oct. 14, 2020, Zoom call shows Marshall and his congressional aides discussing the status of his campaign.”

I need to break in here to note that this all-staff call raised sufficient alarm among staff that they set down their concerns for posterity. Marshall’s then-legislative director, Michael Brooks, texted a staffer: “Sending this message as a reference that we objected to this illegal (activity) and that I raised it with our superiors and noted that it is not permissible per the above ethics statute.”

• Marshall flack Payton “Fuller is both a current congressional staffer — earning a taxpayer-funded salary — and an unpaid campaign volunteer spokeswoman. For that separate story involving Marshall’s Florida property, MS NOW reached out to a generic press email for the campaign. Fuller wrote back, from her campaign email, as ‘communications director for Senator Roger Marshall.’ ”
• “After promising to ‘meaningfully’ respond to a detailed list of questions if Kansas Reflector and MS NOW extended its deadline for comment, Ryan Dollar, a lawyer for the Marshall campaign, sent a statement that did not address the questions.”

Ahem. On Monday, I wrote about the panoply of peculiar stories that attach themselves like so many barnacles to Marshall. This story doesn’t quite fit. It speaks to norms. It speaks to ethics. It speaks to whether the senator and his staff follow the basic rules applied across government offices.

It speaks to character.

I understand why Kansans and others across the nation fixated on the cookie story. It has all the ingredients of irresistible campaign gossip: a sympathetic protagonist, apparent hypocrisy from the candidate involved and an easy-to-understand narrative.