Kansas Democrat Senate candidate Adam Hamilton admitted on CNN he should have called police immediately about a predator at his church camp, after Sen. Roger Marshall publicized the exchange.
Sen. Dr. Roger Marshall of Kansas shared a CNN clip Sunday showing Democrat U.S. Senate hopeful Adam Hamilton conceding the church should have contacted police at once. Hamilton is the longtime lead pastor at Church of the Resurrection in Leawood and is running as what he has called an “independent-minded” Democrat.
In the clip, a CNN reporter asked Hamilton whether he would have done anything differently. Hamilton answered that the church should have called law enforcement right away. Marshall framed the admission as the collapse of a costly effort to spin the episode away from voters.
Breitbart News reported Marshall’s statement and the video exchange as the latest turn in a Kansas Senate race already focused on how Hamilton’s church handled accusations against a volunteer years earlier.
The reporter put the question directly.
CNN reporter:
"Would you have done anything differently in that situation?"
Hamilton’s reply left little room to hide.
Adam Hamilton:
"Absolutely. Like, we should have called the police immediately,"
Marshall said Hamilton had poured large sums into polished ads that tried to rewrite that history. He argued the admission finally matched what the campaign had been saying all along.
Roger Marshall:
"After spending MILLIONS of dollars on glossy ads trying to lie about it, Adam Hamilton finally admits to CNN he did NOT call the police to report a pedophile at his church camp. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Hamilton allowed the sex predator back as a camp counselor the following year, where he molested another child."
Earlier coverage described a Marshall campaign ad that ran as part of a $1.2 million statewide buy on broadcast, cable, and streaming. The New York Post reported on that ad on October 2. The spot accused Hamilton of letting the accused man return as a camp counselor in 2006 after allegations from two victims were ignored.
The volunteer named in the reporting is Scott Moore. He was accused of molesting teenage boys at two church retreats in 2005 and 2006. Marshall’s side says the church’s handling did not stop with silence toward police. Marshall also accused Hamilton’s staff of publicly shaming the boys “in defense of the child predator’s reputation.”
Hamilton has said reporting such cases was not part of the church’s policy at the time. That explanation collides with the plain standard most parents expect when adults are accused of targeting kids under church care. A policy that skips police does not protect children. It protects the institution and the accused.
Hamilton has led the Leawood church for more than three decades. Separate reporting cited in the same package put his net worth as high as $20 million and his salary at more than twice what U.S. senators earn. He has also criticized billionaires and special interests while seeking a Senate seat.
Voters in Kansas now have his own words on camera. The CNN exchange does not invent the old allegations. It records the candidate saying the church should have called police immediately and did not. Marshall’s campaign has used that gap, the non-report, the alleged return of the volunteer, and the claim of another victim the next year, to argue Hamilton is unfit for higher office.
No arrests, charges, or court outcomes from the 2005, 2006 episodes appear in the available reporting tied to this exchange. The political fight is not a completed criminal case file. It is a candidate’s admission about what his church failed to do when teenagers were at risk, plus the senator’s charge that the same man came back as a counselor.
Marshall released the clip after the ad campaign had already put the church-camp record in living rooms across the state. Hamilton’s CNN answer handed opponents a clean line: the Democrat now says police should have been called at once. That is a different posture from spending heavily to blunt the attack.
Parents who send kids to church camps expect adults to call the cops first and manage reputations later. Hamilton’s own words put him on the wrong side of that order for years, then on the record admitting the obvious. Marshall is running on that contrast.
When a Senate candidate finally says the church should have called police about a predator targeting kids, voters are entitled to ask why it took a CNN camera and a rival’s ads to get there.
