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MO Governor Eric Greitens Resigns
After months fighting a growing sex and corruption scandal, and his own party leaders calling for his resignation, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens stepped down Tuesday in a press conference. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
“The last few months have been incredibly difficult for me, for my team, for my friends, and many, many people whom I love,” he said, saying he was the victim of “legal harassment.”
“I have not broken any laws or committed any offense worthy of this treatment,” he asserted. “I love Missouri and I love our people. That love remains.”
The announcement came hours after damaging testimony by a former campaign aide to a House committee investigating Greitens, and a separate ruling by a judge forcing the governor’s campaign to reveal fundraising information.
Greitens’s troubles began in January, when local press revealed a 2015 affair between him and his former hairdresser. He had allegedly taken partially nude photos of her without consent and was accused of using them as blackmail. There were also several allegations of physical abuse. Greitens was indicted by a grand jury on charges of felony invasion of privacy.
In April, the St. Louis prosecutor’s office charged Greitens with a campaign finance felony, alleging improper use of a charity donor list. Then, earlier this month, the Missouri Legislature began consideration of impeachment proceedings. A House committee had subpoenaed Greitens to testify on Monday.
Published in General
Finally.
Reportedly, his fellow special team members hated him.
Feels like a personality disorder.
Reagan, a smart man, had a barber not a hairdresser.
Another reason to appreciate the Greatest President of the Twentieth Century.
As a reminder, Senator Ted Stevens was falsely prosecuted and convicted, with Senator McCain and Governor Palin demanding his resignation, a week before the 2008 election.
After the politically useful damage had been done, replacing a senior Republican Senator with a junior Democrat, federal district judge Emmit G. Sullivan not only overturned the wrongful conviction, but also took the extraordinary step of ordering the federal prosecutors, involved in the case, be investigated.
The investigation of the prosecutors took three years, resulting in a 500 page report that found:
Naturally, no federal prosecutor faced prosecution. However, one of Stevens’ prosecutors committed suicide while under investigation.
Between the Stevens case, the Duke lacrosse case, and the Baltimore police prosecutions, perhaps we should be cautious about public presentations of cases based on prosecutors’ claims. I am deeply cynical about the moral status of Republican calls for resignations of beleaguered party members, remembering the Stevens case.
As Politico reported in 2009,
See further on political prosecutions here.
Sigh. I liked Eric Greitens.
I thought he should have resigned.
Then I heard about the “Greitens’ ex-lover said illicit photo may have been ‘a dream'” article on the radio.
Haven’t we heard that one before?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/09/missouri-gov-greitens-ex-lover-said-illicit-photo-may-have-been-dream-documents-say.html
However, I didn’t bother to investigate the details.
Greitens is a former Democrat and a Navy Seal. He was a threat. The Democrats needed him gone. He wasn’t completely faithful in his marriage — so now he’s gone.
I am suspicious that he is innocent simply because I’ve watched the Democrats “take out,” for lack of a better term, at the local level some extremely qualified and accomplished Republicans. I’d say the more impressive a Republican is, the more likely there will be a full-on assault by the local Democratic Party establishment to hurt him or her. The Democrats seem to get behind their candidates–but, of course, no one really goes after them in the same determined way in the first place–while Republicans immediately distance themselves from someone accused of something.
As soon as I saw this guy’s brief biography on Wikipedia, I thought, “Well, he is too impressive. He’s gotta go. Never upstage the local Democrats.” Missouri is a largely Democratic Party state:
I did too, before the news of the affair came out. My parents still live in MO, and they’ve been pretty disgusted with how he handled it.
Not really. The two big cities, St. Louis and Kansas City, are predictably blue, but the next biggest city, Springfield, is very conservative. For a long time Missouri was considered the bellwether state for Presidential elections since the winner of the state matched the national winner for most of the 20th century. But in the past 20 years it’s gotten much more conservative overall and is now pretty reliably Republican.
I just want to understand a few aspects of this whole situation, someone please correct anything I have read or heard that is just plain wrong.
1. Woman files charges about illicit affair…AFTER her husband found out she had slept with governor. In her explanation to her husband about why she cheated on him she tells the tale of essentially being coerced into the affair, which she revealed to him ONLY after he discovered that she had cheated on him.
2. Woman says that the governor tied her up, took photos, and threatened to reveal them unless they continued affair. She can show NO proof that she was tied up, that the governor coerced her, and there are NO photos either in her possession or his of this woman in a compromising position.
3. Governor says, “Yep we had an affair, and nope I didn’t coerce anyone.” Police have checked out phone and computer and can find NO evidence of photo or digital evidence, that after the alleged verbal threat, that coercion occurred.
If the above points are reasonably accurate then I am trying to figure out why in the world ANYONE believes this woman. People who get caught cheating make up all sorts of stories to try and throw the shade off themselves and entirely onto the other person in the affair. Short of any hard evidence this shouldn’t even have gotten past initial investigative stage.
I did not know that. Thank you.
Maybe all Republicans should step down.
I cannot say for sure, but this seems like just one more case of Republicans running for cover as a first instinct when one of their own is attacked by the Democrats. All charges against him were dropped by the State for lack of evidence. Another prosecutor out of St Louis then attempted a politically paid for prosecution of Greitens that lasted about 5 minutes before he dropped the charges. Now there are some campaign fund misuse or mailing list misuse that people are trying to dredge up. The guy fought and fought with no one having his back. He finally gave up yesterday. Just as we see here on Ricochet, Republicans have a tendency to bail while Democrats circle the wagons. We can not afford to continually give up ground already won and still stay on top.
I share your suspicions. I’m inclined to support Greitens.
On the other hand, would I be as forgiving if exactly the same story were told about a Democratic governor? It’s always worth checking.