Former Kansas Republican Party Chairman Mike Brown announced on Monday morning that he’s taken a job with President Donald Trump’s administration.
Brown said he was notified last week that he would join the administration as a senior adviser in the Office of the Treasurer at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In that role, Brown said he would work directly for the treasurer of the United States and will be based in Washington, D.C.
He said he had wanted to work for the Trump administration since 2017 after Trump first took office.
“I’ll be spending significant time in Washington, D.C. going forward, but Kansas will always remain my home on the range, and I’ll be back,” Brown posted on Facebook.
“I’m profoundly grateful for the friendships, support, and prayers that helped make this moment possible,” Brown wrote.
“Each of you has played a part in this journey, and I cannot thank you enough.”
There had been speculation that Brown would run for secretary of state again in 2026, and the new job in Washington likely takes him out of that race.
Brown will work for the treasurer, who oversees the U.S. Mint and Fort Knox and is a key liaison with the Federal Reserve.
Additionally, the treasurer serves as a senior adviser to the treasury secretary on community development and engagement.
The Treasury Department could not be reached for comment Monday morning to confirm the hiring.
Brown, a former Johnson County commissioner, decided against running for reelection as state Republican Party chair this year after a turbulent tenure marked by spats he had with other state GOP leaders, including a former state party chair.
As chair, Brown had become known for the party’s weekly newsletter known as the “Friday File” where he once ruminated about dismantling the “deep state,” where he said agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the FBI had become “self-perpetuating entities that undermine democracy and public trust.”
He also ran into difficulty during his term over a proposed party rules change removing top elected officials and groups representing women, Hispanics, African Americans and young adults from key policy committees.
Brown distanced himself from the proposal, although his critics blamed him for engineering the idea. The proposal was never acted on.
Brown rose to party chair after an unsuccessful primary challenge against Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab in the summer of 2022.
Labeled as an “election denier” on a national level, Brown ran his campaign for secretary of state by questioning Kansas elections without any hard or specific evidence of voter fraud in Kansas.
He had promised to eliminate mail ballot drop boxes and return to prosecuting voter fraud similar to Kobach when he was secretary of state.
When he ran for secretary of state, Brown joined a national coalition of like-minded secretary of state candidates allied with Trump who tried to discredit the results of the 2020 election.
Endorsed at one point by 1970s rocker Ted Nugent, Brown lost his race to Schwab by about 46,000 votes before turning his attention to running for party chair.
