Greitens scandal

S E RV I N G T H E P U B L I C S I N C E 1 878 • W I N N E R O F 1 8 P U L I TZ E R P R I Z E S

Thursday • 01.11.2018 • $2.00

GREITENS ADMITS PAST AFFAIR Chief executive outlines agenda in State of the State

His attorney denies woman’s blackmail claim

BY KURT ERICKSON St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY KEVIN McDERMOTT, JACK SUNTRUP AND CELESTE BOTT St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JEFFERSON CITY • Gov. Eric Greitens out-

lined a limited agenda Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to make Missouri a friendlier state to foster children, veterans and businesses.

In his second State of the State speech, the Republican chief executive highlighted the state’s low unemployment rate of 3.4 percent and legislation that helped bring a steel manufacturing facility to Sedalia.

“We are bringing good quality jobs back to Missouri,” Greitens said in the 30-minute address.

Greitens said he was pushing for 20 legislative initiatives that are designed to help children, including one that would help foster children get access to bank accounts.

“Tonight, I want to ask the members of this body to do something straightforward: Put politics on hold. Set any differences you may have with one another, or with me, to the side. These are children. These are kids,” Greitens said.

He stressed his administration’s emphasis on removing regulations in an attempt to make it easier to start businesses and get jobs. He said efforts underway since his first day in office had resulted in officials’ identifying 33,000 regulatory requirements that should be stricken from the books.

“Regulations like these that waste money, waste time, are outdated and irrelevant, had been building up for too long,” Greitens said.

And the governor, a former Navy SEAL, said he wanted a change in law allowing military spouses who have licenses to

JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and his wife, Sheena Greitens, issued an extraordinary statement late Wednesday acknowledging that he had an extramarital affair in the past and that the couple “has dealt with this together honestly and privately.”

The statement came as a St. Louis television station aired a segment alleging that, during that affair, Greitens took a compromising photograph of the woman and threatened to publicize it if she exposed him. The statement from Greitens and his wife didn’t address that part of the allegation.

Greitens’ attorney, James F. Bennett, issued a statement denying the blackmail allegation.

“There was no blackmail, and that claim is false,” Bennett said. “This personal matter has been addressed by the Governor and Mrs. Greitens privately years ago when it happened. The outrageous claims of improper conduct regarding these almost three-year-ago events are false.”

The bizarre turn of events came just hours after Greitens delivered his second State of the State speech in Jefferson City.

KMOV (Channel 4), in its report, quoted the former husband of the woman who allegedly had the affair with Greitens. The station did not quote the woman in its story, nor did it name the woman or her husband.

The station played portions of an audio recording that the then-husband says he

CHRISTIAN GOODEN • cgooden@post-dispatch.com

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens delivers his annual State of the State address on Wednesday to a joint session of the Legislature in Jefferson City.

See GREITENS • Page A4

See AFFAIR • Page A4

You may still be able to ‘Maull it!’

HANLEY HILLS • 1948–?

Residents consider disincorporation push Several streets are crumbling, and the $1.5 million cost to fix them is equal to two years of the city’s entire budget

Sale of St. Louis company aims to keep sauce flowing

BY JOE HOLLEMAN St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY JEREMY KOHLER St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Rusan, 59, say Hanley Hills is barely recognizable as the stable bedroom community they moved to 30 years ago. And they don’t think the village government

“Don’t baste your barbecue, Maull it!” stands as one of the best-known local ad slogans, touting a barbecue sauce that has been on St. Louis pantry shelves and patio tables for 90 years.

But now, the Louis Maull Co. is on the selling block.

Though it would bring the company’s long history of family ownership to an end, it’s good news for barbecue lovers who feared the brand might disappear amid recent questions about the company’s future.

“The Louis Maull Company is in negotiations for the sale of the Maull’s BBQ sauce brand,” vice president Stephen Maull said in an email Wednes-

See HANLEY • Page A3

See MAULL • Page A4

HANLEY HILLS • This north St. Louis

County community of about 2,000 people is the latest municipality facing a push to disincorporate, with a handful of residents saying they are fed up with dysfunction and deterioration.

Those residents say problems abound.

Two members of this village’s board of trustees have been removed from office in the past year because they had felony convictions and could not legally serve.

Several streets are crumbling, and the $1.5 million cost to fix them is equal to two years of the city’s entire budget.

The housing stock – typically twobedroom bungalows built in the 1940s and ’50s – is deteriorating and rapidly changing from owner-occupied homes

TODAY

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Bruce Lynn, a 30-year resident of Vinita Drive in Hanley Hills, signs a petition to help put a disincorporation vote on the village ballot as Thomas Rusan and Lynn’s dog look on Wednesday.

to rental units. A resident recently complained that a vacant house was being used for drug deals. Residents are moving in and out so fast it’s hard to keep track of neighbors.

Thomas Rusan, 61, and his wife, Kim

2 Blues named NHL All-Stars

State occasion

62°/19° LIGHT SNOW LATE

TOMORROW

28°/19° MOSTLY CLOUDY

WEATHER B10

SPORTS

Schenn

Pietrangelo

‘Dixie’ removed from Stampede show

• A3

Goodwill to open 4 adult high schools

• A7

Death toll from mudslides rises to 17

• A9

Gateway Arch bulks up seasonal jobs

• A12

2 M

POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

2018 s60 inscription Lease for 39 months,

$

299

west county VolVo 636-200-2822 • www.wcvolvo.com 14410 MANCHESTER ROAD MANCHESTER, MO 63011

per mo*

2018 Xc90 t5

7 passenger Lease for 39 months,

$

stk# 19225

519 per mo*

Vol. 140, No. 11 ©2018

2018 Xc60 awD momentum Lease for 39 months,

$

459 per mo*

stk# 19170

* Total due includes $2350 cap cost reduction, plus customer to pay first payment, tax, title, license and dealer administrative fee. Lease at 7,500 miles per year (additional miles are available). S60 msrp $41175, S90 msrp $54790. Xc60 msrp $45515, Xc90 msrp $52395. No security deposit with approved credit. Financing though VCFS. Expires 1/31/18. ALL TRADE-IN ACCEPTED

A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

LOCAL

M 2 • Thursday • 01.11.2018

Greitens admits affair, denies blackmail AFFAIR • FROM A1

made in March 2015, surreptitiously, of his then-wife confessing to a sexual encounter with Greitens days earlier.

The Post-Dispatch also has possession of the audio and has interviewed the ex-husband.

The newspaper had previously decided against writing a story based solely on the husband and the audio recording, because the woman in question has consistently declined to be interviewed.

However, Greitens’ public acknowledgment of an affair made it necessary to revisit that decision.

“You’re never going to mention my name, otherwise this picture will be everywhere,” Greitens told the woman, she claims on the audio. She is heard telling her then-husband that Greitens made the statement after he took a photo while she was bound, blindfolded and partly undressed during a sexual encounter at Greitens’ St. Louis home in March 2015. That was about a month after his first public statements confirming he was considering a political run.

The ex-husband said the woman had been Greitens’ hair stylist before he ran for governor in 2016. The woman claims in the audio recording that initial flirtation grew into an affair that became physically intimate for the first time on the morning of March 21, 2015, when she went to Greitens’ home in the Central West End. The woman claims in the audio that they went into Greitens’

basement, where he bound her to a piece of exercise equipment with some kind of tape, put a blindfold on her and began partly undressing her and touching her.

That part of the encounter was consensual, she indicates in the audio, but the alleged taking of the photograph wasn’t. She said in the audio that she wasn’t aware he was doing it until she saw a flash of light through the blindfold, followed by his alleged verbal threat.

During most of 2015, as the alleged affair was underway, Greitens was publicly discussing his plans to get into politics. He confirmed his interest in running for an unspecified statewide office in a written statement given to the media in February 2015 — less than a month before the alleged sexual blackmail episode took place.

On Oct. 20, 2015 — three weeks after Greitens filed papers formally starting his 2016 campaign for governor — the woman sent an email to an account that contains Greitens’ name. It’s the same email account Greitens listed in setting up a political website he used in his gubernatorial campaign.

“Eric, I’m asking you to please consider all who are involved and the circumstances around us,” the woman wrote in the email, which the Post-Dispatch obtained. “I need you to not book at the salon anymore. This isn’t fair to me, nor anyone close to us. Please respect me and my wishes. I need to move forward in my life as I know you are doing as well. Take care.”

The woman’s ex-husband, in statements to the Post-Dispatch in the past two weeks, laid blame for the collapse of his marriage largely on Greitens.

“Throughout that summer … the power of manipulation that Mr. Greitens had over my wife had become undeniable,” he said in the written statements, which were provided through his attorney, Albert Watkins. “Yes, the affair between (his wife) and Mr. Greitens was the main reason for the irreparability of our marriage.”

Organizations that work with victims of sexual violence stress that consent has to be ongoing, even in established personal or romantic relationships. A person can also revoke his or her consent at any point during a sexual encounter, even after giving consent in the past.

“Someone can start to do something sexual and change their mind about the next step,” said Terri Poore, policy director of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. “That needs to be respected by the other party.”

Taking an explicit photo of someone without his or her permission can violate consent given earlier, Poore said, because consent means consciously and knowingly agreeing to the action at hand.

“If you introduce threats or coercion or power imbalances, you aren’t dealing in the realm of consent anymore,” she said.

The joint statement issued by Greitens and his wife read: “A few years ago, before Eric was elected Governor, there was

a time when he was unfaithful in our marriage. This was a deeply personal mistake. Eric took responsibility, and we dealt with this together honestly and privately. While we never would have wished for this pain in our marriage, or the pain that this has caused others, with God’s mercy Sheena has forgiven and we have emerged stronger. He understand that there will be some people who cannot forgive — but for those who can find it in your heart, Eric asks for your forgiveness, and we are grateful for your love, your compassion, and your prayers.”

Sheena Greitens also released a separate statement, which read: “We have a loving marriage and an awesome family; anything beyond that is between us and God. I want the media and those who wish to peddle gossip to stay away from me and my children.”

In Gov. Greitens’ speech Wednesday night, Sheena Greitens was among several people he thanked at the start. He also recognized her efforts to ease child adoptions across state lines.

“Last month, Missouri officially joined the National Electronic Interstate Compact Enterprise, to make adoption easier across state lines,” he said. “I want to give a special thank you for her hard work on this issue, to the first lady of the state of Missouri, and my wife, Sheena Greitens.”

The revelation of the affair and the related allegations hit Greitens as his political star has been rising, with national attention from conservative media outlets

Greitens offers limited agenda in speech GREITENS • FROM A1

do certain types of jobs in other states to be able to use them when they are stationed in Missouri.

He also wants to set up a veterans hiring preference law.

“Most states in our country have done this. It’s time for Missouri to do the same,” Greitens said.

Although Republicans control the governor’s office and both chambers of the Legislature, ongoing tension between Greitens and GOP lawmakers threatens to derail some of his initiatives.

Part of the strain comes from the governor’s adversarial tone as a self-described “outsider” who rails against “career politicians.” He has also angered some by installing allies on the state Board of Education in order to fire school Commissioner Margie Vandeven, before they were confirmed by the Senate.

Greitens also raised eyebrows last year when he announced plans to offer state employees a paid family leave program despite not having legislative approval to spend the money.

Among his intra-party adversaries is Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph, who is in his final year in office. Schaaf has threatened to use his filibuster power to block proposals he dislikes. And Sen. Gary Romine, R-Farmington, has said he will use his filibuster power to block the governor’s school board appointees.

CHRISTIAN GOODEN • cgooden@post-dispatch.com

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (center, front) greets lawmakers as he enters the House on Wednesday to make his annual State of the State address.

Among the issues that could face an uphill climb is tax reform.

Although the governor steered clear of discussing his plans for the budget on Wednesday, he said he would present a tax overhaul plan next week. He provided no details.

“It is the boldest state tax reform in America,” Greitens said.

“In 2018, I want this body to cut taxes for the people of Missouri and to cut taxes for businesses that create jobs.”

Rep. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington, rated the governor’s performance as “incomplete,” given Greitens’ lack of specifics and the speech’s brevity.

LAW & ORDER WELDON SPRING > One killed, two hurt in crash • One person was killed and two others were injured when the driver of a pickup on Highway 40 (Interstate 64) here suffered a medical problem and crashed into several other vehicles at the Highway 94 exit Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Joshua Freise was westbound on the interstate in a 2017 Ford F250 pickup about 4 p.m. Tuesday when he apparently suffered a medical emergency, according to a Missouri Highway Patrol report. Freise’s truck struck a car on the interstate, then went down the exit ramp at Highway 94, crashing into several vehicles stopped at a traffic light. The pickup overturned and went over an embankment on the side of the road, Cpl. Juston Wheetley said.

In total, the pickup struck five other vehicles, and debris from the crash hit a sixth.

A man who had been in one of the stopped cars died of injuries from the crash. He was identified as William C. Pearson, 29, of the St. Louis area.

Pearson was driving a 2016 Chevrolet Cruze that was struck on the left side

by Freise’s pickup.

Freise, 36, of Moscow Mills, was taken to Mercy Hospital St. Louis for moderate injuries.

Anthony Catalano, 47, of St. Peters,

also suffered moderate injuries and was being treated at Mercy Hospital St. Louis. He was driving a 1997 GMC 1500 pickup that was struck.

ST. LOUIS > Businessman accused of fraud • A man from Jefferson City was indicted on four counts of mail fraud in federal court here Wednesday and accused of defrauding the residents of a vacation community near Potosi.

Dale Johansen, 63, owned Johansen Consulting Services LLC and had been appointed the receiver for Rogue Creek Utilities Inc., which provided sewer and water services and management to about 90 homes, prosecutors said.

Johansen was supposed to ensure that residents’ water was clean, but failed to keep a treatment system working, exposing residents to elevated levels of lead, prosecutors said.

On March 9, 2016, Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources learned that the water softener system had not been operational for at least six months, prosecutors said.

Johansen billed customers for clean water, knowing it was not being treated to remove lead, and falsely represented that the water was clean, disinfected and safe, prosecutors said.

“I heard 16 of them,” said Engler, a long-time lawmaker.

“That was the shortest.”

“There really wasn’t a lot of meat,” Engler said. “Who’s against children? Who’s against paying less tax? But, yet, the reality is how are you going to cut taxes and be able to fund education?”

The governor also asked members of the Senate to approve a ban on gifts from lobbyists to the Legislature.

The House has already given first-round approval to tighter limits on gifts, but the issue has historically stalled in the upper chamber. Senators have said

Greitens himself is less than ethical because of his secrecy when it comes to political spending.

Greitens nonetheless challenged lawmakers to quit taking gifts.

“I call on every member of the Legislature to join me in a pledge not to accept any gift from lobbyists,” Greitens said.

Greitens also touted efforts designed to shrink government, including selling state airplanes and ending the printing of the state budget. He also called on lawmakers to act on legislation to eliminate hundreds of unnecessary boards and commissions.

“We pay attention to dollars

and politicians in other states who have viewed the 43-yearold former Navy SEAL and bestselling author as part of the Republican Party’s future.

Greitens is a former Democrat who has mixed brains and brawn throughout his public life, but one consistent element to him has been ambition. As the Post-Dispatch has previously reported, he was reserving website names with variations of “Greitens for President” years before his first political campaign, for governor, in 2016.

A top Missouri House Democrat said the affair Greitens had acknowledged “undermines his credibility.”

“With the governor’s reliance on secretive dark money, his alleged destruction of public records, and overall lack of transparency, deception has been a key part of Eric Greitens’ administration,” said House Assistant Minority Leader Gina Mitten, DRichmond Heights. “This story further undermines his credibility.”

Democratic state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed took to Twitter to call on Greitens to resign: “We must end the culture of corruption,” she wrote. “I’m calling on Governor Greitens to resign immediately and give Missouri the opportunity to restore some dignity to the governor’s office.”

Kevin McDermott • 314-340-8268 @kevinmcdermott on Twitter kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com

and we pay attention to cents because we remember: Every single dollar this government spends was earned by the hard work of a Missourian,” Greitens said.

The speech won accolades from House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, who said he agreed with Greitens’ efforts to bring jobs to Missouri.

“Our shared agenda to reform our tax system and reduce unnecessary regulations are important steps in making this a reality,” Richardson said.

Democrats, who sit in the minority in both chambers, decried the lack of a budget proposal in the speech.

“It is important for Missourians to know how the governor wants to spend their money, and it is unfortunate that he didn’t see fit to share his priorities with you tonight,” said House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, D-Kansas City.

Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, said she didn’t hear anything about the major crises facing the state, such as a lack of funding for education and health care.

“That was deplorable,” she said of the speech. “Our education system is crumbling. No conversation about that.”

Rep. Alan Green, D-Florissant, questioned what part of the state budget would not be funded if taxes are reduced.

“Where are you going to get those cuts?” he said.

Sky Chadde and Jack Suntrup of the PostDispatch contributed to this story.

Kurt Erickson • 573-556-6181 @KurtEricksonPD on Twitter kerickson@post-dispatch.com

Sale of venerable St. Louis company aims to keep barbecue sauce ready for the ribs MAULL • FROM A1

day afternoon. “We anticipate closing on the transaction in the next 7-10 days. The potential buyer is a St. Louis company with strong St. Louis connections. It is anticipated that the brand will continue to be manufactured in St. Louis.”

Maull’s email said it was important to the company to keep the brand local. “Our goal was to ensure that Maull’s brand remains a St. Louis tradition,” Maull said, adding he had no further comment while negotiations continue.

Concerns about the company’s health first began to simmer in late 2017, when it was basted with court judgments that totaled $103,602.

On Nov. 30, a St. Louis County circuit judge ruled that Maull’s was in default for not appearing in court on a breach of contract suit filed by a local trucking company, Nightline Express Inc. A judge levied damages of $15,974.

A day earlier in St. Louis Circuit Court, food broker Sales Resources Inc. was awarded $73,062 in its breach of contract suit against Maull’s. And on July 6, the company was docked $14,566 in a suit filed by Michael R. Fanning, a lawyer in Washington.

The company website recently began showing an immediate pop-up message which states that Maull’s is not accepting orders: “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process any orders at this time. We thank you for your patience and understanding.”

The company Facebook page last carried a new post on Dec. 24, a holiday wish.

Several followers posted questions to the site after a report Tuesday night on the company’s troubles from KTVI (Channel 2).

Paul Simon, a spokesman for the Schnucks supermarket chain, said that the 100 stores in the chain were not receiving any new orders. Simon said he knew

of no buying run by customers or shortage on store shelves, but because of the television report, “we’re kind of expecting one now.”

The sauce operation is headed

by Louis T. Maull IV, who also has been active in civic affairs, including once serving as the chairman of the VP Fair, now known as Fair St. Louis.

Maull is the fourth in the family line to run the company since it was founded in 1897 as a horse-drawn grocery business.

The company began selling condiments in the 1920s, and started making the barbecue sauce in 1926. Currently, the company website shows nine types of sauces and three marinades.

The sauce was sold with a signature “Maull it!” slogan for years, and future pop star Britney Spears starred in a television ad for the company in 1993, when she was 11 years old.

Joe Holleman • 314-340-8254 @stlsherpa on Twitter jholleman@post-dispatch.com

S E RV I N G T H E P U B L I C S I N C E 1 878 • W I N N E R O F 1 8 P U L I TZ E R P R I Z E S

FRIDAY • 02.23.2018 • $2.00

INDICTED

FELONY CHARGE OF INVASION OF PRIVACY Greitens calls indictment a ‘misguided political decision’ KIM GARDNER

BY KEVIN McDERMOTT St. Louis Post-Dispatch

‘As I have stated before, it is essential for residents of the city of St. Louis and our state to have confidence in their leaders.’

ST. LOUIS • Missouri Gov. Eric

St. Louis circuit attorney

Greitens, who was swept into office in 2016 with a vow to clean up a corrupt state government, was indicted and booked Thursday on a felony invasion of privacy charge for allegedly taking and transmitting a nonconsensual photo of his partly nude lover shortly before that campaign started.

It stems from a scandal that broke last month, in which Greitens was accused of threatening his lover with the photo — an allegation that isn’t mentioned in the indictment. Greitens has admitted having an extramarital affair, but has denied the rest.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office announced the grand jury indictment Thursday afternoon. A Post-Dispatch reporter saw Greitens being led down a hallway by several St. Louis city deputies on the first floor of the Carnahan Courthouse downtown about 3:45 p.m. Officials later confirmed Greitens had been taken into custody and then booked at the St. Louis Justice Center.

Greitens, a Republican, declared his innocence in a written statement, and alleged the indictment is a “misguided political decision” by a “reckless liberal prosecutor.”

Gardner is a Democrat.

Greitens’ legal team immediately filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, on grounds that any activity Greitens engaged in was “consensual.”

Judge Rex M. Burlison allowed Greitens’ release on a personal recognizance bond that permits him to travel freely throughout the United States. Greitens was scheduled to travel to Washington this weekend for an annual meeting of the nation’s governors. But Elena Waskey, spokesperson for the

EDWARD L. DOWD JR. Greitens’ attorney

‘I have never seen anything like this. The charges against my client are baseless and unfounded. My client is absolutely innocent.’

MIKE KEHOE

Senate majority leader

‘It certainly catches people off guard. Elected officials are and should be held to a higher standard.’

GAIL MCCANN BEATTY House minority leader

‘The governor needs to consider whether remaining in office under these circumstances is the right thing to do for not only himself and his family but for the people of Missouri.’

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens’ booking photo, taken Thursday by St. Louis police. Greitens allegedly took and transmitted a nonconsensual photo of his partly nude lover.

See GREITENS • Page A4

MESSENGER > Greitens lobbies for salvation A4 • EDITORIAL > Greitens must resign A16 • TIMELINE > Key developments A4

A SEARCH FOR ANSWERS TO GUN VIOLENCE Trump endorses hike in minimum age to buy assault weapons ...

... and suggests giving bonuses to trained and armed teachers

Manafort, associate face new fraud, tax charges in Russia investigation

BY ERIC TUCKER AND CHAD DAY Associated Press

BY JILL COLVIN AND MATTHEW DALY Associated Press

BY MORIAH BALINGIT AND NICK ANDERSON Washington Post

WASHINGTON • The nation should keep assault weapons out of the hands of anyone under 21, President Donald Trump declared Thursday, defying his loyal supporters in the National Rifle Association amid America’s public reckoning over gun violence.

He also pushed hard for arming security guards and many teachers in U.S. schools.

“There’s nothing more important than protecting our children,” Trump said, adding that he’d spoken with many members of Congress and NRA officials

Educators still reeling from gun violence that left 17 dead at a Florida high school expressed frustration Thursday at President Donald Trump’s call for teachers to take up arms to defend their classrooms against school shooters, saying the thought of using lethal force in a crowded hallway or against one of their students was unimaginable.

They wondered about scenarios in which they could face shooters on a hectic campus — or even, potentially, draw a gun to confront an armed and dan-

WASHINGTON • Dramatically escalating the pressure and stakes, special counsel Robert Mueller filed additional criminal charges Thursday against President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and his business associate.

The filing adds allegations of tax evasion and bank fraud and significantly increases the legal jeopardy facing Paul Manafort, who managed Trump’s campaign for several months in 2016, and longtime associate Rick Gates. Both had already faced the prospect of at least a decade in prison if convicted at trial.

The two men were initially charged in a 12-count indictment in October that accused them of a multi-

See AGE • Page A9

See TEACHERS • Page A9

See MUELLER • Page A8

TODAY

U.S. women falter in skating finals

Charged affair

57°/42° LOTS OF CLOUDS

TOMORROW

60°/38° SHOWERS

WEATHER C10

Legal marijuana coming to Illinois?

• A13

Ameren seeks to add charging stations Mizzou AD sued by S.C. women’s coach Michael Porter Jr. ‘fully cleared’ to play

SPORTS

• B1 • C1

1 M • C1

POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

2018 S60 T5

2018 XC90 T5

INSCRIpTION Lease for 39 months,

$

299

WEST COUNTY VOLVO CARS 636-200-2822 • www.wcvolvo.com 14410 MANcHESTER ROAD MANcHESTER, MO 63011

per mo*

2018 XC60 AWD

7 pASSENgER Lease for 39 months,

$

stk# 19225

MOMENTUM Lease for 39 months,

519 per mo*

Vol. 140, No. 54 ©2018

$ stk# 19289

459 per mo*

stk# 19170

* Total due includes $2350 cap cost reduction, plus customer to pay first payment, tax, title, license and dealer administrative fee. Lease at 7,500 miles per year (additional miles are available).

Offer includes all Volvo incentives. S60 msrp $41175. Xc60 msrp $45515, Xc90 msrp $52395. No security deposit with approved credit. Financing though VcFS. Expires 2/28/18.

ALL TRADE-IN ACCEPTED

A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

KEY DATES Jan. 10 • Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and his wife, Sheena Greitens, issue a statement acknowledging that he had an extramarital affair that began and ended in 2015 and that the couple “has dealt with this together honestly and privately.” The statement comes as KMOV (Channel 4) airs a report alleging that, during that affair, Greitens took a compromising photograph of the woman while she was partially nude and threatened to publicize it if she exposed him.

The statement from Greitens and his wife doesn’t address that part of the allegation.

Greitens’ attorney, James F. Bennett, issues a statement denying the blackmail allegation.

Jan. 11 • St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner says she will launch a formal criminal investigation into allegations swirling around the governor. She announces the probe after lawmakers call on Attorney General Josh Hawley to investigate; Hawley says Gardner has jurisdiction. Greitens spends the day calling donors and lawmakers to apologize.

Jan. 12 • The woman allegedly photographed by Greitens asks the media and the public for privacy. In a statement provided by her attorneys, she is described as “extremely distraught” that the affair was made public. The statement continues: “It is very disappointing that her ex-husband betrayed her confidence by secretly, and without her knowledge, recording a private and deeply personal conversation and then subsequently released the recording to the media without her consent.”

Jan. 15 • A Greitens spokesman confirms that the governor has postponed a planned statewide tour to promote an overhaul of the Missouri tax system.

Jan. 16 • Four Republican lawmakers publicly call on Greitens to consider stepping aside. That evening, Greitens posts another statement on social media, asking Missourians again for forgiveness. “Much has now been written about this, and many of the assertions made have not been truthful and have proven extremely hurtful to Sheena, as well as to me,” Greitens writes on Facebook.

“For us, the allegations that go so far beyond the facts have made this much more difficult.

I made a mistake, I regret it, and Sheena and I have dealt with it between us.”

Jan. 17 • A Republican state senator says that he has spoken with the FBI about Greitens and the chief executive’s campaign apparatus. Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph, tells the Post-Dispatch he has discussed with the FBI issues related to the governor’s reliance on “dark money” and acceptance of large donations from Joplin megadonor David Humphreys.

Jan. 20 • In his first interview since acknowledging an extramarital affair, Greitens tells The Associated Press that there was “no blackmail” and “no threat of violence” by him in what he described as a monthslong “consensual relationship” with his former hairdresser. Greitens also insists he had no plans to resign from office as a result of the affair, despite calls to step aside from several Republican and Democratic state lawmakers. “I’m staying. I’m staying,” he says.

Jan. 22 • Greitens, at a news conference to tout his budget plan, repeatedly sidesteps questions about the affair and compromising photo he allegedly took. “There was no blackmail,” Greitens tells reporters. “There was no violence. There was no photograph for blackmail. There was no threat of using a photograph for blackmail.”

Jan. 24 • The Missouri Democratic Party calls on Greitens to sign an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, certifying that he did not take any “compromising photographs” of any women with whom he had an affair. It also wants him to certify that what he has said so far in response to other allegations and rumors is true. “Eric Greitens’ time in the Governor’s Mansion has been defined by corruption, dishonesty and secrecy,” Stephen Webber, the Democratic Party chairman, says in a statement. “He should set the record straight with Missourians by signing and legally certifying this affidavit.”

Feb. 5 • The former husband of the woman who had an affair with Greitens receives a subpoena to testify before a St. Louis grand jury, his attorney tells reporters. Gardner’s office declines to confirm that.

Feb. 8 • At a news conference sponsored by the Missouri Press Association, Greitens reiterates that law enforcement has not contacted him or his associates regarding an ongoing criminal investigation by the St. Louis circuit attorney. “We’ve answered all of those questions, and you know that the answer is ‘no,’” he says. “Does anyone have any questions about the business in front of the people of Missouri?” He is asked by the Post-Dispatch whether he took a photograph of the woman with whom he had an extramarital affair. He says he’s already answered the question “in multiple interviews,” adding, “We’re ready — we’re ready to move forward.”

Feb. 15 • House Speaker Todd Richardson says investigators with the St. Louis circuit attorney’s office met with him, but he declined to elaborate when asked what was discussed. “I did speak with those investigators yesterday,” Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, tells reporters. “Beyond that, direct those questions to the circuit attorney’s office.” Other lawmakers confirm St. Louis investigators had met with lawmakers at the Capitol.

Feb. 22 • Greitens is indicted and booked on a felony invasion of privacy charge for allegedly taking and transmitting a nonconsensual photo of his partly nude lover.

GREITENS INDICTED

M 1 • FRIDAY • 02.23.2018

Greitens seeks salvation from the biggest snake in the swamp TONY MESSENGER St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On the first day of his campaign for governor of the great state of Missouri, Eric Greitens threatened to commit a crime.

It was the sort of foreshadowing that, in retrospect, the hard-charging exNavy SEAL might come to regret.

On Sept. 26, 2015, at Westport Plaza in Maryland Heights, the lifelong Democrat who turned himself into a Trumpian Republican almost overnight stood before an oversized American flag, pointed his finger into the camera, and targeted Missouri lobbyists and insiders as his chosen enemy.

“I will defeat you. I will expose your lies. I will root out your corruption,” Greitens said, rising to a crescendo.

“I will see you out of the people’s Capitol, even if in sight of the statue of Thomas Jefferson I have to throw you down the steps of the Capitol myself.”

Perhaps the man who wanted to be president of the United States so badly that he reserved ericgreitensforpresident.com before he even announced his run for governor was merely speaking metaphorically.

But after being indicted Thursday on a felony charge of invasion of privacy for allegedly taking a semi-nude photo of his paramour in the basement of the Central West End home he shared with his family, and threatening to use that photo to keep their affair secret, Greitens has lost the benefit of the doubt.

The indictment stems from an incident just a few months before that announcement for governor, on March 21, 2015, when he began a sexual affair with his former hairdresser. The timing

says a lot about the hubris of the Rhodes scholar who would rise to power on a promise to blow up corruption in the capital city.

The affair started just a month after the suicide of state Auditor Tom Schweich, then considered the front-runner for the GOP nomination for governor. Schweich’s death spurred a mad scramble of candidates — at least eight prominent Republicans were considering the race at one time — and it was ultimately the outsider, Greitens, who defeated three other candidates and then rode Trump’s coattails to office.

At the time he ran for governor, there were rumors of an affair. Reporters all over the state heard them. Some dug a bit. Most shrugged. None of the political operatives in either party who were chatting about the alleged affair made it an issue in the campaign. Nobody was talking about a crime. This wasn’t Gary Hart in 1987.

But at least one Missouri political operative, former chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party, Roy Temple, spoke with the ex-husband of Greitens’ former lover. Temple promised the man at the time he wouldn’t bring the story forward without permission. He kept his promise.

When the story broke on the night of his State of the State address last month, Greitens publicly blamed Temple, even while some of the governor’s allies were privately pointing to other conspirators, including rivals in the Republican Party, and, of course, the proverbial lobbyists and insiders.

On Thursday, hours before the governor was indicted, Temple posted a video of that Greitens speech in which he attacks lobbyists.

It was in reaction to the governor’s move of desperation the day before, when lobbyist Aaron Baker listed the

law firm defending the governor in the criminal case, Dowd Bennett, as a new client.

“It certainly seems as if (Gov. Greitens) attitude about lobbyists has ‘evolved,’” Temple wrote on the social media platform Twitter.

Indeed, Greitens’ best hope to stay in office now is that a man he once considered the epitome of corruption — powerful GOP consultant Jeff Roe — can ward off impeachment proceedings in the Missouri House, currently being contemplated by legislative leaders.

Baker is a vice president of Roe’s Axiom Strategies firm. He also manages the public affairs company that issued a statement on behalf of the governor denying the charges.

Greitens, never really intent on cleaning up Jefferson City, is now depending on the biggest snake in the swamp — his words, not mine — to save him.

Months after Greitens ended his affair and began his frontal assault on lobbyists, he wrote a letter to supporters calling out Roe and his allies specifically.

He called them snakes. He said they were shameful and disgusting. “Liars, cowards, sociopaths,” he wrote. “They are often deeply broken and disturbed people, who — like criminals who prey on the innocent — take their pleasure and make their living by victimizing honest people.”

Now Greitens is the alleged criminal who preyed on the innocent.

His reckoning awaits.

“There is only one man responsible for his actions in the basement of his family home,” says Temple. “Now he must face the consequences of those actions.”

Tony Messenger • 314-340-8518 @tonymess on Twitter tmessenger@post-dispatch.com

Felony charge hinges on transmission of photo GREITENS • FROM A1

National Governors Association, said late Thursday that Greitens informed the organization that he would not be attending.

Online court records indicate Greitens is due back in court on March 16.

LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATION In recent weeks it appeared Greitens had weathered the worst of the scandal, but as news of the indictment spread Thursday, it became clear his political future is again in jeopardy.

A joint statement by top legislative Republicans, including Speaker of the House Todd Richardson, said they will appoint a group of legislators to investigate the charges: “We will carefully examine the facts contained in the indictment and answer the question as to whether or not the governor can lead our state while a felony case moves forward.” Any impeachment proceedings would begin in the House.

Gardner, in her statement announcing the indictment, said the grand jury found probable cause to believe Greitens violated a Missouri statute that makes it a felony to transmit a nonconsensual image showing nudity in a manner that allows access to that image via a computer.

“As I have stated before, it is essential for residents of the city of St. Louis and our state to have confidence in their leaders,” Gardner said in the statement.

On Jan. 10, the Post-Dispatch and other area media reported that Greitens, a first-term governor elected in 2016, had had an extramarital affair near the start of that campaign, in 2015.

The allegation was put forward by the husband of Greitens’ lover, based on a surreptitious audio recording he made of a conversation with her.

The woman said in the recording that, during a consensual sexual encounter in Greitens’ St. Louis home in which she was bound and partly undressed, Greitens took a photo of her without her consent and threatened her with it.

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

The governor’s security detail leaves the Carnahan Courthouse downtown on Thursday. Gov. Eric Greitens was believed to be in the rear seat.

FELONY VS. MISDEMEANOR There was nothing in the initial allegation to indicate that Greitens ever followed through on the alleged threat to disseminate the photo, and in fact the woman said later in the secretly recorded conversation that he’d later told her he’d erased it.

However, Gardner’s written statement Thursday indicates there is now an allegation that Greitens did in fact “transmit” the image at some point.

“This statute has a provision for both a felony and misdemeanor,” Gardner said in her statement. “The law makes it a felony if a person transmits the image contained in the photograph or film in a manner that allows access to that image via a computer.”

Under Missouri law, the crime of “invasion of privacy” includes creating “an image of another person” by any means, “without the person’s consent, while the person is in a state of full or partial nudity and is in a place where one would have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

That offense alone — taking a compromising photo without a person’s consent, even without disseminating it or threatening to — is a Class A misde-

The arrest warrant in the invasion of privacy indictment of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. His date of birth has been obscured by the Post-Dispatch.

meanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.

Invasion of privacy becomes a felony offense in Missouri if the person taking the nonconsensual picture subsequently “distributes the image to another or transmits the image in a manner that allows access to that image via computer.”

In that case, the crime is a Class E felony, punishable by up to four years in prison.

In a statement, Greitens attorney Edward L. Dowd Jr. said, “In 40 years of public and private practice, I have never seen anything like this. The charges against my client are baseless and un-

founded. My client is absolutely innocent.”

Dowd’s motion to dismiss doesn’t specifically deny the allegation that Greitens took the photo. Instead, it claims that the law used in the indictment was meant to apply to “peeping toms,” and not to “a situation between two people engaged in consensual sexual activity.”

Greitens later released his own statement: “As I have said before, I made a perSee GREITENS • Page A5

GREITENS INDICTED

02.23.2018 • Friday • M 1 GREITENS • FROM A4

sonal mistake before I was Governor.

“I did not commit a crime.

“With today’s disappointing and misguided political decision, my confidence in our prosecutorial system is shaken, but not broken. I know this will be righted soon.

“The people of Missouri deserve better than a reckless liberal prosecutor who uses her office to score political points.

“I look forward to the legal remedies to reverse this action.

“This will not for a moment deter me from doing the important work of the great people of Missouri.”

ter the date of the alleged crime.

He also said the elements needed to prove invasion of privacy are not terribly complex, in that a prosecutor just needs evidence that Greitens took a compromising picture of the woman and shared it.

“It’s a simple event, and you’re bumping up against the statute of limitations,” Wolff said. “If you don’t make a decision in the next month, you don’t have a case.”

It’s now up to the Missouri House to decide whether the indictment should trigger impeachment proceedings, Wolff said. If impeachment follows, a special commission

elected by the Senate will try Greitens’ case.

REACTION IN JEFFERSON CITY Word of the indictment came just hours after most rank-and-file lawmakers had cleared out of the Capitol for the weekend.

In a third-floor hallway, Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, shook his head as he heard the news and said it was too early for him to comment.

The No. 2 man in the Senate, Majority Leader Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, said he was shocked at the indictment.

“I think that’s what most people’s reaction would

be,” Kehoe said. “When you get news like this, it certainly catches people off guard. Elected officials are and should be held to a higher standard.”

Kehoe tried to tamp down concerns that the governor’s woes would zap the legislative session, which runs through midMay. “We will make sure that the ship runs straight and that some of the issues that are coming out don’t deter us from doing the right thing and protecting people from the wrong thing that could come out of this building,” Kehoe said.

When asked if Greitens should resign, Kehoe said, “I am not prepared to say

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A5 “No governor that I can determine has been criminally charged,” said Ken Winn, former longtime Missouri state archivist.

Sheena Greitens, the governor’s wife, spoke Thursday night at Washington University about North Korean refugees.

People who attended said afterward that the charge against her husband did not come up in her speech or in a question-and-answer session that followed.

that.”

But House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, a Democrat, suggested in a statement that Greitens should resign.

“It will be extremely difficult for the governor to effectively do his job with a felony indictment hanging over his head,” Beatty wrote. “While the criminal justice system must run its course, the governor needs to consider whether remaining in office under these circumstances is the right thing to do for not only himself and his family but for the people of Missouri.”

Greitens is apparently the first sitting Missouri governor to be indicted.

Kurt Erickson, Joel Currier, Ashley Jost, Christine Byers, Joe Holleman, Chuck Raasch, Mark Schlinkmann and Nassim Benchaabane, all of the PostDispatch, contributed to this report.

Kevin McDermott • 314-340-8268 @kevinmcdermott on Twitter kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com

ALLEGATIONS, AND A TAPE The woman had been Greitens’ hair stylist. Her ex-husband confronted her about the affair while it was in progress in 2015, and taped the conversation without her knowledge.

Taping of conversations is legal in Missouri as long as at least one party knows about it. The husband later provided the audio to news outlets.

The Post-Dispatch, as have other outlets, has declined to publicly identify the woman, because she has declined to talk to reporters.

The woman claims in the audio recording that on March 21, 2015, she went to Greitens’ home in the Central West End. There, in his basement, she said, he bound her to a piece of exercise equipment with some kind of tape, put a blindfold on her and began partly undressing her and touching her.

That part was consensual, she indicated in the audio, but she alleged he took a photo that wasn’t.

She said in the audio that she wasn’t aware he was doing it until she saw a flash of light through the blindfold, followed by his alleged verbal threat.

“You’re never going to mention my name, otherwise this picture will be everywhere,” Greitens told the woman, she claimed on the audio.

Peter Joy, a professor at the Washington University School of Law, said he expects the indictment against Greitens means either the woman agreed to cooperate with Gardner’s probe or that investigators have obtained other evidence of a crime.

“I still think that at the end of the day, without her, it’s still going to be almost impossible to prove,” Joy said. “They must have something more than the audio tape that her exhusband has, because, although grand juries will often follow the cue of the prosecutor presenting the case, I would think the grand jury would want some sort of proof of transmission of the photograph.”

Joy said he doesn’t think politics is motivating Gardner’s decision to seek an indictment against the governor and that it’s not uncommon for prosecutors to indict those on either side of the political spectrum. Without probable cause, Joy said, a prosecutor should not even bring a case to the grand jury.

“They’re supposed to put politics aside and in almost every instance, that’s what they do,” Joy said.

NOW THROUGH SUNDAY EXTEN

DED

S U N THROUGH D AY 2-2 5!

FLOORING

SALE

Pay No Tax!

**

12 Months Free Financing!

Textured Thick Carpet Plush 70 oz Plush 99 99 99 Reg. 4 sq. ft.

Reg. 6 sq. ft.

Reg. 6 sq. ft.

Ultra Soft

2

$ 99

Now

sq. ft.

Includes 8 lb Pad and Installation

3

$ 99

Now

sq. ft.

Includes 8 lb Pad and Installation

4

$ 99

Now

sq. ft.

Includes 8 lb Pad and Installation

Low Prices, Free Financing, No Tax

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS Mike Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court chief justice and former dean of St. Louis University’s law school, said the speed with which Gardner’s office obtained an indictment is not necessarily surprising because the statute of limitations for invasion of privacy would have expired March 21, or three years af-

The inside scoop on local politics stltoday.com/ political fix

CREVE COEUR 1000 N. Lindbergh (at Olive)

ELLISVILLE

15763 Manchester (just east of Clarkson)

SOUTH COUNTY

314-993-0808

636-391-8070

314-892-4499

DES PERES

ST. CHARLES

314-909-7474

636-940-2244

13384 Manchester Rd. (Just west of 270)

Regency Plaza (Bogey Rd., West of 94)

6925 S. Lindbergh (Marshall’s Plaza)

STORE HOURS Mon & Fri 9-9 Tues-Thur 9-8 Sat 9-6 Sun 12-5

www.EdwardsCarpet.com

*On Approved Credit, 1/3 deposit required, minimum payment, See Store for full details. ** Sales tax will be added to sale and then a discount equal to the sales tax will be deducted. Previous sales excluded.

*

A L E E E N T E R P R I S E S N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D BY J O S E P H P U L I T Z E R D E C . 1 2 , 1 8 7 8

Sunday • 02.25.2018 • A16 RAY FARRIS PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER •

GILBERT BAILON EDITOR •

TOD ROBBERSON EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

Missouri’s disgrace The longer Greitens stays, the greater the embarrassment. Time for him to go.

TO VIEW MORE EDITORIAL CARTOONS ONLINE GO TO STLTODAY.COM/OPINION

YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

Eric Grietens and his wife, Sheena, hold their two sons while awaiting the November 2016 election results that put him in the governor’s mansion.

Arming teachers may not be the best solution

R

After the tragic events at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., I have seen repeated calls for arming teachers with the hopes of stopping the attacker. Let me start off by saying that I am a legal gun owner and I have gone through a conceal and carry program. I can see both sides of the argument. But, as a public high school teacher, I believe arming teachers may not be the best solution. It raises more questions than answers them.

• What if a student takes the gun?

• What if the teacher mistakes an item for a gun and shoots an innocent child?

• What if the teacher, while trying to shoot an intruder, misses and kills an innocent child?

• Unfortunately, we’ve all heard stories of the teacher who throws erasers, cusses out a child, etc. out of frustration.

What if he or she had a gun?

When going through active shooter training, the police task force always tells us whatever you do, do not pick up the gun. When law enforcement arrives, they do not know who the active shooter is, and any person holding a gun can be considered the potential active shooter.

Adding armed teachers may only complicate this issue and lead to accidental deaths.

Before adding even more responsibility onto teachers and putting more guns into schools, maybe it’s best to figure out a way to limit access to certain types of firearms and increase access to mental health experts first.

Stephen Klobe • St. Peters

Clearly this problem has become unacceptably bad and we must work to fix it.

Many are suggesting that we arm teachers or add more arms to already unstable situations, but we can’t put that expectation or requirement on our teachers and that wouldn’t prevent, only stop, any incidents that occur.

Others are suggesting various ways of massively restricting gun rights, mostly in ways that sound helpful but ignore the statistics and would expand harmful stereotypes, be ineffective by targeting the wrong parts of the problem, and unilaterally disarm marginalized groups who most need their rights.

Might I propose a third path? All of these mass shooters, and many victims of homicide, suicide and the opioid epidemic, suffer from similar issues, although these alone are clearly not enough to make a shooter. These include alienation, loneliness, lack of strong, deep social connections, and a lack of emotional and cognitive tools to deal with trauma and stress.

If we focused on implementing mindfulness meditation and cognitive/emotional skills training starting in schools, with parents and teachers, and expanding to prisoners, in workplaces, we might not only prevent mass shootings, but improve the quality of life and of our communities in ways we can barely imagine. Research on this keeps showing amazing results; this is an inexpensive way to improve society.

Why don’t we take this historic moment as an opportunity to build a truly better society, instead of further dividing us?

Christopher Sudlik • Normandy

Stop mass murderers from wanting to kill

Parents must teach children right from wrong

There is an argument going around that we should arm teachers.

It is likely that the people making these arguments have two assumptions working in their heads. First, that an armed teacher will perform just like an action hero — doing whatever it takes to stop the bad guy before too many innocent people are harmed. In reality, it’s just adding another shooter to an active shooter situation.

One thing that I have not seen addressed when this argument is presented: Is the teacher supposed to help the kids hide or escape first, or will the kids have to fend for themselves while their teacher takes on the shooter?

The second assumption is that armed teachers will stop mass murderers from going into a school. That may be true, at least in theory. But since we have not addressed their motive or their access to the tool of choice for these mass murderers, then we are just redirecting them.

If we put armed personnel in schools, then I expect we will just see more mass shootings at parks, in theaters, churches, day cares, outside of stadiums. Wherever you can go and whip out a gun to kill a bunch of people in a matter of seconds, that’s where they’ll go and that’s how they’ll do it.

We have to stop them from wanting to kill people and reduce their capacity, in addition to making spaces more secure.

If you want to stop school shootings, you ultimately have to address why and how people are committing mass murder.

Gary Wells • St. Louis

If people would like to ban something in this country, ban the violent video games kids play day-in and day-out.

Parents, show a little backbone and teach kids right from wrong. Monitor their activities. There’s more to having children than just giving birth.

Marva Lee Prinster • O’Fallon, Mo.

epublican Gov. Eric Greitens has made it clear: He won’t go quietly. Expect a publicity blitz designed to shore up the governor’s image and convince the public that he’s not the felonious adulterer described in Thursday’s indictment.

Missourians owe it to themselves to carefully examine Greitens’ political track record and question whether this is someone we want representing our state. The national headlines about his tawdry marital infidelity have cast the most embarrassing possible light on Missouri. It can only get worse as Greitens’ trial proceeds and the sordid details of his 2015 sexual affair with a hairdresser draw national derision.

Americans’ tolerance for abusive treatment of women has ended. Greitens has chosen to dig in by asserting that his indictment isn’t the result of his own wrongdoing but of a “misguided political decision” by a “reckless liberal prosecutor.”

He wants us to believe this is about politics, not about him abusing a woman he allegedly blindfolded and bound, and then photographed against her wishes while she was partially nude.

If Greitens won’t resign for the good of the state, then the Legislature should initiate impeachment proceedings to help him understand that his political career is over.

The Republican Governors Association already has accepted his resignation from its executive committee.

Far more of his actions merit the Legislature’s scrutiny. Attorney General Josh

Hawley is investigating potential Sunshine Law violations by Greitens and his senior staffers for using a phone app that instantly deletes text conversations. Greitens’ spokesman insists official communications were not deleted, but the public has no way of knowing since any evidence of it has been destroyed.

Did they also use the app to work out coverup strategies involving the 2015 affair? No one knows, but Greitens clearly went to great pains to hide his infidelity from voters as he cultivated the public persona of a dedicated husband and father.

Lawmakers also should examine cash transfers involving A New Missouri, the 501(c)(4) dark-money organization Greitens established to receive millions of dollars in donations from anonymous benefactors. Are those funds now helping cover his legal expenses?

Greitens has insisted he has no day-today involvement managing A New Missouri, whose offices are only a block away from the Governor’s Mansion. He visited the offices at least four times last year.

Greitens already has been cited by state election regulators for failing to report that his campaign used a donor list from a separate veterans-aid charity he founded.

Dark-money funds also have been used to attack Greitens’ Republican critics in the Legislature and the Democratic state auditor. This suspicious track record more than merits a full legislative inquiry.

The longer Greitens stays in office, the more disgrace he brings upon the state.

Someone of integrity would resign.

Coal ash conundrum Ameren Missouri goes dry in storing millions of tons of coal ash.

A

s the late Washington University ecologist Barry Commoner put it, “Everything must go somewhere.” That includes half a million tons of ash left over each year after Ameren Missouri burns up to 10 million tons of Wyoming coal at its Labadie plant.

For years, Ameren dumped the coal ash from its four St. Louis-area coal plants in slurry form into 14 ponds. Now, as the Post-Dispatch’s Bryce Gray reported Sunday, Ameren has begun changing over to the dry storage of coal ash in landfills near its plants, a process that will take five years to complete. This is a good thing and long overdue, though it leaves many questions unanswered. Among them: • Who will pay costs that could approach $500 million for going from wet to dry?

• Is draining the water and compacting the ash in the ponds, covering them with plastic tarps and two feet of clay, soil and grass really the safest long-term storage option? Coal ash is mostly inert material, much of which can be recycled as concrete aggregate, but it also contains small amounts of some very nasty elements, including arsenic, lead, hexavalent chromium (the dangerous culprit in the 2000 film “Erin Brockovich”) and even uranium. Leaving it where it could leach into groundwater or be inundated by floodwater is potentially harmful to human health.

• Why not dig it up, haul it out of flood zones and then rebury it? This is called “clean closure” and is what utility companies in South Carolina are doing under

pressure from the Southern Environmental Law Center.

In 2015, the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency finalized new regulations for the storage of coal ash, mandating among other things lined landfills at least five feet above the water table. The regulations were inspired by catastrophic coal ash leaks in Tennessee and North Carolina.

However, as it has done with many Obama-era regulations, the Trump administration’s EPA is rethinking the coal ash regulations.

Ameren is confident that its capped ponds and dry storage landfills will not cause problems with water supplies. The company has done tests that show no impact from coal ash in water supplies, said Ajay Arora, Ameren’s vice president of environmental services.

Arora claims that its cap-in-place plans would be four times cheaper than clean closure. He makes the same argument that the EPA has made for its proposal to only partially excavate radioactive waste from the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton: Full excavation and removal would create a new set of environmental problems.

As to the question of who pays, that one’s easy. Coal ash is one of the hidden costs of turning on the lights. Ameren will ask the Missouri Public Service Commission to allow it to pass the cleanup costs on to ratepayers. Like everything else, costs must go somewhere.

Inexpensive way to improve society, reduce shootings With the latest mass shooting, tempers are high and policy suggestions flying.

Russian election meddling was Obama’s fault I question the editorial “Democracy in doubt” (Feb. 22). The Russian meddling in our 2016 election occurred while Barack Obama was president. He, the FBI and the Justice Department were well aware of this, but as usual the paper blames Donald Trump.

Joseph Stephans • Chesterfield

Fight proposed cuts to foreign aid budget Just like last year, the White House has released a national budget proposal that drastically slashes foreign aid.

What does this money do? For starters, it ensures that millions of people get treatment for tuberculosis, which is currently the world’s biggest infectious killer. It helps babies get the medical care and nutrition they need to grow into healthy kids. It gives girls a chance to go to school.

Cutting these programs denies millions of people a future. This is not who we are. Congress knows it, which is why they fought back last year to stop the proposed cuts. They must do the same now.

Lopamudra Mohanty • St. Peters Read more letters online at STLtoday.com/letters

TOD ROBBERSON Editorial Page Editor • trobberson@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8382 KEVIN HORRIGAN Deputy Editorial Page Editor • khorrigan@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8135

I know that my retirement will make no difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty • JOSEPH PULITZER • APRIL 10, 1907 PLATFORM •

STLtoday.com/ThePlatform Find us at facebook/PDPlatform • Follow us on twitter @PDEditorial E-MAIL MAIL Letters to the editor St. Louis Post-Dispatch, letters@post-dispatch.com 900 N. Tucker Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63101 Letters should be 250 words or fewer. Please include your name, address and phone number.

All letters are subject to editing. Writers usually will not be published more than once every 60 days.

S E RV I N G T H E P U B L I C S I N C E 1 878 • W I N N E R O F 1 8 P U L I TZ E R P R I Z E S

TUESDAY • 02.27.2018 • $2.00

SCANDAL EXPANDS • HOUSE LEADERS LAUNCH INVESTIGATION • PROSECUTORS MAY SEEK MORE CHARGES • QUESTIONS CONTINUE OVER DONOR LIST

PHOTOS BY ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

LEFT • Missouri Republican state Reps. Shamed Dogan (left) and Marsha Haefner call for the resignation of Gov. Eric Greitens during a news conference Monday in the House lounge at the Missouri Capitol. RIGHT • House GOP leadership and Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, leave the House lounge Monday. Their news conference was about plans to investigate the indictment of Greitens. From left are Speaker Todd Richardson, Rep. Rob Vescovo, Rep. Elijah Haahr and Barnes.

IMPEACHMENT PROBE

OTHER CHARGES COMING?

DONOR LIST FACTORS IN

BY KURT ERICKSON St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY ROBERT PATRICK AND JOEL CURRIER St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY JACK SUNTRUP St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JEFFERSON CITY • In a historic decision, the Missouri House formally launched an investigation Monday that could lead to the impeachment and ouster of Gov. Eric Greitens.

House Speaker Todd Richardson named seven members to a special committee that will lead the unprecedented probe of a Missouri chief executive.

The hastily formed panel will be chaired by Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City.

“We have worked over the weekend and through today to formulate that committee. I’ve asked the committee to begin its work this week,” Richardson said.

The action by Richardson came just days after Greitens was charged by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner with felony invasion of privacy, stemming from an extramarital affair in 2015 to which he has admitted.

ST. LOUIS • St. Louis prosecutors said Monday their

investigation into Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens continues, and could include matters other than the allegation he invaded his former lover’s privacy by snapping a nude photo of her.

That news, delivered in a contentious hearing Monday in St. Louis Circuit Court, brought sharp complaints from Greitens’ legal team, who accused prosecutors of improperly using the grand jury to perform that investigation.

“Once you have an indictment, that’s it,” said Jack Garvey, a former judge and member of Greitens’ defense team. He said the news might prompt another motion from the defense team attacking the case.

The investigation began last month after allegations that Greitens took a picture of the woman nude or partially nude without her consent, then threatened to release it if she mentioned his name.

JEFFERSON CITY • An employee of Eric Greitens’ emailed a donor list from the Mission Continues charity to two of Greitens’ campaign staffers in early 2015, according to a copy of the email obtained by the Post-Dispatch.

The donor list in question has been the subject of off-and-on attention since October 2016, when The Associated Press first reported that the Greitens campaign may have possessed the list. The AP reported then that the charity sharing the list could have violated laws that bar 501(c)(3) organizations from taking sides in elections.

Greitens, in 2016, initially denied using the list, but in a later settlement with the Missouri Ethics Commission, he admitted that the campaign did. He has never said how his campaign came into possession of the list. Greitens founded the Mission Continues in 2007 and left in 2014 — around the same time the list

See HOUSE • Page A4

See PROSECUTOR • Page A4

See DONORS • Page A4

After Parkland shooting, Missouri lawmakers debate state’s gun laws

BY SKY CHADDE St. Louis Post-Dispatch

onds, Missouri House members stood in silence.

It was a day after the deaths of 17 students and teachers in Parkland, Fla., and the Feb. 15 remembrance was requested by Rep. Bruce Franks, D-St. Louis.

Before the House fell quiet, Franks had delivered a speech that sucked the air out of the room, announcing he had decided to stop carrying his firearm.

“It might not affect your

TODAY

A closer look

67°/49° INCREASING CLOUDS

TOMORROW

65°/46° SHOWERS LATE

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Mitchell Craig-Meyer (left), Christie Daly and Sue King (right) listen to hearings on gun legislation Monday in Jefferson City.

Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s highly unusual bid to bypass a federal appeals court and get the justices to intervene in the fate of a program that protects hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.

The announcement means the case affecting “Dreamers” will have to work its way through the lower courts before any Supreme Court ruling is possible.

The case could also become moot if Congress takes action in the meantime. Right now,

Standoff ends with suspect dead

Blues turn into sellers at trade deadline

• B1

Mizzou athletics operating in the red

1 M • B1

POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

2018 XC90 T5

INSCRIpTION Lease for 39 months,

$

299

WEST COUNTY VOLVO CARS 636-200-2822 • www.wcvolvo.com 14410 MANcHESTER ROAD MANcHESTER, MO 63011

per mo*

stk# 19225

MOMENTUM Lease for 39 months,

519 per mo*

Vol. 140, No. 58 ©2018

2018 XC60 AWD

7 pASSENgER Lease for 39 months,

$

See DACA • Page A5

• A10

Cards aiming to keep relievers fresh

2018 S60 T5

however, efforts to address the issue in Congress have hit a stalemate.

The Supreme Court’s decision for now to stay out of the case on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, wasn’t surprising. It’s highly unusual for the Supreme Court to hear a case before a lower appeals court has considered it.

But DACA supporters hailed the decision as a significant — if only temporary — win. Trump said the case would now be heard by an appeals court and “we’ll see what happens from there.”

• A3

Way cleared for downtown tower

SPORTS

WEATHER B10

BY JESSICA GRESKO Associated Press

WASHINGTON • The Supreme

JEFFERSON CITY • For 17 sec-

See GUNS • Page A5

Supreme Court declines to decide fate of ‘Dreamers’

$ stk# 19289

459 per mo*

stk# 19170

* Total due includes $2350 cap cost reduction, plus customer to pay first payment, tax, title, license and dealer administrative fee. Lease at 7,500 miles per year (additional miles are available).

Offer includes all Volvo incentives. S60 msrp $41175. Xc60 msrp $45515, Xc90 msrp $52395. No security deposit with approved credit. Financing though VcFS. Expires 2/28/18.

ALL TRADE-IN ACCEPTED

GREITENS INVESTIGATION

A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 1 • Tuesday • 02.27.2018

House launches impeachment probe WHO IS ON THE GREITENS IMPEACHMENT COMMITTEE? Five Republicans and two Democrats have been appointed to a special committee that will investigate whether Gov. Eric Greitens should be impeached. Here’s a look at the members:

Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, will chair the panel. Barnes is a lawyer in private practice. He previously worked as general counsel to Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons and as a policy counsel and speechwriter for Gov. Matt Blunt. Barnes led the bipartisan 2011 investigation into Mamtek, a failed $56 million economic development project in Moberly. Barnes also was a Washington correspondent for Newsmax. He has served in the Legislature since 2010.

Rep. Don Phillips, R-Kimberling City, will serve as assistant chairman. He is a former Missouri Highway Patrol sergeant who was elected in 2010. The St. Louis native also served as head basketball and baseball coach at Hollister High School.

Rep. Jeanie Lauer, R-Blue Springs, was first elected in 2010.

The former Blue Springs City Council member is founder and owner of a mediation and strategic planning company for businesses.

Rep. Kevin Austin, R-Springfield, was first elected in 2012.

He holds a law degree from the University of Missouri. He also has served on the Springfield Police and Fire Pension Fund Board and the Housing Authority of Springfield.

Rep. Shawn Rhodes, R-West Plains, was elected to his first two-year term in November 2012. Rhodes is a detective with the West Plains Police Department and is a member of the West Plains School Board.

Rep. Gina Mitten, D-Richmond Heights, is the ranking Democrat on the committee.

As assistant minority leader in the House, Mitten represents parts of St. Louis and St. Louis County. She is a former Richmond Heights City Council member. She graduated from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and received her law degree from Washington University. She was first elected to the House in November 2012.

HOUSE • FROM A1

Greitens, who was not governor at the time, allegedly photographed the partly nude woman and threatened to disseminate the photograph if she exposed their relationship.

Barnes said the committee’s work will be limited to looking at the alleged crime.

“Our focus is going to be on the underlying facts of the indictment and the circumstances surrounding them,” Barnes said.

Neither he nor Richardson would say whether that might include calling on the woman to testify at any hearing. She has not been identified since the story of the relationship broke in January.

“This committee’s task is going to investigate facts. We’re going to do so in a way that is fair, thorough and timely,” Barnes said. “And we’re going to do it without any preordained results, which means we are going to be asking questions of witnesses on both sides and hope to have a process with full involvement from everyone involved in this matter.”

In a later statement, he added that its mission is “to conduct a fair, thorough and timely investigation without predetermined results. Any reference to the work we have ahead of us as an ‘impeachment probe’ is factually inaccurate. The committee will investigate the facts. Any report that implies a conclusion before the investigation begins is factually inaccurate.”

The committee consists of Barnes and Republican Reps. Don Phillips of Kimberling City, Jeanie Lauer of Blue Springs, Kevin Austin of Springfield and Shawn Rhoads of West Plains.

CRISTINA M. FLETES • cfletes@post-dispatch.com

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens addresses reporters in September. The governor did not respond Monday to news of a House investigation that could lead to his impeachment.

Democratic representatives are Gina Mitten of Richmond Heights and Tommie Pierson Jr. of St. Louis.

Greitens, a political newcomer who won the 2016 general election with 51 percent of the vote over former Attorney General Chris Koster, has hired a private law firm to handle his case in court, as well as a public relations company to help burnish an image that was once being groomed for a run for president.

Greitens did not immediately respond to the news of the House investigation. He spent part of Monday in Malden, a town in southeastern Missouri that was hit by a tornado Saturday.

Defense, prosecution snipe at each other as tentative trial date is set PROSECUTOR • FROM A1

Greitens has denied blackmailing the woman. His lawyer has denied that a photo was taken. Greitens subsequently has refused to answer questions about it.

The scandal has prompted calls for Greitens’ resignation, as well as an investigation by legislators.

Monday’s undocketed hearing was peppered with sniping between Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and her first assistant, Robert Steele, and three lawyers for Greitens. Members of the defense team want any evidence in the case as soon as possible so they can start deposing witnesses.

Garvey said Greitens’ team also wants a speedy trial, in front of a jury, and asked for a trial date by the end of April.

Steele suggested prosecutors couldn’t be ready before August or September at the earliest.

To which Garvey, replied, “AugustSeptember? That’s criminal!”

Steele said prosecutors were forced to indict Greitens because the three-year statute of limitations was about to run out. The alleged crime was in March 2015.

Circuit Judge Rex Burlison asked Steele if any subsequent investigation would be charged in the existing case against Greitens, or as a new case.

Steele responded that some would and some would not; he said prosecutors would not be ready in a month.

“You need to be ready to try your case,” responded lawyer Ed Dowd.

Steele blamed the delay on the fact that revelations of the governor’s affair with his former hairdresser didn’t become public until recently.

Steele asked several times for time to check with staff, including investigators, before agreeing to a trial date.

Gardner then told the judge she thought the hearing would be a discussion about turning over evidence in the case, not setting a trial date.

“This to me feels like ambush,” she

said.

Gardner said her office could not be ready for trial by May and would not agree to a date that soon.

“It can’t be done like this,” said Garvey, who said that a defendant has the right to go to trial in 90 days, and prosecutors have 10 days after an indictment to turn over evidence.

Steele promised Greitens’ lawyers they would get discovery within 10 days.

After more back and forth, Burlison set a tentative trial date of May 14, and told lawyers on both sides to get together to work out their disagreements.

The judge said he didn’t want lawyers in front of him repeatedly arguing about depositions and discovery.

At the end of the hearing, Garvey asked for any discovery that was immediately available.

Gardner replied, “Like I said, we’ll get together as soon as possible. It won’t be long.” She declined to comment after the hearing.

In a defense motion to dismiss the case, purportedly filed Thursday, Greitens’ lawyers don’t deny the existence of the picture but say the woman had no expectation of privacy, as required by the invasion of privacy law, during a consensual sexual encounter. The law, they said, was aimed at voyeurs and peeping Toms victimizing people in tanning salons, bathrooms and other similar places. That document has not yet appeared on the case docket.

Greitens called the indictment a “misguided political decision” by a “reckless liberal prosecutor” in a statement after he was processed and released Thursday in St. Louis Circuit Court.

Gardner will not let “these personal attacks ... distract her from her duty,” her office has said in a statement.

Gardner is a Democrat; Greitens is a Republican.

Robert Patrick • 314-621-5154 @rxpatrick on Twitter RPatrick@post-dispatch.com

“This is a resilient community. In the face of serious danger and damage, the faith, strength, and spirit of the community is unbroken,” he said in a statement.

Greitens has consistently said he will not resign over the allegations, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers from continuing to call for him to step down.

“This is a huge distraction,” said Rep. Marsha Haefner, R-Oakville.

Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Ballwin, said Greitens’ changing explanation of the affair and his attack on Gardner was “sickening” to him.

Richardson said the investigation will not bring work in the chamber to a halt.

Rep. Tom Pierson Jr., D-St. Louis, was elected to his first two-year term in November 2016. In addition to his legislative duties, Pierson is a math teacher in north St. Louis County and the pastor of inStep Church.

He is the son of former Missouri state Rep. Tommie Pierson.

“That is not going to deter us or limit our ability to move forward on the priorities that the people of Missouri sent us here to do,” Richardson said.

The action in the House drew opposition from some fellow Republicans.

Sen. Dan Brown, a Rolla veterinarian who heads the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, said lawmakers should not be in a rush to judgment.

“In this country, our leaders are chosen by the people every four years at free and fair elections,” Brown said. “This is the very foundation of our democracy and only in the most extreme cases, based on the most reliable facts, should anyone ever second-guess the will of the voters.”

But U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, said she has “complete confidence” in Richardson to oversee the investigation.

“I have said from the very beginning how serious the allegations are. I think the indictment is a very, very serious matter.

I called for a full investigation and that process is still playing out. The governor is entitled to his due process and day in court like any citizen is. However, elected officials and those in the position of public trust, I think, are held to a higher standard,” Wagner said.

Wagner said she is not calling on Greitens to resign. “That is up to the governor, and up to the investigators and the law enforcement who are looking into the matter and ultimately perhaps to the General Assembly,” Wagner said.

Chuck Raasch of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

Kurt Erickson • 573-556-6181 @KurtEricksonPD on Twitter kerickson@post-dispatch.com

Email shows how Greitens staffers used charity list to ask for money DONORS • FROM A1

was created, according to the AP. Krystal Taylor, whose LinkedIn profile said she was a vice president at the Greitens Group at the time, sent the list to campaign staffers Michael Hafner and Danny Laub on Jan. 6, 2015, according to the email. According to her profile, Taylor had worked at the Mission Continues until May 2014, the same month the list was created.

Laub and Hafner were two of the Greitens campaign’s earliest paid staffers.

Hafner eventually left the campaign to work for one of Greitens’ rivals in the GOP primary, businessman John Brunner.

Taylor and Laub did not respond to requests for comment on Monday. Hafner declined to speak about the email.

The disclosure comes as Greitens defends himself against felony invasion of privacy charges stemming from a nonconsensual photograph he allegedly snapped of his lover in 2015.

Lawmakers have said that St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has expanded her investigation of the governor — and that issues related to the donor list may be on her radar.

In October 2016, Greitens’ opponent, then-Attorney General Chris Koster, raised legal questions about the list’s use.

“If there has been coordination between the Mission Continues and the Greitens campaign that would be troubling,” Koster said then.

But in the AP report, Greitens denied using the donor list to solicit donations.

The candidate did acknowledge that he made calls to his old contacts.

“No, we were not working off of a Mission Continues donor list,” Greitens said at the time. “We were calling people who had become friends and gotten to know me over the course of seven years, who invested in the Mission Continues, and got to know me as a leader.”

Laura L’Esperance told the AP in October 2016 that the charity did not share

its list with the campaign. L’Esperance did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

While Greitens initially denied that his campaign used the list, he signed a settlement agreement with the Missouri Ethics Commission in April 2017 stating that the campaign did receive the list and did not report its receipt on financial disclosure forms.

The MEC does not have the authority to prosecute politicians criminally.

In an interview, James Klahr, the agency’s executive director, declined to talk about his team’s investigation. In response to a Sunshine request, he also said his office did not possess any subpoenas or other investigative requests from authorities. Klahr did say that other investigative entities could probe the case if they saw fit.

“Nothing about our process would preclude, right, some other entity from considering the same,” Klahr said.

As part of the MEC settlement agreement, the campaign revised its filings to show that Laub donated the list, valued at $600, on March 1, 2015, as an in-kind contribution.

But it remained unclear how Laub obtained the list.

The Post-Dispatch asked former Greitens campaign manager Austin Chambers how Laub obtained the email list, when the list was first used by the Greitens campaign and whether the list poses any legal problems to Greitens.

The newspaper also asked why the campaign reported that the donation took place on March 1, when evidence the newspaper obtained suggested the campaign possessed the list before then.

The newspaper also asked Chambers if he had been contacted by any authorities related to Greitens. That was the only question Chambers responded to.

“No, I have not been contacted by any authorities,” he said in an email on Monday.

Jack Suntrup • 573-556-6184 @JackSuntrup on Twitter jsuntrup@post-dispatch.com

S E RV I N G T H E P U B L I C S I N C E 1 878 • W I N N E R O F 1 8 P U L I TZ E R P R I Z E S

THURSDAY • 04.12.2018 • $2.00

WOMAN TESTIFIES THAT GREITENS GROPED AND STRUCK HER

‘BEYOND DISTURBING’ “This was a private mistake that has nothing to do with governing. The people driving this story are part of an absurd political witch hunt.”

“And I instantly just started bawling and was just like, ‘What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?’ And I just laid there crying while he was just like ... ‘You’re fine, you’re fine.’ ”

— Gov. Eric Greitens

— Woman’s testimony

REACTION Josh Hawley, other state politicians call for governor to resign. A6

BY JACK SUNTRUP, KURT ERICKSON AND KEVIN McDERMOTT St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JEFFERSON CITY • During sev-

TESTIMONY Highlights of woman’s sworn testimony to lawmakers. A7 MESSENGER Report details the actions of a predator.

A8 EDITORIAL Amid credible stories of abuse, Greitens cannot continue to govern. A16

> Read the entire 300-page report at stltoday.com

J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

Gov. Eric Greitens speaks Wednesday at a news conference about a report that was about to come out concerning his affair in 2015. Greitens called the investigation a “witch hunt.”

Trump signs bill by Wagner, McCaskill to fight sex trafficking

Ryan is bowing out; move doubles down on GOP uncertainty

ASSOCIATED PRESS

eral sexual encounters with his hair stylist the year before he was elected Missouri’s governor, Eric Greitens struck her in the face, touched her crotch without her consent and called her a “whore,” the woman told a Missouri House committee, according to newly released documents.

The claims add disturbing new layers to the single criminal allegation Greitens faces — a felony invasion-of-privacy charge, for allegedly taking and transmitting a semi-nude photo of her without her consent.

In sworn testimony made March 7, the woman stood by that allegation, as presented in the House report released Wednesday afternoon.

She also painted a broader picture of Greitens as a controlling, jealous lover for whom violence or the threat of it was an integral part of the affair.

Minutes before the report was issued, Greitens denounced the investigation as a “political witch hunt,” using the term five times in about eight minutes. He referred to “lies and falsehoods,” though he didn’t specify which parts of the report he claims are false.

Later, House Speaker Todd Richardson, like Greitens a Republican, said he would seek a special session

See GOVERNOR • Page A6

Trump threatens missiles, hours before agreement on Syria

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Donald Trump speaks Wednesday in the Oval Office before signing a bill aimed at curbing sex trafficking. He’s joined by lawmakers and victims.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., tells reporters Wednesday that he won’t run for re-election, amid concerns over keeping a GOP majority in the House.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis speaks about military action in Syria in a meeting with Dutch defense minister Ank Bijleveld at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

BY CHUCK RAASCH • St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY LISA MASCARO • Associated Press

BY KEVIN LIPTAK AND KAITLAN COLLINS • CNN

WASHINGTON • In a tearful Oval Office ceremony, President Donald Trump signed on Wednesday landmark legislation pushed by two Missouri politicians aimed at curbing online sex trafficking — but not without a tinge of election-year drama.

The bipartisan Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act was sponsored in the House by Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, but was also made possible by investigating and legislating work

by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Wagner was the prominent face at the signing ceremony, but McCaskill, who faces a tough re-election challenge this year, was not invited. The snub of McCaskill raised criticism from a Republican senator who worked with McCaskill on an investigation of the website Backpage that helped lead to the legislation.

Backpage, which was the most prominent but not the only site targeted by this legislation, has been shut down by the Justice Department, and seven executives of the site were indicted earlier this week in Phoenix on federal money laundering and conspiracy to facilitate prostitution charges.

At the signing, Trump was surrounded by Wagner

WASHINGTON • House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Wednesday that he will retire rather than seek another term in Congress as the steady if reluctant wingman for President Donald Trump, sending ripples through a Washington already on edge and spreading new uncertainty through a party bracing for a rough election year.

Ryan, R-Wis., cast the decision to end his 20-year career in the House as a personal one, saying he did not want his children growing up with a “weekend dad.” Claiming he has accomplished “a heckuva lot,” he said the party could point to strong gains as lawmakers campaign ahead of November elections. A self-styled budget expert, Ryan had made tax cuts a centerpiece of his legislative agenda, and a personal cause, and Congress delivered on that late last year.

“I have given this job everything I have,” he said.

“We’re going to have a great record to run on.”

But Ryan’s impending departure also sets off a scramble among his lieutenants to take the helm. And it will fuel speculation that Ryan is eyeing a coming Democratic surge, fueled by opposition to Trump, that could wrest control of the House from Republicans’ grip. Several GOP veterans have announced

President Donald Trump’s declaration Wednesday morning that “nice and new and ‘smart’” missiles would soon be fired toward Syria caught most of his aides off guard and came before an agreement had been reached between key U.S. allies, multiple American and Western officials said on Wednesday.

That Trump would surprise staffers and allies with a morning tweet is not new; he regularly sets his own tone for the day on Twitter based on cable television and his own mood. But Wednesday’s messages were unique in their telegraphing of upcoming U.S. military action, something Trump vowed he would never do as president.

A final decision on how to respond to the weekend’s chemical attack in Syria had not yet been made when Trump issued his tweet, the White House said later on Wednesday.

“We’re maintaining that we have a number of options and all those options are still on the table. Final decisions haven’t been made yet,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “The president has a number of options at his disposal, and all of those options remain on the table.”

Top military officials were at the White House on

See TRAFFICKING • Page A12

See RYAN • Page A12

See SYRIA • Page A12

MOSTLY SUNNY

CARDS DISAPPOINT ON FACEBOOK

TOMORROW

SPORTS

TODAY

On report

55°/80° 61°/77°

County may chip in more for zoo

• A2

New director for Shakespeare fest

• A5

STORMS LIKELY

Pat Gauen: DNA tests can be iffy

WEATHER B8

Jake Allen reflects on Blues’ season POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

• A4

1 M • B1

Vol. 140, No. 102 ©2018

GREITENS REPORT

A6 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 2 • Thursday • 04.12.2018

Calls for impeachment, resignation REACTIONS Reactions to the Missouri House committee report on Gov. Eric Greitens: “The House Investigative Committee’s Report contains shocking, substantial, and corroborated evidence of wrongdoing

by Gov. Greitens. The conduct the Report details is certainly impeachable, in my judgment, and the House is well within its rights to proceed on that front. But the people of Missouri should not be put through that ordeal. Gov. Greitens should resign immediately.”

— Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley

“The report issued today concerning Gov. Greitens and his behavior surpasses disturbing. It is disgusting. This is not behavior befit for a leader in Missouri or anywhere else for that matter. Although he is certainly due his day in court, these reports further call into question his character as an individual, regardless of whether a law has been broken or not. I appreciate the continued deliberate steps taken by the Missouri General Assembly to address this matter.

“Violence against women is always wrong. Dishonesty and betrayal are always wrong. I am deeply disturbed by the revelations today and urge Gov. Eric Greitens to do what is in the best interest of the people of Missouri and resign.”

— Rep. Jean Evans, R-Manchester

“For the good of the state, Eric Greitens must immediately resign. If he doesn’t, it will be the duty of the House of Representatives to restore integrity to the executive branch of state government.”

— House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, D-Kansas City.

“Based on the shocking and unsettling events detailed in this report, we have no faith in Eric Greitens’ ability to effectively govern.

He must resign immediately. If he refuses to do the right thing, the Missouri House of Representatives should move forward with the impeachment process.”

— House Minority Leader Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors.

“Governor Greitens has brought shame on Missouri — not only with his serious sexual misconduct but also in his efforts to turn the resulting investigation into a circus and attack the victim. He refuses to take responsibility, so we must hold him accountable. As I did on day one back in January, I’m calling for the governor to resign. If he doesn’t, the House should impeach him.”

— Rep. Lauren Arthur, D-Kansas City.

“As he campaigned for governor, Eric Greitens decried corruption in our state Capitol and pledged to be the cleansing agent against that corruption, all the while upholding honor, dignity and clean government.

This included a debate lecture to me about a time, decades earlier, when I’d failed to live up to that standard.

When he won the primary and general elections, and then as he took office, we Republicans hoped for the best.

“Those hopes have been dashed into bitter disappointment. Because of his actions, and for no other reason, his capacity for the leadership our state needs has drained away. “… Accordingly, and with great sadness, I ask that Gov. Greitens resign his office or, failing that, I call on my friends in the House of Representatives to commence impeachment as provided in the Constitution.”

— Peter Kinder, former Lt. Gov of Missouri

“Upon reviewing the report from the Special Committee on Oversight, I believe that out of respect for the people of Missouri and the well- being of his family, the governor should resign immediately. We are in the last five weeks of the legislative session and legislators’ time would be better spent on the work of the people instead of his endless scandal which has a cost to taxpayers in both time and money. If the governor does not resign immediately then the House of Representatives should take the appropriate steps to restore dignity to the Office of the Governor.”

— Rep. Doug Beck, D-Affton

“After a criminal indictment followed shocking allegations of misconduct, I called on Eric Greitens to resign as governor because I believed he no longer had the moral authority to lead and could no longer effectively perform the duties of his office.

“Based on the facts presented today by the House special investigative committee, I reiterate my call for the governor to resign immediately. His troubling conduct is an insult not only to my moral values, but also to the values of millions of Missourians.

“Should the governor fail to resign immediately, for the good of our state and our principles, I believe the Missouri House should move swiftly toward impeachment.”

— Rep. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia — Staff reports

GOVERNOR • FROM A1

of the Legislature to consider action against the governor — action that may include impeachment.

“The testimony outlined in the report is beyond disturbing,” Richardson said. “The power given to the Missouri General Assembly to take disciplinary action or to remove elected officials from office is one of the most serious and consequential powers the Constitution grants the Legislature.”

He said the committee would not seek to start impeachment proceedings during the current legislative session, which ends May 18.

Attorney General Josh Hawley, another Republican who is conducting a separate investigation of the veterans’ charity Greitens founded, called on the governor to resign.

“The House Investigative Committee’s Report contains shocking, substantial, and corroborated evidence of wrongdoing by Governor Greitens,” Hawley said in a statement.

“The conduct the Report details is certainly impeachable, in my judgment, and the House is well within its rights to proceed on that front. But the people of Missouri should not be put through that ordeal. Governor Greitens should resign immediately.”

During one encounter in the summer of 2015, the woman testified to the House committee, Greitens struck her and shoved her to the ground as they became intimate in his Central West End home.

“And I instantly just started bawling and was just like, ‘What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?’ ” she told the committee. “And I just laid there crying while he was just like ... ‘You’re fine, you’re fine.’ ” During another encounter, she alleges, he physically restrained her from leaving his home in the Central West End and insisted she give him oral sex, even though she was crying.

Those were among multiple new allegations contained in a 24-page report by the Special Investigative Committee on Oversight, which the Missouri House voted unanimously to form on March 1 after a St. Louis grand jury handed up the felony invasion-of-privacy charge against Greitens.

The invasion-of-privacy criminal charge, which is a separate process, followed the revelation in the media in January that Greitens had engaged in an extramarital affair in 2015.

Greitens at that time admitted to the affair but denied allegations that he took a nonconsensual photograph of the woman and threatened to release it if she ever spoke of their affair.

While she was bound and blindfolded during that encounter, she told the committee, Greitens ripped open the T-shirt he’d had her put on and pulled down her pants. She said she then heard noise of a cellphone, “like a picture, and I can see the flash through the blindfold.” “(H)e says, ‘You’re not going to mention my name,’ ” she said. “ ‘Don’t even mention my name to anybody at all, because if you do, I’m going to take these pictures, and I’m going to put them everywhere, and then everyone will know what a little whore you are.’ ” Among other allegations in the woman’s testimony: • When she first came to Greitens’ home, the former Navy SEAL “shushed” her, went through her purse and patted her down, “I guess to see if I was wearing a wire. ... I’m like, oh my gosh, I guess this is a Navy SEAL thing.”

• After snapping the photo, threatening her with exposure and calling her a whore, Greitens “came up close to me and said ‘Are you going to say anything? Are you going to mention my name?’ ... I just didn’t answer at all, and then he spanked me and said, ‘Are you going to mention my name?’

And I ... just gritted through my teeth and said, ‘no.’ ” • After the incident with the photo, she said, she tried to leave the basement, “bawling my eyes out.” Greitens pulled her to the floor in what she described as a “bear hug,” trying to calm her down but also continuing to fondle her. “He starts undoing his pants, and he takes his penis out and puts it, like, near where my face is. ... (H)e’s not going to let me leave, because he’s obviously still horny.

So I gave him oral sex at this point.”

• During a later sexual encoun-

PHOTOS BY J.B. FORBES • jpforbes@post-dispatch.com

Democrats (top) and Republicans (above) speak at news conferences on Wednesday after a special committee investigating Gov. Eric Greitens’ affair released a report.

MISSOURI’S IMPEACHMENT PROCESS With Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, refusing to resign after Wednesday’s explosive report, calls for his impeachment intensified among some legislators.

Article VII Section I of the Missouri Constitution states that officeholders are subject to impeachment for “crimes, misconduct, habitual drunkenness, willful neglect of duty, corruption in office, incompetency, or any offense involving moral turpitude or oppression in office.”

House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, D-Kansas City, said that even if Greitens was ultimately acquitted on an invasion of privacy charge in St. Louis, the state Constitution allows the Legislature to examine impeachment.

“It clearly allows us to look at this,” she told reporters. “We are looking at his integrity. We are looking at moral turpitude.”

House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, announced that the Special Investigative Committee on Oversight had expanded its mission to consider recommending “any and all” disciplinary action against Greitens. He said the committee said it would not complete its work by the Legislature’s mandatory May 18 adjournment.

He said House and Senate leadership would “begin the process of calling a special session so that the Legislature has the opportunity to consider any recommendations of the committee.” Leaders would need the signatures of three-fourths of the members in each chamber to call themselves back for a special session.

Articles of impeachment would need to be introduced and voted out of the House committee before heading to the House floor. The articles of impeachment would need 82 votes in the 163-member House to advance to the Senate. The Senate would then select a panel of seven judges to try the case. Five of the seven judges would need to agree to remove Greitens from office for him to be ousted.

— Jack Suntrup

ter in Greitens’ bedroom, he asked her if she had slept with anyone in the time since they’d started seeing each other. “I said, ‘Well, I slept with my husband’ ... and he slapped me across the face ... (and) said, ‘What do you mean you slept with your husband? You are not supposed to be sleeping with him.’ “ She said the openhanded slap was hard enough that it “swung my face.”

When the woman confessed to her husband about the affair, his immediate reaction, she said, was, “I’m going to get this guy one day. I’m going to get him.” Two years later, it was the husband, by then divorced from her, who would bring the allegations to light by leaking to the media an audio tape in which she talks about the affair.

Greitens, who took no questions from reporters in his response to the report Wednesday, called the affair at the center of the allegations “a personal mistake.”

“This was a private mistake that has nothing to do with governing,” he said. “The people driving this story are part of an absurd political witch hunt.”

“The people of Missouri see through this,” he said. “And they know better than to trust one-sided tabloid trash gossip that was produced in a secret report.”

THE REPORT AND REACTION Lt. Gov. Mike Parson, who would become governor if Greitens leaves office before his term ends, issued a statement calling for unity.

“With the recent events that have distracted our great state, I want to say with all sincerity that it is time to unite and put aside our differences,” said Parson, also a Republican. He added: “My heart goes out to the families involved.”

Meanwhile, Democratic members of the House committee investigating Greitens said they would continue their work despite the governor’s attacks.

“Our committee remains dedicated to its task and will not be deterred by Eric Greitens’ baseless attacks on our witnesses, our integrity or our

common sense,” the statement reads. “We remain sympathetic to the victim and the governor’s family for what they are being forced to endure as a result of the governor’s actions and choices.”

Greitens has governed under a cloud since the revelation in January of the affair, with several members of his own party calling for him to resign.

The revelations also attracted attention to other matters that Greitens may have to address, including potentially illegal use of assets from his former charity, The Mission Continues, and his use of untraceable political donations to further his career.

Transcripts of the committee’s discussions indicate that members are continuing to investigate those issues and will release more about them in a later report.

The report hides the name of the woman with whom Greitens had the affair, who is designated “Witness 1.” The PostDispatch hasn’t publicly named her because she may be the victim of a sexually related crime and hasn’t agreed to be interviewed.

Notably, the committee members — who would be among those determining Greitens’ political future should he face impeachment — conclude in the report that the woman is a “credible witness.” The report also concludes that her account is corroborated by three other witnesses before the committee: her ex-husband and two friends to whom she talked about her encounters with Greitens.

Greitens was invited to testify before the committee. His legal team told the committee that the governor would not testify “at this point in time.”

“The Committee notes that Greitens has the constitutional right to so decline,” the report states. “To the extent this report does not include Greitens’ perspective, that is the result of his choice not to participate.”

Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, said the committee findings were “embarrassing.”

“If he doesn’t step down, the impeachment process should start immediately,” she said.

Sen. Jill Schupp, D-Creve

Coeur, said that “on a personal level, I continue to be disappointed in the governor,” she said. “And it goes beyond disappointment. This is not a man worthy of the job of governor of this state.”

After the report’s release, multiple rank-and-file Republican lawmakers declined to comment, while a few others repeated earlier calls for his resignation or impeachment. Republicans hold vast majorities in both chambers, and Greitens cannot be impeached without many Republican votes to do so.

House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, D-Kansas City, said lawmakers should move quickly to oust the governor.

“It is clear to me that this governor must resign and if he fails to do so, I believe we should begin impeachment proceedings,” McCann Beatty said.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., joined the calls for resignation. “It is clearly time to put the interests of the people of Missouri first,” she said in a written statement. “The governor should resign.”

Her fellow Missouri U.S. senator, Republican Roy Blunt, took a less strident stance.

“The allegations in the report are very concerning,” he said in an emailed statement late Wednesday. “As I said previously, both the legislative and legal processes that are underway are appropriate and should continue moving forward.”

‘THIS PERFECT GUY’ The woman’s account of her monthslong, tumultuous affair with Greitens includes both salacious and pedestrian details of what started as mild flirtation between a hairdresser and her already quasi-famous client.

The woman testified that she met Greitens in 2013, when he was already a bestselling author and the subject of speculation about a future political career.

“We got to know each other pretty well, and I thought he was great,” she told the committee. “I thought he was this perfect guy.”

Upon his first appointment after a long absence, she said, “I was super nervous because he was one of — you know, really, my only client that I had somewhat of a crush on.”

During that appointment, on March 7, 2015, the woman said, Greitens moved his hand up her leg while they were talking.

“At first I just ignored it ... and then he, like, moved his hand all the way up to my crotch, at which point I stepped back and was like, ‘What are you doing?’ ” She testified that she continued communicating with him after that because she was separated from her husband, wasn’t sure of the state of his marriage and was “at least curious” about the possibility of a relationship. She suggested meeting publicly for coffee, but he responded that “I cannot be seen in public with you. I’m running for office. People are going to be out to get me, they cannot see me with you,” according to the report.

The woman went to Greitens’ Central West End home, through the back door, on the morning of March 21. That is when Greitens shushed her, patted her down and searched her purse, she said.

She said she wanted to talk about their relationship, but Greitens said the two “don’t have a whole lot of time,” she said, recalling Greitens’ statements. “Have you exercised today?”

“It was like he was on a mission, sort of,” she told the committee. She went ahead and agreed to a workout. She said she walked into a bathroom and changed into clothes Greitens had laid out — a white T-shirt with a slit at the top, and pajama pants. He said he would show her how to do a “proper pull-up.”

“I thought this was going to be some sort of, like, sexy workout,” she said.

She told the committee he taped her hands to pull-up rings with “this gauzed tape stuff” and blindfolded her. “[H]e kind of had this controlling sort of — again, it was almost as if he had a — like we were on a movie set. ... [H]e was in a controlled state, which at this point was intriguing to me.”

She then said he spit water into her mouth, “at which point I realized he’s trying to kiss me, but I don’t even want to kiss him ... So I just spit it out.”

Robert Patrick and Sky Chadde of the PostDispatch contributed to this story.

04.12.2018 • Thursday • M 1 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A7 GREITENS REPORT

WOMAN’S TESTIMONY Here are highlights of the sworn testimony given by the woman who had an affair with Gov. Eric Greitens in 2015, before he became governor. She spoke to a Missouri House committee investigating the governor’s actions during the affair.

BY CELESTE BOTT • St. Louis Post-Dispatch

PHOTOS BY J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

Gov. Eric Greitens spoke at a news conference on Wednesday about a report that was about to come out concerning his affair in 2015. Greitens called the investigation a “witch hunt.”

THINGS FIRST BECAME PHYSICAL AT A HAIR APPOINTMENT Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens became a regular client of the woman, a hair stylist, in 2013, and she said she developed a crush on him.

During a hair appointment in March 2015, the woman alleges that Greitens touched her without her consent.

He told her that she was “glowing” and that she looked beautiful while she was working on his hair, she said. At one point, he moved his hand “all the way up to [her] crotch,” she told the committee.

GREITENS NOTED RISK OF AN AFFAIR ON HIS POLITICAL FUTURE When he first invited her to his home, she wasn’t comfortable with the idea, the woman said. She asked to meet in a coffee shop instead, but Greitens said no.

“I cannot be seen in public with you,” she says he told her. “I’m running for office. People are going to be out to get me, they cannot see me with you.”

Instead, he insisted they meet at his house where she could “come in through the back door, nobody will see you, we can talk, you can get back to work, it’ll be fine,” she testified.

When she entered Greitens’ home, he took her purse and keys, removed all items from her purse and searched it, patted her down from head to toe, and then went back outside to check if anyone had seen her enter the home, she testified — “I guess to see if I was wearing a wire.”

GREITENS HAD CLOTHES, TAPE AND A BLINDFOLD READY “Have you exercised today?”

That’s what the woman said Greitens asked her once she’d entered his home. “[H]e said, ‘Well, okay, I have this idea. And I thought about you so much, and I have this idea, and it’s to make you feel good. I feel like you haven’t been treated good in so long.’ ” The woman said Greitens led her to his basement, where he said he would show her “how to do a proper pull-up.”

He had clothes ready for her to change into, she told the committee: “a man’s white T-shirt that he had cut a slit at the top, and the pants were men’s pajama pants,” she testified.

“And at this point I thought we hadn’t worked out together ever, so I thought, Oh, maybe it’ll be some sort of — I don’t know — sexy workout,” she said.

When she entered the basement, she said, Greitens taped her hands to pull-up rings with “this gauzed tape stuff” and blindfolded her, according to the committee report.

She didn’t want to do “anything physical” with him, she said.

“He definitely knew — I know I had made it clear I had not cheated on my husband before and that, you know, I didn’t want to do anything physical with him.

So I think I was just confused, kind of shocked.”

BUT THEN THE ENCOUNTER TURNED SEXUAL Greitens tried to spit water into her mouth, she testified.

“And then he said, ‘First, before we start a workout, you have to be hydrated’ and puts water in his mouth and tries to spit it in my mouth, at which point I realized he’s trying to kiss me, but I don’t even want to kiss him. So I just spit it out. He does it and he’s like, ‘You’re not going to be a bad girl, are you?’ Tries to do it again, to which I just let it dribble out, because I didn’t even want to kiss him,” she testified.

She alleged that Greitens then began kissing down her neck and chest, before ripping open her shirt, exposing her. He then kissed down her abdomen and began to pull off her pants, she said.

She told the committee she did not consent to her shirt or pants’ being removed.

Greitens also penetrated her genitals with his fingers, she said. Asked if she had consented to that, she said, “Not verbally, no.”

SHE BELIEVES A PICTURE WAS TAKEN, BUT HAS NEVER SEEN IT After Greitens pulled down her pants, the woman testified: “[T]hen I hear him kind of, like, step back — take a step back and I hear — I can hear like a, like a cellphone — like a picture, and I can see a flash through

the blindfold.”

The woman said she felt that “her privacy was invaded.” But she said she never saw an actual picture and did not recall when she first saw Greitens’ phone.

Greitens then threatened to release the pictures if she mentioned his name to anyone, she alleged.

“They are going to be everywhere, and then everyone will know what a little whore you are,” she recalled his saying.

Afterward, he came close to her and asked if she would say anything, she said.

“This is the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me. So I just didn’t answer at all, and then he spanked me and said, ‘Are you going to mention my name?’ And I said, I just gritted through my teeth and I said, ‘No.’ ” She did not consent to being spanked, she told the committee.

BLURRY LINES OF CONSENT After the picture was allegedly taken and Greitens began kissing down her abdomen, the woman told committee members, she began fighting against her bound hands, telling Greitens, “I don’t want this.”

She said Greitens then removed the tape, hugged her as she turned to leave, and laid her on the ground as she was “bawling her eyes out.”

The woman alleged Greitens then pulled his penis out of his pants and put it about six inches from her face, and she performed oral sex on him.

A member of the committee asked her if felt she had consented to the oral sex.

“It’s a hard question because I did it — it felt like consent, but, no, I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “Coerced, maybe. I felt as though that would allow me to leave.”

One committee member asked if she felt her firm “no” after she alleges the photo was taken — when she said Greitens untied her hands and tried to calm her down — extended to additional contact, and she said yes, adding that she had felt afraid.

She later returned to Greitens’ home about 4 p.m. because she had forgotten her keys, she said. There, they had a conversation about the alleged photograph, she said, and Greitens swore he had erased the picture.

“And he said, ‘I know ... but you have to understand, I’m running for office, and people will get me, and I have to have some sort of thing to protect myself. And I thought about you, though, and I felt bad, so I erased it.’”

THE WOMAN HAD CONSENSUAL ENCOUNTERS WITH GREITENS LATER THAT SPRING In May, on an unspecified date, the woman said, Greitens approached at her salon and invited her to his house that evening. She agreed to meet him about 6:30 p.m., and when they did, they had consensual oral sex, she said.

Asked why she would continue seeing him after the first encounter went awry, the woman said that she “didn’t want to think that he thought of me as just a whore.”

“I wanted to think that he actually really liked me and wanted to have a relationship with me of sorts,” she told the committee.

“I think it comes down to a few things. One, I felt really disgusted with myself that I allowed that first time to happen. Really embarrassed that he thought of me as a whore. And so after I told my husband and he was clear that he did not want anything to do with me, that he wanted to move into an apartment, and when Eric came back in and he was normal and so kind to me, that felt so much better and it allowed me to just ignore any of those bad feelings about myself, in particular. Because if I thought he was this horrible person, I really felt shameful of myself.”

But, she said, “He basically made it clear that he felt I was a thing to him.”

GREITENS WAS PHYSICALLY ABUSIVE TO HER ON TWO OCCASIONS, SHE ALLEGES In June 2015, exact date unknown, the woman, said she went to Greitens’ house about 10 p.m. They were kissing in the spare bedroom, she told the committee, when he suddenly asked her if she had been intimate with anyone else.

“And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Well, since you and I started,’ because he knew that I had been separated from my husband. And I said, ‘Well, I slept with my husband,’ because I know at some point I had. And he slapped me across my face, just like hard to where I was like, ‘What? Eric, what in the heck? You’re married. Why would — what do you

mean?’ And he just said, ‘No. Like, that was – you’re mine.’ ” “It wasn’t sweet and gentle, it was forceful,” she said of the slap.

The following week, the woman said, she spoke with Greitens several times on a burner phone he had purchased. One morning, Greitens invited her to his home to work out. She described the following encounter to the committee: “[W]e did exercise and went through, like, a workout, and then at the end of it, then it turned sexual in nature. And at first it was fine, and then we were in a position that would have been as if we were having sex, like doggy style, but we didn’t ever have intercourse throughout all of the times that I saw him. So he was essentially, like fingering me but in that position, and out of nowhere, just, like, kind of smacked me and grabbed me and shoved me down on the ground.

“And I instantly just started bawling and was just like, ‘What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?’ And I just laid there crying while he was just like ... ‘You’re fine, you’re fine.’ ” According to her testimony, she later went to work, and Greitens was waiting for her when she left her salon later that afternoon, she said. She followed him in her car to a parking lot near a Kmart, and he told her someone had emailed his wife. She said they should not see one another again.

But Greitens returned to her salon in October, telling her his wife “doesn’t think anything,” she said.

But she broke it off, she said, reiterating in an email later that night that he needed to leave her alone.

She never saw him again, she testified.

The woman also told the committee that neither Greitens, nor anyone associated with him, had ever paid her or given her anything of value to keep her quiet.

But after the relationship ended, she told legislators, she wasn’t just afraid for the release of the picture but was fearful that she would physically harmed.

“I felt as though — this obviously meant a lot to him to be running for governor. I knew I had told my husband — more — more importantly than anybody, that if the word got back to him he would do something to hurt me or to make sure that I couldn’t tell anybody else or that, you know, this — I would know that I wasn’t supposed to be doing — you know, telling anybody this.”

A TV REPORTER MADE A FAKE HAIR APPOINTMENT TO ASK ABOUT GREITENS In December 2017, KMOV (Channel 4) reporter Lauren Trager “booked a fake appointment under a fake name, and … came in and announced that she wasn’t there for a haircut, that she was just working on a story about the governor,” the woman said.

She told the committee she began to cry and begged Trager not to run the story, explaining that her exhusband was vindictive and that she feared the impact on her children.

The woman said Trager later called her and told her she was in possession of an audio recording her ex-husband made without her knowledge and provided to multiple news outlets, including the PostDispatch. On the tape, the woman confesses to her then-husband about her affair with Greitens and his alleged blackmail.

The woman’s attorney at the time told Trager she wanted no part in the story and asked her not to run it, the woman testified.

Trager called her attorney three minutes before the story aired, stating that Greitens had admitted to the affair and that they would air the story, the woman said. KMOV ran a story featuring an interview with the woman’s husband on Jan. 11, breaking the news of the relationship.

SHE NO LONGER LIVES IN FEAR, BUT WORRIES ABOUT HER IDENTITY’S BECOMING PUBLIC The incident has already affected her children, but the woman said she had received support from friends, family and hair clients.

But she wonders, “What will people think of me that don’t know me?”

She noted to the committee that she was going to school full-time and feared other students’ on campus learning the truth: “But then, how does that affect my schooling? Does that push me back?” she said.

“Luckily, I’m not as fearful physically anymore, because I feel like anybody would be crazy to hurt me because they would know who it is,” she said. “So that’s one huge positive thing that’s happened.”

> Read the Missouri House committee’s entire 300-page report at stltoday.com

S E RV I N G T H E P U B L I C S I N C E 1 878 • W I N N E R O F 1 8 P U L I TZ E R P R I Z E S

TUESDAY • 05.15.2018 • $2.00

CHARGE DISMISSED GREITENS CALLS GARDNER’S DECISION ‘A GREAT VICTORY’

PROSECUTORS

Gardner may seek a special prosecutor to refile the charge, which must occur in less than a month DEFENSE LAWYERS

Greitens’ team, who have been accusing circuit attorney of misconduct, planned to call her as witness WHAT’S NEXT

An investigation by legislative leaders continues, with a special session to begin Friday

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens leaves the Civil Courts building after speaking with reporters on Monday. Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner dropped a felony charge of invasion of privacy after Circuit Judge Rex Burlison ruled that she could be called as a witness at trial.

BY ROBERT PATRICK, ERIN HEFFERNAN AND NASSIM BENCHAABANE St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Prosecutors dismissed a criminal charge against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens after a judge ruled Monday that his lawyers could potentially call Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner as a witness.

The circuit attorney’s office said it would refile the felony charge of invasion

PHOTO BY RYAN MICHALESKO

Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner on Monday.

of privacy through a special prosecutor or

by Gardner assigning it to one of her assistants.

Lawyers for the governor said they do not think the charge will be refiled.

“The real reason why this case was dismissed was there was no evidence,” said defense attorney Jim Bennett.

Greitens and his attorneys lauded the move as a “great victory” as they spoke to the media on the courthouse steps Mon-

day afternoon.

“Today prosecutors dropped the false charges against me,” Greitens said in brief remarks. “This is a great victory, and it has been a long time coming. This experience has been humbling, and I have emerged from it a changed man.”

He apologized to his family, friends and the people of Missouri.

See GREITENS • Page A4

LAWMAKERS SAY GREITENS’ LEGAL TEAM IS LAGGING ON SUBPOENAS > A4 • MISSOURI TIMES KICKED OUT OF NEWS ASSOCIATION > A6

MORE THAN 55 KILLED IN GAZA PROTESTS

Supreme Court ruling puts sports betting in the hands of states

Illinois upholds cancellation of East St. Louis boys track season

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

BY KRISTEN TAKETA St. Louis Post-Dispatch

WASHINGTON • The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal law that kept most states from authorizing sports betting, a ruling that is sure to set off a scramble among the states to find a way into a billion-dollar business.

The challenge was brought by New Jersey, which had said it could be ready within weeks of a favorable decision to offer sports betting at its racetracks and casinos. Other states are expected to act quickly as well.

The underground sports betting economy in the United States is estimated to be worth at least $150 billion a year.

Efforts to legalizing sports betting in Missouri have been introduced in the House and Senate, but the state Legislature is in its final week of its annual session and the prospects of any of the bills advancing to Gov. Eric Greitens’ desk are slim.

Rep. Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, is sponsoring one of the bills. “I would anticipate the filing of sports wagering

EAST ST. LOUIS • The Illinois state

Hammer down

87°/67° STORMS POSSIBLE

TOMORROW

84°/66° STORMS POSSIBLE

WEATHER B11

See GAZA • Page A6

See TRACK • Page A5

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Palestinian demonstrators carry an injured man who was shot Monday by Israeli troops during a deadly protest at the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel.

BY FARES AKRAM AND JOSEF FEDERMAN Associated Press

GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP • In a jarring contrast, Israeli forces shot and killed at least 55 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,200 during mass protests Monday along the Gaza border, while just a few miles away Israel and the U.S. held a festive inauguration

See BETTING • Page A5

TODAY

ceremony for the new American Embassy in contested Jerusalem.

It was by far the deadliest day of cross-border violence since a devastating 2014 war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, and it further dimmed the already bleak prospects for President Donald Trump’s hoped-for peace

superintendent upheld the East St. Louis School District’s original decision to cancel the boys track season after a brawl in the stands at a meet last week.

The state’s intervention reverses the East St. Louis School Board’s unanimous vote on Monday morning that attempted to reinstate the track season.

The altercation started in the stands.

But a “significant number” of members of the track team joined in, said district Superintendent Arthur Culver.

Culver said he made the “difficult decision” to cancel the track season because he was worried for safety at future track meets.

The School Board discussed the issue in closed session, then voted at an unscheduled special meeting Monday to overturn Culver’s decision. The board room was packed with more than 130 people, including students, clergy, activists, alumni and other community members who came out to protest the

Melania Trump has ‘successful’ procedure on kidney

Rauner wants death penalty provision

• A5

More questions about McKee tax credits

• A8

PAGE A7

DeJong gets antsy if he’s not in lineup

Developer gets 3 years in bank fraud

POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

2018 S60 T5

iNSCRiPTiON Lease for 36 months,

$

WEST COUNTY VOLVO CARS 636-200-2822 • www.wcvolvo.com 14410 MANCHESTER ROAD MANCHESTER, MO 63011

348

per

mo*

• A9

1 M • B1

Vol. 140, No. 135 ©2018

SigN & dRiVE $0 dUE AT SigNiNg

stk# 19119

* Total due includes $0 cap cost reduction, cash or trade. Plus customer to pay first payment, tax, title, license and dealer administrative fee. Lease at 7,500 miles per year (additional miles are available). Offer includes all Volvo incentives. S60 MSRP $41,015. No security deposit with approved credit. Financing though VCFS. Expires 5/31/18. ALL TRADE-IN ACCEPTED

LOCAL

A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 1 • TUESDAY • 05.15.2018

Lawmakers say Greitens’ team lagging on subpoenas

BY KURT ERICKSON St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JEFFERSON CITY • Despite an earlier

pledge to provide information to a special House committee investigating Gov. Eric Greitens, an attorney representing his campaign operation has not fully complied with subpoenas issued by the Missouri House, the chairman of the panel said Monday.

Rep. Jay Barnes said the special committee is still working to secure all of the records that were requested in the aftermath of a May 2 report alleging that Greitens ran an off-the-books political campaign in 2014, took a private charity’s donor list to raise campaign funds and lied about that list to the state’s ethics commission.

“We’re in the process of reviewing the documents that were provided to this committee, of which there was a substantial number,” Barnes said. “We are considering our options of which path to take to enforce the Legislature’s and this committee’s subpoena power.”

At issue are statements made by attor-

ney Catherine Hanaway after the committee released its stinging report.

Hanaway, a former House speaker who lost to Greitens in the 2016 GOP primary, said the special panel did not seek out information from Greitens that might have helped committee members as they consider impeachment.

“If Chairman Barnes were on a quest to find out the truth, he has unfinished business to conduct. He ought to ask the campaign for its version of events before acting as judge and jury in a matter that was settled long ago,” she said at the time.

In response, the committee issued subpoenas to Greitens campaign fund, his Georgia-based campaign adviser Austin Chambers and A New Missouri, the dark money nonprofit formed to promote Greitens’ agenda.

“Unfortunately, after having promised to be fully open and fully transparent, Hanaway responded by providing some documents that were responsive to our subpoenas. She also objected to other large categories of documents,” said Barnes, R-Jefferson City.

In a statement, Hanaway said Barnes comments are “intentionally misleading.”

“Since the time my clients received requests for documents, we have cooperated with the committee counsel and put in a good faith effort to give them the information requested. It is disappointing the chairman didn’t mention the more than 14,000 documents provided,” she said.

“We continue to go through the burdensome process of gathering and organizing thousands of additional documents for review by the committee, and of course, my clients will assert the same rights any party would have to object to requests that aren’t relevant to the committee’s investigation.”

The special committee was initially formed after Greitens acknowledged he had an extramarital affair in 2015 and was subsequently charged with felony invasion of privacy.

Jury selection in the felony trial is underway in St. Louis.

A second felony case charges him with felony computer tampering for taking

the donor list in question. He also faces a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court over alleged destruction of public records.

The House probe soon expanded into questions over possible campaign finance irregularities and turned up evidence that Greitens and associates lied in campaign filings, a class A misdemeanor, and violated campaign finance law — a civil offense — when he operated a shadow campaign before filing required paperwork with election authorities.

For example, prior to forming his campaign committee in February 2015, Greitens’ paid advisers personally and through his companies and used a grant from Washington University to supplement an aide’s pay.

The committee has not issued a recommendation on whether the governor should be impeached. The House and Senate, however, have scheduled a special session to begin Friday to consider the possibility of ousting the first-term chief executive.

Kurt Erickson • 573-556-6181 @KurtEricksonPD on Twitter kerickson@post-dispatch.com

Gardner drops charge against Greitens GREITENS • FROM A1

“I am tremendously grateful for the extreme courage of family, friends and people of faith who have all recognized that in time comes the truth,” the governor said.

“We have a great mission before us. At this time, I’d ask people of goodwill to come together so that all of us can continue to do good together. Thank you, guys, and God bless you.”

Reporters shouted questions at the governor, asking about the possible refiling of charges and whether he had taken a photo of the woman involved, as alleged in the charge that was dropped.

“I’m going to be with my family right now,” Greitens said before walking away.

Prosecutors announced they were dropping the charge about 4:40 p.m. Monday, after about 40 minutes of whispered conferences among lawyers and multiple trips to the chambers of Circuit Judge Rex Burlison. After the final trip, Greitens and his lawyers were smiling.

The move follows several secret filings in state court and the Missouri Court of Appeals over the last several days, and a motion to dismiss filed Monday afternoon.

A spokeswoman for Gardner said the case would be refiled. Gardner left the courtroom just before 5 p.m. She did not answer questions.

Gardner spokeswoman Susan Ryan said in a statement that Burlison’s “unprecedented” order “places the Circuit Attorney in the impossible position of being a witness, subject to cross-examination within the offer of proof by her own subordinates.”

But St. Louis University law Professor John Ammann said Gardner did not have to dismiss the charge. Because she could not be a prosecutor and witness in the same case, she could have simply let other prosecutors take over, he said.

And defense lawyers said Gardner was only facing questions under oath. Burlison would have had to decide whether her testimony would be admitted in the trial.

Prosecutors have less than a month to refile the case under the statute of limitations.

Defense lawyers vowed to challenge any attempt to do so, saying the dismissal was due to misconduct by Gardner and should therefore not qualify for more time to refile.

Greitens was indicted in February on a charge that he took a nude photo of a woman, his hairdresser, without her consent. In a conversation with her exhusband, which the man surreptitiously recorded, the woman said the affair began at Greitens’ Central West End home in March 2015, when Greitens taped her to exercise equipment, blindfolded her and took a picture of her partially nude. When she got upset, she told her ex-husband, Greitens said he had deleted the photo.

During the encounter, she said, Greitens told her: “You’re never going to mention my name, otherwise there will be pictures of (you) everywhere.”

PERJURY ALLEGATION Defense lawyers wanted to call Gardner because for weeks they have accused her of misconduct. They said she allowed a former lead investigator in the case to commit perjury.

The statement from prosecutors called the tactic part of “a scorched-earth legal and media strategy” that included attacks on “the intentions, character and integrity of every person involved in investigating the Governor’s behavior including Missouri House Committee members, the Attorney General, the Circuit Attorney and her team, his victim, her family and those who have called for his resignation,” Ryan’s statement said.

The defense has accused investigator William Don Tisaby of putting “words in the mouth” of witnesses and removing information favorable to Greitens from reports. He said in a sworn statement that he didn’t take notes during his interviews but was caught on video taking notes. Tisaby asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a second deposition, and Burlison had seemed unwilling to allow the defense to call him. Prosecutors have said Tisaby was used only to locate and interview a few witnesses, and they never planned to call him at trial.

A transcript of discussions among the lawyers for both sides that occurred in the judge’s chambers hours before the charge

PHOTO BY RYAN MICHALESKO

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens leaves the Civil Courts building Monday after Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner dropped a felony charge of invasion of privacy when Circuit Judge Rex Burlison ruled that she could be called as a witness at trial.

yet ruled on their motion.

Circuit Attorney’s Office City of St. Louis May 14, 2018

LAWMAKERS REACT

Since January, Governor Greitens and his defense team have taken a scorched-earth legal and media strategy and relentlessly attacked the intentions, character and integrity of every person involved in investigating the Governor’s behavior including Missouri House Committee members, the Attorney General, the Circuit Attorney and her team, his victim, her family and those who have called for his resignation.

On February 22, 2018, a Grand Jury indicted Governor Greitens on Felony Invasion of Privacy. The Circuit Attorney has done everything in her power to remain focused on the facts and the truth of this matter. The Circuit Attorney and her team are ready, willing and able to go to trial this week on behalf of the people of the state of Missouri and Mr. Greitens’ victim.

Last week, Governor Greitens made a motion to include the Circuit Attorney as a defense witness. A defendant who wishes to call a prosecutor as a witness must demonstrate a compelling and legitimate reason to do so. Governor Greitens has produced no compelling reason to include the Circuit Attorney as a witness for any purpose. The defense team knows that the tactic of endorsing the Circuit Attorney as a witness is part of their ongoing effort to distract people from the defendant’s actions that brought about both the felony Invasion of Privacy and Computer Tampering charges against him.

22nd Circuit Judge Rex Burlison made an unpreceded decision by granting a request by Governor Greitens’ defense team to endorse the Circuit Attorney as a witness for the defense. The court’s order places the Circuit Attorney in the impossible position of being a witness, subject to cross-examination within the offer of proof by her own subordinates.

While the court has other remedies, such as calling the private attorney of K.S. as a witness, it has chosen not to do so. When the court and the defense team put the state in the impossible position of choosing between her professional obligations and the pursuit of justice, the Circuit Attorney will always choose the pursuit of justice. The court’s order leaves the Circuit Attorney no adequate means of proceeding with this trial. Therefore, the court has left the Circuit Attorney with no other legal option than to dismiss and refile this matter.

The Circuit Attorney and her team will research the best step forward for this case in light of the court’s ruling. The Circuit Attorney will be make a decision to either pursue a special prosecutor or make an appointment of one of her assistants to proceed.

was dismissed showed defense lawyers arguing that Gardner was the only potential witness to parts of the case they wanted to make. They noted that she had a solo interview with Greitens’ mistress in January and that she was the only other person present when Tisaby later interviewed the woman, the interview at which he had claimed not to have taken notes.

Burlison told defense lawyers to prepare to ask Gardner questions, under oath, at 4 p.m. That also gave Gardner’s staff time to try to block her testimony in the appeals court.

They failed.

The stunning dismissal of the charge came on the third day of jury selection for Greitens’ trial, which was expected to start Tuesday or Wednesday. And it followed the announcement by defense lawyers that investigators were unable to find data or photographic evidence to bolster their case in Greitens’ phone, email or Apple iCloud account. There also was no evidence that a photo had been deleted on the day Greitens’ relationship with his hairdresser first became sexual, in 2015, before he publicly announced his run for governor.

The defense filed a new motion to dismiss the charge Monday.

A special master reviewed 16,833 images and 610 videos extracted from Greitens’ cellphone and “found none that were

associated with” the woman, the motion said.

A forensic examiner found no evidence that any picture taken on March 21, 2015, was deleted, the motion said. That’s the day Greitens and the woman had a sexual encounter, and she claims he took a picture while she was bound and nude or semi-nude.

The motion says that the woman never saw a smartphone, a camera or the picture that was purportedly taken. Even if a picture was taken, the motion says “it could have been of the floor, of the ceiling, or of (the woman’s) feet.”

Defense lawyer Jim Martin said after the dismissal that prosecutors searched every phone, email and cloud storage account and found no evidence of the photo.

The criminal invasion of privacy case on the court’s electronic records system became private shortly after the charge was dismissed.

More than 100 jurors of 160 called had been questioned as of Monday, with many saying they had heard of the invasion of privacy case, or other issues that have dogged Greitens since news of the affair broke in January. He still faces a felony charge of computer tampering for allegedly taking without permission a donor list from a charity he co-founded. Prosecutors have already sought a special prosecutor in that case, but Burlison has not

In Jefferson City, legislative leaders said they would continue their investigation of the governor. Lawmakers have scheduled a special session to begin Friday that could lead to Greitens’ impeachment.

“We owe it to Missourians to have a fair and thorough investigation of the facts,” House leaders said in a statement.

Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, told the Post-Dispatch that Monday’s decision in St. Louis wouldn’t affect the legislative investigation.

“There are unfortunately a lot of disturbing allegations surfacing besides the original allegation,” Kehoe said. “When the committee is ready, they will present what they found to the full House and they will make a decision based on the facts, and not from what you may or may not be seeing in St. Louis.”

Kehoe and Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard released a joint statement that reads, in part: “The governor has lost the moral authority and the ability to lead the state going forward, and we reaffirm our call that he resign immediately.”

Rep. Gina Mitten, D-Richmond Heights, who is the ranking minority member on the House committee investigating Greitens, called the decision in court “a surprising development,” but added that it “does not impact the work of our committee.”

Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Ballwin, said he was surprised by the news but that “a bunch of us have been saying for a while that it’s (the House’s investigation) a separate process.”

Dogan, unlike most of his GOP colleagues, has long called on Greitens to resign.

Many Republicans had been holding back on calling for Greitens to resign to await the results of the trial.

“Now that the case has been, in a sense, dismissed, I wonder how that’s going to sway them one way or another,” said Rep. Steve Roberts, D-St. Louis.

Asked about the House investigation in a news conference outside of court, Scott Rosenblum, another defense lawyer, said that the House committee had not seen all the evidence, including the woman’s depositions, where she was cross-examined extensively.

Martin said it was unclear Monday whether defense lawyers could supply all that evidence under the rules of discovery used in the case.

Greitens has acknowledged having an affair with the woman, but he has denied blackmailing her, and evaded questions about whether he took a picture. He called the initial House report “tabloid trash” and has attacked Gardner’s investigation as politically motivated.

A L E E E N T E R P R I S E S N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D BY J O S E P H P U L I T Z E R D E C . 1 2 , 1 8 7 8

Wednesday • 05.16.2018 • A18 RAY FARRIS PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER •

GILBERT BAILON EDITOR •

TOD ROBBERSON EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

The GardnerGreitens fiasco Governor’s ‘great victory’ ignores the mountain of legal problems ahead.

T

governor already has admitted wrongdohe absence of evidence does not ing. This and the sordid details of his 2015 signify the absence of a crime. extramarital affair will figure heavily in Gov. Eric Greitens prematurely the impeachment. declared a “great victory” MonThough Greitens apologized Monday day after Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and said this experience has “humbled” dropped the felony invasion of privacy him, evidence abounded in his statement charge against him, but Greitens surely that he is just as disingenuous as ever. knows his legal problems have only just “I am tremendously grateful for the begun. extreme courage of family, friends and Gardner made an embarrassing mess of this case as the nation looked on.

She obtained a grand jury indictment despite lacking the essential evidence required in a case revolving around a photo of his partially nude lover that Greitens allegedly took and electronically transmitted in 2015.

Without the actual photo or proof of its transmittal, a conviction was J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com always going to Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens addresses the media on the steps of be a longshot. It the Civil Court building on Monday after the case against him was was a miracle that dismissed.

Circuit Judge Rex people of faith who have all recognized Burlison allowed the trial to proceed as that in time comes the truth,” Greitens long as he did. Gardner’s ultimate undotold reporters. “We have a great mission ing was Burlison’s ruling that she would before us. At this time, I’d ask people of have to testify under oath for alleged goodwill to come together so that all of us pretrial misconduct. She couldn’t be a can continue to do good together.” witness while also prosecuting the case, “Truth” and “faith” are concepts this so she chose to drop the charge while leaving open the possibility of handing off governor invokes only when it is politically expedient. He lied to voters every the prosecution to others. time he portrayed himself as a devoted Perhaps the best thing working in father and husband. He has repeatedly Greitens’ favor was Gardner’s abysmal hidden the truth about the donors proleadership. Had the prosecution been in more competent hands, conviction would viding millions of dollars in “dark money” still have been a longshot, but the Repub- to a nonprofit linked to Greitens. He might try to appeal to people of goodwill, lican governor might not be celebrating but his actions as both candidate and just yet. governor show him to be untrustworthy, Besides, more trouble lies ahead. vindictive and downright mean.

The Legislature will open impeachGreitens might be a former Navy SEAL, ment proceedings against Greitens on but his lack of battlefield experience is Friday evening, and the governor still showing. Seasoned warriors know you faces criminal prosecution in a separate don’t declare victory simply for having campaign-finance case. The evidence sidestepped one skirmish. in that latter case is substantial, and the

Unintended consequences

See editorial cartoons from around the country online at stltoday.com/opinion

YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS U.S. Embassy move is not conducive to peace The Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis expresses great concern on the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. This move will set the Middle East peace process back; it may be completely scuttled. This will have grave repercussions for the region.

The rest of the world has decried this decision; the international community recognizes the status of Jerusalem as part of the peace process that should be negotiated among the parties. East Jerusalem is claimed by the Palestinians and accepted by many in the world as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, and it is of utmost important that the negotiated status of Jerusalem is acceptable to all parties. A hasty decision to move the embassy is counterproductive to this process.

On Monday, dozens of Palestinians protesting this move were killed.

Recently, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas stated this move as “a declaration of withdrawal from the role the U.S. has played in the peace process.” This move is seen by many in the world as U.S. not being a fair broker in the peace process.

A pastor who has used abhorrent language against Islam, Mormons and many other faiths is leading the prayers in Jerusalem. This may inflame many in the Muslim world, and extremists will use this for their propaganda.

We urge our government to start the peace negotiations with international support as soon as possible so that this important part of the world does not spiral back into violence, which has worldwide repercussions.

Ghazala Hayat • Manchester Chairperson, Public Relations Committee, Islamic Foundation Of Greater St. Louis

Your sanctuary city for immigrants can become my sanctuary from gun-control laws.

T

he sanctuary cities movement has backfired, predictably, on its advocates. No matter how righteous the cause, such as declaring one’s city a safe zone for undocumented migrants, governments don’t have the legal luxury of deciding when they’ll enforce or defy the laws of a superior jurisdiction.

The law is not a smorgasbord. When people choose which laws to obey, the result is anarchy. When cities declare that they will not assist federal authorities, even in cases where local police have custody of dangerous criminal undocumented immigrants, the dangers to all citizens grow.

The most gruesome example was the 2015 killing in San Francisco of Kathryn Steinle by an undocumented immigrant with a history of crimes and prior deportations. He had been in local police custody only weeks before but had been released despite a detainer request by federal authorities.

San Francisco is one of more than 500 local governments that have declared themselves as sanctuary jurisdictions, defying what they assert is an unfair federal immigration policy. They may well be right, but the proper way to change that policy is to elect federal lawmakers to change the law, including comprehensive immigration reform.

Technically, sanctuary cities are not violating federal law; they are simply refusing to honor federal detainer requests when undocumented immigrants come into local police custody. But the philosophy can be infectious. In Illinois, at least four

county governments have decided they don’t like the gun-control laws passed by the state Legislature. They’ve declared themselves as gun-rights sanctuary counties where state laws will not be enforced.

“We want to make a statement. We don’t want our Second Amendment rights to be stripped away from us,” David Campbell, vice chairman of the Effingham County Board, told CNN. “If we protect immigrants with sanctuary cities, why not use similar laws to protect our rights to own a gun?” Three other counties have adopted Effingham’s sanctuary resolution, and dozens of others are considering it.

The movement began after the Illinois Legislature passed a gun-control law that set 21 as the minimum age for purchasing assault weapons, imposed a 72-hour waiting period for purchases and banned the sale, manufacture or possession of bump stocks. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed it, but conservative rural counties decided they still needed to make a point with their sanctuary decrees.

The nation has been down this path before, always with disastrous results.

Perhaps most notable in modern times were the refusal of authorities in Alabama and Arkansas to abide by federal schooldesegregation laws. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower had to mobilize troops to enforce desegregation statutes.

We probably haven’t heard the last of the gun-sanctuary movement, and chances are it’ll be invoked in some other provocative way. Beware the law of unintended consequences.

CHRISTIAN GOODEN • Post-Dispatch

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and Harvard professor Ronald Sullivan, who is helping prosecutors, head into court Monday before the trial of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens was dismissed.

Circuit attorney incompetent, should be disbarred St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner should be disbarred. She dropped the charges against Gov. Eric Greitens because she was going to be called as a witness, and have to commit perjury to defend her dishonest lead investigator.

She is incompetent; she filed a charge against a sitting governor with almost no evidence. She should be removed from her job.

Ken Koonce • St. Louis

Aldermen, other officials look to protect their fiefdoms The article on the efforts of the Board of Alderman to reverse the vote of the people to reduce the number of wards is overwhelming proof that the city of St.

Louis is inherently unable to deal with its problems in any manner to make it a functioning, modern city (“Aldermen spar over measure to reverse ward reduction,” May 12).

The aldermen who defend the status quo are not worried about lessening the influence of black citizens; that is the smoke screen to hide their defense of their own positions, power and perks — their own influence. The good of the whole city is far down, and perhaps nowhere, on their list of priorities. They are not self-centered; they are selfobsessed.

And this same attitude is reinforced by most of the elected politicians of St. Louis County. Each city, town, village or street is concerned first with maintaining, even strengthening, the walls between and among them.

The logical conclusion is easy to reach: The metropolitan area of St. Louis is dysfunctional and will remain so for the foreseeable future. There is no leadership with any vision beyond the fence around each person’s fiefdom.

Jim Leibrecht • Affton

Ward debate demonstrates what’s wrong with St. Louis Ward reduction highlights everything that’s wrong with St. Louis in one neat package. The city voted in 2012 to take eight years to enact a policy. Six years later, aldermen are having second thoughts.

Here’s an idea: Find a number between 14 and 28. It’s called compromise. With nonsense like this, it’s a miracle anybody wants to do business in St. Louis.

Brad Abel • Olivette

Republicans aim to drive down union membership So the Republicans in the Legislature have decided to move the vote on Proposition A — to block the anti-worker law passed by them last year — to August rather than the original plan to put it on the November ballot (“Senate OKs moving ‘right-to-work’ vote,” May 12). No surprise there.

State Sen. Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, used the kind of deceptive language Republicans are well known for by stating it is really important to have this vote as soon as possible. He is saying publicly that companies looking to move their operations to Missouri are eager to learn the outcome of the Prop A vote, but he doesn’t give examples of those companies ready to move to Missouri.

Studies by neutral parties have shown that wages in “right to work” states are significantly lower than in states with strong unions. So I have to wonder if maybe that is the real motive behind Republican efforts to drive down union membership in Missouri.

Worker protections in America go all the way back to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. That law guarantees the right of private-sector employees to organize, to engage in collective bargaining and to take collective action when necessary. Where there are unions, workers are not on their own to defend themselves if treated unfairly. Equal pay for equal work, health care benefits and sick leave are just a few of the benefits of a union shop.

I hope voters won’t fall for the “freedom to work” argument offered by Republicans like Sen. Schatz. What they really want is for workers to enjoy all the benefits of union representation without paying for it.

Susan Cunningham • Pacific Read more letters online at STLtoday.com/letters

TOD ROBBERSON Editorial Page Editor • trobberson@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8382 KEVIN HORRIGAN Deputy Editorial Page Editor • khorrigan@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8135

I know that my retirement will make no difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty • JOSEPH PULITZER • APRIL 10, 1907 PLATFORM •

STLtoday.com/ThePlatform Find us at facebook/PDPlatform • Follow us on twitter @PDEditorial E-MAIL MAIL Letters to the editor St. Louis Post-Dispatch, letters@post-dispatch.com 900 N. Tucker Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63101 Letters should be 250 words or fewer. Please include your name, address and phone number.

All letters are subject to editing. Writers usually will not be published more than once every 60 days.

S E RV I N G T H E P U B L I C S I N C E 1 878 • W I N N E R O F 1 8 P U L I TZ E R P R I Z E S

WEDNESDAY • 05.30.2018 • $2.00

GREITENS RESIGNS ‘I KNOW I AM NOT PERFECT, BUT I HAVE NOT BROKEN ANY LAWS NOR COMMITTED OFFENSES WORTHY OF THIS TREATMENT. FOR THOSE WHO WOULD BE MOVED TO VENGEANCE, LET US ALLOW HISTORY AND GOD TO BRING JUSTICE.’ GOV. ERIC GREITENS

PHOTOS BY ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Gov. Eric Greitens leaves the podium after announcing his resignation in the governor’s office on Tuesday in Jefferson City. He said he would step down from the office at 5 p.m. Friday.

RISE AND FALL

TURBULENT 17 MONTHS

Trouble lurked between the lines of Greitens’ perfect story

Announcement comes as surprise as scandals swirl

BY KEVIN McDERMOTT St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY JACK SUNTRUP AND KURT ERICKSON St. Louis Post-Dispatch

From the start, Eric Greitens’ story sounded like something from the book jacket of a notquite-believable political thriller: Handsome young Rhodes scholar-turned-war hero — who also worked with refugees in Rwanda, land mine victims in Cambodia and Mother Teresa in India — goes home and gets elected governor to clean up corruption.

But in politics, as in life, things that look too good to be true generally are.

Greitens’ stunning rise in politics over the past three years was the culmination of a life of remarkable achievement, including decorated service in the elite Navy SEALs, the founding of a respected national nonprofit and authorship of several best-selling books.

To his many supporters in academia,

JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens

See FALL • Page A5

Reyes to debut on Facebook

Republican Gov. Eric Greitens, stepping down amid turmoil after 17 months in office, said he was the victim of “legal harassment.”

Messenger: Dark money paves way for downfall > A2 Reaction to the end of months of scandal > A4 Meet Missouri’s next governor: Mike Parson > A5 Timeline: Key developments > A6 Editorial: Long-awaited end to Greitens myth > A14 Editorial: Assessing the aftermath > A14

Council overrides five vetoes

Suspect faces hate crime charges

on Tuesday abruptly announced he is stepping down effective 5 p.m. Friday in the face of an impeachment effort, an adverse judicial ruling and criminal investigations.

“The last few months have been incredibly difficult for me, for my family, for my team, for my friends, and many, many people that 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.

Greitens, a Republican, rocketed onto Missouri’s political scene in 2015, promising to take on “career politicians” and a culture of “corruption” in Jefferson City. A year after taking office, his own administration became engulfed in

See GREITENS • Page A4

‘Roseanne’ done after racist tweet

Drawn to a close

TODAY

88°/73° CHANCE OF STORMS

TOMORROW

90°/72° STORMS POSSIBLE

WEATHER B9 POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

SPORTS

PAGE A3

PAGE A2

PAGE A10

1 M Vol. 140, No. 150 ©2018

Bommarito INFINITI .com

N E 7 OP 4 / 2

GREITENS RESIGNS

A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 1 • Wednesday • 05.30.2018

Embattled governor steps down

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Members of the media gather around the office of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens after the governor called a news conference on Tuesday in Jefferson City announcing his resignation.

GREITENS • FROM A1

scandal when Greitens admitted to a 2015 extramarital affair but denied allegations he threatened his lover with a compromising photograph.

Peripheral scandals swirled — his reliance on untraceable political donations, use of a self-destructing texting app and use of a charity donor list to raise campaign contributions all drawing negative attention.

Despite revelation after revelation this winter and spring, Greitens resisted leaving his post — until his surprise announcement on Tuesday.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, a Democrat who had led the now-scuttled felony invasion-of-privacy case against the governor, said her office had reached a “fair and just resolution” with Greitens’ attorneys.

Her spokeswoman said the agreement was in regard to a second St. Louis charge, a felony data-tampering case involving Greitens’ alleged use of a charity donor list for political fundraising.

“I have been in contact with the Governor’s defense team over the past several days,” she said in a statement. “We have reached a fair and just resolution of the pending charges. We will provide more information tomorrow.”

A source close to Greitens said Gardner would drop the felony data-tampering charge.

By contrast, Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who was named special prosecutor after the charge related to his extramarital affair was dropped this month, said her investigation continues.

“In the interest of pursuing justice to its fullest lengths, we will continue until our work on the case is completed,” Baker said in a statement. “Specifically regarding any deals we made with Governor Greitens’ attorneys, no deals were made by my office.

Our review of this case, as I have stated before, will be pursued without fear or favor.”

Greitens’ surprise announcement came hours after a ruling by a Cole County judge that would force the governor’s campaign and a dark-money political group affiliated with Greitens to reveal fundraising information to a special House committee that was investigating the governor.

Following the announcement, the committee canceled the remaining hearings on its schedule this week. The committee will “wrap up its work in short order,” according to a GOP House caucus email sent Tuesday afternoon.

Greitens’ decision means that Lt. Gov. Mike Parson, also a Republican, will become governor.

Parson, 62, was not in the Capitol when Greitens announced his plan. After he arrived Tuesday evening, Parson said he had been working on his farm when he heard of the pending resignation.

Allegations surrounding the governor led to an unprecedented split in Greitens’ Republican Party, leaders of which led efforts to impeach him.

Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, who is leading the Missouri House investigation into Greitens, said after the announcement that he would not comment on Greitens’ resignation or whether the committee would continue its work.

Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is investigating Greitens and had called on him to resign, said Greitens did the “right thing” by resigning. Hawley, a Republican, is running to unseat U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. “Governor Greitens has done the right thing today,” Hawley said in a written statement. “I wish incoming Governor Mike Parson well, and stand ready to assist him in his transition. This Office’s work for the people of Missouri goes forward.”

Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, said the governor’s problems were trying for the state.

“When the governor took of-

REACTIONS TO RESIGNATION FROM STAFF REPORTS

The abrupt resignation of embattled Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens spurred a variety of reactions around the state Tuesday afternoon. Here are some of the comments from state and local political leaders:

“The governor made the best decision for his family and the state. I look forward to Governor Parson’s leadership and will do everything I can to be helpful.”

U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

“I wish Lieutenant Governor Parson the best.

I look forward to working with him.”

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

“Gov. Eric Greitens has made the right decision for his family and for the State of Missouri.”

U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin

“I have been disturbed by the allegations surrounding Governor Greitens over the past few months. This has been a distraction for our entire state and undermined his ability to lead.”

U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth

“Now let’s show them we can all work together for our citizens moving forward.”

U.S. Rep. Billy Long, R-Springfield

“Governor Greitens has done the right thing today.

I wish incoming Governor Mike Parson well, and stand ready to assist him in his transition.”

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley

“Corruption in state government became worse than ever under Eric Greitens. That corruption must be cleaned up, and our state’s reputation must be restored. This can only happen if leaders put the needs of Missourians ahead of themselves.”

Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway

“Now is the time for the people of Missouri to come together and work toward a better future for our state.”

“The people of the 74th District and throughout the state deserve a Missouri as good as its promise. It is my sincere hope that now that this dark chapter in Missouri’s history is ending, we can get back to working to realize that promise.”

Rep. Cora Faith Walker, D-Ferguson

“(Missouri) is at a crossroads, but I know we will take the right path.”

Rep. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg

“He owes Missourians an apology for dragging our state through this ordeal.

We will move forward, but our leaders must do more to rebuild public trust.”

Rep. Lauren Arthur, D-Kansas City

“Today we turn our attention back to the sober task of governing.”

Rep. Kevin Corlew, R-Kansas City

“It’s a great day for Missouri now that we can move (forward) and talk about issues important to all Missourians. Bye Felicia.”

Rep. DaRon McGee, D-South Kansas City

“Innocent people don’t resign and criminals don’t get off the hook simply because they cut and run.

Missourians deserve to know what laws were broken, what lies were told, and how deep the corruption went.”

Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors

“Today’s resignation of Eric Greitens was long overdue.

This troubling time for our state was only made worse by the governor’s repeated attempts to avoid justice and blame his victims.”

Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis

“Missouri Democrats will continue to work to undo the damage done by Eric Greitens and his Republican cronies.”

Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Webber

“There is no doubt our party has faced a difficult couple of months — but make no mistake — Missouri Republicans know there is much at stake this November and we will be untied in our efforts to champion common sense conservative values across the board.”

Missouri GOP Chairman Todd Graves

“I thank the governor for his service. I know this was a hard decision. My hope is that we get back to working for the people and doing the business of the state.”

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson

“I look forward to working with Lieutenant Governor Parson on issues that affect St. Louis County and our region.”

St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger

“I’ve known Mike Parson for 20 years and he will move our state forward as Missouri’s next governor.”

Former Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Talent

“It became very clear Missouri could not move forward on public education and other critical issues under the current circumstances.”

Melissa Randol, executive director, Missouri School Boards’ Association

“Thank you to all of the Missourians who have raised their voice to tell Gov. Greitens his time was up.

You stood up and made your voices heard.”

Alison Dreith, executive director, NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri

Missouri Treasurer Eric Schmitt

fice in January of 2017, I had very high hopes. I believed we were on the path to building a better Missouri. This is not the position I imagined we would be in nearly 16 months later. However, I do believe the governor made the right decision,” Richard said.

House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, had called for Greitens’ resignation and led the effort to call a special session to consider impeachment.

“We believe the Governor has put the best interest of Missourians first today by choosing to resign,” Richardson said. “The past few months have been difficult for everyone involved, including the Governor and his family. This is a serious and solemn occasion that reminds us that our state and our duty are bigger than any one person or party.”

COURT RULING Greitens’ historic move came hours after a Cole County judge ruled the governor and his allies must comply with two subpoenas from the House panel that is seeking information about the nonprofit group A New Missouri and Greitens’ campaign fund — despite protests from Greitens’

legal team.

Circuit Judge Jon E. Beetem said the House committee investigating Greitens was within its rights to ask for the documents.

“The Court finds the requests are within the authority of the requestor,” Beetem wrote in his six-page decision. “The Court further finds and believes that time is of the essence and production should begin immediately and, absent good cause shown, said production should be completed by June 1, 2018.”

Coincidentally or not, that is the day Greitens’ resignation takes effect.

Greitens for Missouri and A New Missouri were ordered to turn over communications between the two groups and policies “concerning coordination or communication between Greitens for Missouri and A New Missouri, Inc.” A New Missouri was ordered to turn over receipts of paid media, content of paid media and communication regarding paid media. The nonprofit will also have to turn over communications between the group and Greitens and his campaign.

It was unclear Tuesday after-

noon if the campaign and darkmoney group would still turn over information to the panel or protest further, arguing that because Greitens is resigning, the committee would lose jurisdiction.

Greitens’ legal team had sought to quash the subpoenas.

Catherine Hanaway, a Greitens attorney, said in a statement that she was pleased the judge is allowing A New Missouri to redact the names of donors to protect their identities.

“We are considering our options for an appeal,” Hanaway said.

The House committee has said it believes the Greitens campaign and its associates may have actively worked to conceal the identity of donors, a campaign finance violation.

A former Greitens campaign adviser, Michael Hafner, also told the committee Tuesday that the Greitens campaign discussed soliciting donations from foreign nationals, a violation of federal law.

“There were conversations that we had where foreign money was discussed and the possibility of foreign money being contrib-

uted to an entity,” Hafner said.

Hafner left the campaign soon after and said he was not aware if those discussions continued.

Greitens’ legal team, led by Hanaway, argued last week that the special House committee’s request for documents was too sweeping and amounted to a “fishing expedition.” Hanaway said the campaign had already produced thousands of documents within a short time period. She also worried the identity of donors to A New Missouri — which has not revealed its donors — would be revealed if the House obtained its documents.

“The requestor Committee has a mandate to investigate the allegations against Governor Greitens,” Beetem wrote. “While this is a broad mandate, so are the grounds for impeachment.

The Court finds the requests are within the authority of the requestor.”

Greitens himself had been subpoenaed to testify before the committee on June 4. It was not clear Tuesday evening if that or any other committee meeting would be held.

In his testimony, Hafner outlined his role in the early stages of Greitens’ decision to run for governor, during which time the governor is alleged to have violated state ethics laws by spending money on his campaign without forming a campaign committee.

In particular, Hafner said he was paid by one of Greitens’ businesses throughout the month of January before the campaign committee was formed.

Hafner said he had advised Greitens to form a committee to avoid breaking the law.

“Obviously he disregarded it,” Hafner said.

Hafner, who later went to work for businessman John Brunner’s unsuccessful 2016 campaign for the GOP nomination for governor, has been called a “disgruntled” ex-staffer by Greitens’ attorneys.

On Tuesday, however, he denied it.

“I didn’t seek this out. I am here in pursuit of the truth,” Hafner said. “I was perfectly content with leaving all of this in the past.”

THE SCENE IN THE CAPITOL The governor’s end came in a mad scramble that was, for some, emotional.

A bit after 3 p.m. Tuesday, no one was stationed at the front desk of the governor’s reception room. A woman who walked through the office said Greitens’ press secretary was “in a meeting.”

Around 3:15 p.m., a PostDispatch reporter stopped by Parson’s office to see if his press secretary, Kelli Jones, had heard anything about a possible resignation.

“I have not heard anything,” she said.

Over the next several minutes, Greitens’ staffers paced up and down the second floor hallway entering and exiting their office suite. Parker Briden, the governor’s press secretary, was asked if a resignation was imminent. He said he would have “a statement a little bit later today. About to send an email.”

Two other Greitens officials, Drew Erdmann and Will Scharf, declined to respond to reporter questions as they walked down the hallway.

Capitol maintenance workers hauled a podium up a spiraled Rotunda stairwell and to Greitens’ office.

A line of reporters and other Capitol staffers began to gather outside Greitens’ office.

Greitens’ chief legal counsel, Lucinda Luetkemeyer, wept during and after the governor’s announcement.

Afterwards, Erdmann, who was brought in to serve as the chief operating officer for the administration, was asked what’s next. He could only shrug.

Robert Patrick of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

05.30.2018 • Wednesday • M 1 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A5 GREITENS RESIGNS

Cracks showed in perfect story Meet Missouri’s next governor: Mike Parson‌

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Parson (right) arrives in his Capitol office Tuesday following the resignation announcement of Gov. Eric Greitens.

BY KURT ERICKSON St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JEFFERSON CITY • In the tumultuous months

J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

Eric Greitens with his family on Aug. 2, 2016, at his watch party at the Doubletree Hotel in Chesterfield, after he was declared the winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary. With him is his wife, Sheena, and his sons: Jacob, 2 months and Joshua, 2.

FALL • FROM A1

publishing and among military veterans, a path to a governorship and beyond seemed almost preordained.

“Eric Greitens had wrestled with political ambition for most of his life.

He sensed it was radioactive, to be handled very carefully,” Time journalist Joe Klein wrote — presciently, it seems now — in his 2015 book “Charlie Mike: A True Story of Heroes Who Brought Their Mission Home.” The book lionizes Greitens as one of those heroes. “[C]ould you run a campaign for Governor of Missouri — as always, Eric’s ambitions were not modest — based on biography and values, rather than platitudes and reflexive attacks?”

Klein wrote. “He would show people how he would behave in office, not just tell them.”

In hindsight, though, Greitens’ spectacular flame-out over the past five months, ending with his edge-oftears announcement Tuesday that he is stepping down as Missouri’s governor, was perhaps as preordained as his rise.

A potentially combustible flaw of hypocrisy could be glimpsed in the space between Greitens’ words and actions before and during his tenure in office.

It’s unsurprising today that a politician would present his picture-perfect family to the voters while cheating on his wife, which we now know was happening during the 2015 launch of Greitens’ gubernatorial campaign. The divorce in his past, and the fact that he’d switched political parties from Democrat to Republican before seeking office, were equally unshocking.

But other aspects of Greitens’ Jekylland-Hyde political career were less pedestrian.

Greitens campaigned on a vow to bring more civility to politics, then was caught on tape seething at a political opponent so angrily that it bordered on physical threat. He chided incumbent politicians for hiding the sources of their campaign funding, while he raised almost $2 million in “dark” money and allegedly made illegal use of fundraising records from the nonprofit he’d founded. After promising to be the most transparent governor in Missouri’s history, he created a shadow funding committee and undertook other actions that have made him one of the most secretive.

Those and other issues reported during Greitens’ campaign and his time in office didn’t initially seem to hurt his standing among the public, which tends not to prioritize campaign-funding issues or openness with the press.

But Greitens’ personal vilification of his fellow Republicans who control the Legislature — he “poisoned the well,” as one of them put it almost a year ago — ensured that he had no political cover once the spotlight started illuminating his intertwined scandals in January.

‘AN IDEAL YOUTH’ Before most Missourians had heard of Eric Robert Greitens, he had a specific fan base out there: people who admire military strength and tradition, but with humanitarian goals and a cerebral edge. The kind of people who post Winston Churchill quotes on their cubicle walls, which Greitens reportedly did while in the service.

“If ancient Sparta and Athens had teamed up to pick an ideal youth, it would have been someone like Eric Robert Greitens — an athlete, a scholar and a good citizen to boot,” read the beginning of an April 1992 Post-Dispatch story about the high school soccer star’s academic scholarship to Duke University.

As a child growing up in St. Louis, Greitens, now 44, was so hyperactive that his mother, a pre-kindergarten teacher, wondered if he had ADHD, because he was “a wild physical creature” who would run in circles in the family’s basement to expend his energy, Klein

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (left) is applauded by Speaker of the House Todd Richardson (center) and Lt. Gov. Mike Parson as he delivers his State of the State address at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City on Jan. 17, 2017.

reported in his book.

As Greitens got older, Klein reports, his aggressiveness was conquered by “his inner Obi-Wan,” an acquired calm.

It developed under a teacher at B’Nai El congregation who taught the kids “about the desperate lives being lived in the St. Louis ghettos and in the developing world,” Klein’s book says.

“He was afflicted by a slightly goofy literalism at times, the sort of kid who actually said that he wanted to be President of the United States,” wrote Klein.

“He said it in third or fourth grade, when a teacher asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. ‘I want to be President,’ he said, ‘because I want to help people, and the President gets to help the most people.’”

In high school, the future governor who would lead the most media-hostile administration in modern Missouri history penned an essay about the erosion of the First Amendment and called for students to take back their rights: “We need courage and wisdom to stand against the mounting silence and reignite the freedom of expression.”

In his 20s, Greitens spent time with refugees in Rwanda and Croatia, which he has said sparked his interest in human rights. In 1993, he was teaching English in China. Because his students talked openly of human rights, Chinese authorities arrested him, he told the Post-Dispatch in 1995.

After finishing his career as a Navy SEAL, Greitens created The Mission Continues, an organization that helped veterans transition into civilian life. He stepped down in 2014, and, the next year, he announced his intention to run for governor, after switching his party affiliation to Republican.

But his eyes were already set on a higher office. Back in 2009, he’d registered the domain name “EricGreitensforPresident.com.”

NO GOODWILL From the outset of his campaign for governor, despite being a Rhodes scholar and an author, Greitens played up his physicality, particularly his time as a Navy SEAL. An attention-grabbing campaign video showed him firing machine-gun rounds, which brought whispers of aggravation from Missouri’s political class — and from some fellow former SEALs, who frowned on his use of their famously quiet legacy as a political prop.

A former Democrat, Greitens rebranded himself as a “conservative outsider” Republican. Once in office, he honed an abrasive tone, ridiculing legislators of his own party on social media when they debated giving themselves a pay raise. The dark-money political committee launched by Greitens’ campaign manager, A New Missouri, posted attack ads publicizing the cellphone number of state Sen. Rob Schaaf, a Republican who had often butted heads with Greitens.

Greitens broke with tradition in other ways, bypassing the Capitol press to deliver statements on social media

(where he could easily avoid questions) and repeatedly calling lawmakers back to session to push legislation he wanted. At one point, he called legislators “third-graders.”

His relationship with lawmakers “really has been a consistent poisoning from really throughout the campaign,” state Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, told The Associated Press in June 2017, “and it did not change when he came to the building.”

By the night of Jan. 10, when Greitens stood before television cameras in Jefferson City and admitted his 2015 extramarital affair, his reserve supply of goodwill among his fellow Missouri politicians was pretty close to empty.

Greitens’ acknowledgement of the affair appeared designed to stave off deeper scandals over related issues, since mere infidelity isn’t generally considered a political career-killer these days. “Clearly, he’s done some real damage to his brand, but it’s way too early to write his political obituary,” former Missouri Republican Party Chairman John Hancock said in January.

But that was before the dominoes started falling.

When Greitens was indicted Feb. 22 on a felony invasion-of-privacy charge — at the behest of a Democratic St. Louis prosecutor, using a law meant to target peeping Toms — his fellow Republicans didn’t circle the wagons as would normally be expected. Instead, they conducted their own hearings, bringing out explosive testimony from Greitens’ former lover.

At the same time, allegations that Greitens had misused a donor list from his charity — allegations that had caused barely a ripple when they were reported in the media months earlier — now were suddenly recast by prosecutors as a second felony charge. The charge was given credence by Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate facing campaign jabs about being too easy on Greitens in an earlier investigation of Greitens’ staff’s use of the disappearing-text app Confide.

Meanwhile, the bizarre revelation that $100,000 in mysterious cash had helped fund the exposure of Greitens’ affair — a story that would normally be expected to draw howls of outrage and demands for investigation from his partisans — elicited neither.

“This ordeal has been designed to cause an incredible amount of strain on my family ... to cause maximum damage to family and friends,” Greitens said in his resignation announcement Tuesday — a rare expression of bitterness and defeat from the man whose latest book is entitled “Resilience.”

“It’s clear that for the forces that oppose us, there is no end in sight.”

Sky Chadde, formerly of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.

Kevin McDermott • 314-340-8268 @kevinmcdermott on Twitter kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com

leading up to Gov. Eric Greitens’ resignation announcement Tuesday, Missouri’s 57th lieutenant governor rarely said a word in public about his possible ascension to the state’s top political office.

Aides to Lt. Gov. Mike Parson said it would look tacky for the man who stood next in line to take over as chief executive to weigh in on the scandal that brought down his fellow Republican.

He broke his silence on April 13, two days after a bombshell report was issued by a special House committee investigating the circumstances of the governor’s extramarital affair.

In a speech to Boone County Republicans covered by the Columbia Daily Tribune, Parson said, “Everybody in the world wants me to say something. What that is and whatever I say, it is almost a no-win situation. No one elected official, including myself, no statewide official, is larger than the state of Missouri. None.”

Parson, 62, was not in the Capitol on Tuesday when Greitens announced his plan to leave office at 5 p.m. Friday.

In a statement released by his office Tuesday evening, Parson said: “With Governor Greitens’ decision to resign from office, he has put the best interests of our state and all Missourians at the forefront where they belong. This is a decision that will allow our state to heal and move forward from what has been a difficult time. This is an enormous responsibility serving as our state’s next governor, and I am ready to fulfill the duties of the office with honor and integrity, and with a steadfast commitment to making our great state even greater for the people we are entrusted to serve.”

His chief of staff, Ward Franz, said he was unsure whether the farmer from Bolivar had spoken with Greitens before the announcement.

Former Gov. Matt Blunt hailed Parson.

“I have known Mike for many years and worked with him in the Legislature when I was governor. As a former sheriff, he is a lawand-order leader who will bring that experience to the governor’s office. Mike has always been someone interested in results, no matter who gets the credit and I know he will work well with House and Senate leadership and legislators in both parties to get things done for Missourians,” Blunt said in a statement.

Parson once had designs on the job he’ll hold by the end of the week. With term limits looming over his legislative career in 2015, Parson launched a bid for governor, hoping his experience as a sheriff in Polk County and a conservative track record in the House and Senate dating to 2005 would garner support.

But, with the GOP primary field growing, he opted in July 2015 to run for the lieutenant governor’s post.

First he fended off Kansas City attorney Bev Randles in the primary election and then won 110 of Missouri’s 114 counties in the general election en route to statewide office.

Unlike Greitens, who was elected as an outsider, Parson brings a wealth of political experience to the job.

He and his wife live in southwest Missouri, where he operates a cow and calf operation. He has two children and five grandchildren.

Raised on a farm in Hickory County, Parson graduated from Wheatland High School and then took night courses at the University of Maryland and at the University of Hawaii while he served a six-year stint in the Army.

In the Legislature, Parson sponsored an expansion of the state’s castle doctrine — a law that entitles the use of deadly force in home defense. He also sponsored and backed proagriculture measures.

Parson also has made higher education a priority, pushing for a building and repair program for public universities and advocated against cuts to the University of Missouri system.

Parson’s tenure in the Legislature is expected to change the dynamic in the Capitol. While Greitens spent much of his first year in office poking and prodding at lawmakers, Parson has built relationships with members on both sides of the aisle.

“I know what my obligations are if something should ever occur, I knew that in the beginning what they were, you just never thought it was going to happen,” Parson said last week while again visiting Boone County.

Parson has split publicly with the governor on some issues. While Greitens banned people in his office from accepting lobbyist gifts, Parson was accepting gifts.

Parson also broke with Greitens over lowincome housing tax credits.

After the governor’s appointees voted to end the program, which encourages development in poor neighborhoods and is backed by a politically powerful group of developers, Greitens declared “politics as usual” over. Parson disagreed with the move, saying it would hurt rural Missouri.

Kurt Erickson • 573-556-6181 @KurtEricksonPD on Twitter kerickson@post-dispatch.com

GREITENS RESIGNS

A6 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

M 1 • Wednesday • 05.30.2018

TIMELINE OF EVENTS LEADING TO RESIGNATION 2007 • Greitens founds The Mission Continues, a charity devoted to helping combat veterans find jobs.

2009 • Greitens establishes the Greitens Group for his personal business ventures, including writing books and speaking to groups.

Nov. 27, 2012 • Greitens signs a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting him from distributing any list of charity donors. About the same time, he signs an employee handbook that prohibits sharing “confidential” information with anyone who doesn’t work for the charity.

February 2014 • Danny Laub, now advising Greitens, prepares a memo for Greitens on campaign strategy. Around the same time, Michael Hafner also begins advising Greitens on his political activity.

April 24, 2014 • Greitens tells the charity he’ll step down as chief executive and become a board member that summer. He’s then asked to reach out to donors and assure them the transition will be smooth.

May 24, 2014 • Greitens meets with Laub and others for 10 hours to discuss “a future race for governor.”

May 26, 2014 • When it’s suggested that Greitens set up a campaign committee, an essential first step in running for office, Laub replies in an email that “this is silly.” Laub told investigators the strategy was “the later the better” when it came to Greitens’ entering the race.

Oct. 15, 2014 • Greitens speaks to assistant Krystal Proctor about “the importance of the (Mission Continues) donor list to support future political fundraising efforts,” she told investigators.

POST-DISPATCH FILE PHOTO

Sept. 26, 2015 • Eric Greitens announces his candidacy in the 2016 race for Missouri governor at Westport Plaza in Maryland Heights.

Dec. 1, 2014 • Greitens formally hires Laub, who is paid through Eric Greitens LLC, to help with political planning. His salary is not reported as an in-kind contribution to the campaign.

January 2015 • Hafner is formally hired to work on Greitens’ political activities.

His salary is not reported as an in-kind contribution to the campaign.

Jan. 6, 2015 • At Greitens’ direction, Proctor emails Hafner and Laub with the donor list from The Mission Continues, as first reported by the Post-Dispatch.

Feb. 25, 2015 • Greitens officially forms his campaign committee, Greitens for Missouri, publicly announcing his intent to run for governor.

March 21, 2015 • Greitens begins an affair with his hairdresser, who meets him in his Central West End home, the woman has testified. In his basement gym, Greitens allegedly binds her wrists to exercise equipment with tape, blindfolds her and partly undresses her. Then, without her consent, he allegedly takes her picture. He allegedly threatens to use the photo against her if she exposes him.

March 25, 2015 • In audio obtained by the Post-Dispatch, the woman’s husband confronts the woman while they’re seated in a parked car and, as he surreptitiously records the conversation, she admits to visiting the future governor’s house days earlier. The woman tells her husband about the encounter and the picture Greitens allegedly took.

August 2015 • Greitens steps down from his charity’s board of directors.

Sept. 26, 2015 • Greitens launches his campaign for governor.

August 2016 • Spencer Kympton, The Mission Continues’ president, tells Austin Chambers, now Greitens’ campaign manager, that he’s worried the campaign’s use of the charity’s name on campaign fundraising initiatives could “jeopardize (the charity’s) status as a 501(c)(3),” entities that are unable to participate in political activity. The name appeared in a link to raise money and a video called “Eric Greitens: The Mission Continues.”

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Jan. 9, 2017 • Eric Greitens and his wife, Sheena, wave to supporters after he was sworn in as the 56th governor of Missouri at the state Capitol in Jefferson City.

October 2016 • The Associated Press reports that the Greitens campaign received about $2 million from people who had also donated to The Mission Continues.

Nov. 8, 2016 • Greitens is elected governor of Missouri.

Jan. 9, 2017 • Greitens is sworn in as governor.

Jan. 10, 2018 • Greitens and his wife, Sheena Greitens, issue a statement acknowledging that he had an extramarital affair that began and ended in 2015 and that the couple had “dealt with this together honestly and privately.”

Greitens’ attorney, James F. Bennett, issues a statement denying the woman’s blackmail allegation.

Jan. 11 • St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner says she will launch a formal criminal investigation into allegations swirling around the governor. She announces the probe after lawmakers call on Attorney General Josh Hawley to investigate; Hawley says Gardner has jurisdiction. Greitens spends the day calling donors and lawmakers to apologize.

Jan. 16 • Four Republican lawmakers — Reps. Kathie Conway (St. Charles), Nate Walker (Kirksville) and Marsha Haefner (south St. Louis County) and Sen. Rob Schaaf (St. Joseph) — publicly call on Greitens to consider stepping aside.

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

January • Schaaf says that he has spoken with the FBI about Greitens and the chief executive’s campaign apparatus. Schaaf tells the Post-Dispatch he has discussed with the FBI issues related to the governor’s reliance on “dark money” and acceptance of large donations from Joplin, Mo., megadonor David Humphreys.

Jan. 20 • In his first interview since acknowledging an extramarital affair, Greitens tells The Associated Press that there was “no blackmail” and “no threat of violence” by him in what he described as a monthslong “consensual relationship” with his former hairdresser. Greitens also insists he had no plans to resign from office as a result of the affair, despite calls to step aside from several Republican and Democratic state lawmakers. “I’m staying. I’m staying,” he says.

Feb. 22 • Greitens is indicted and booked in St. Louis on a felony invasion-of-privacy charge for allegedly taking and transmitting a nonconsensual photo of his partly nude lover.

May 2 • The House investigatory committee releases a second report that says Greitens directed political aides to work off The Mission Continues’ donor list to raise money for his campaign — even though he had signed an agreement to not disclose the charity’s confidential donor information. The report also indicates that Greitens’ campaign later lied in campaign finance reports about how it got the list.

Feb. 22 • Booking photo of Greitens on felony privacy charge

May 14 • Three days into jury selection in Greitens’ trial on the felony invasionof-privacy charge, St. Louis prosecutors abruptly drop the charge after the court rules that Gardner would be questioned and might have to testify at the trial, with Greitens’ attorneys attacking her handling of the case.

May 18 • State lawmakers convene a special session to consider whether to initiate impeachment proceedings against Greitens.

May 21 • A judge appoints a special prosecutor, Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, to decide whether to refile the invasion-of-privacy case against Greitens.

May 29 • Greitens announces that he’s resigning as of 5 p.m. Friday, June 1.

Earlier in the day, a Cole County judge rules that Greitens’ campaign and a dark-money group affiliated with Greitens must reveal fundraising information to a special House committee that was looking into possible impeachment of Greitens.

May 14 • Gov. Eric Greitens leaves the Civil Courts building after speaking with reporters about Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s decision to drop a felony invasion-of-privacy charge against him.

A L E E E N T E R P R I S E S N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D BY J O S E P H P U L I T Z E R D E C . 1 2 , 1 8 7 8

Wednesday • 05.30.2018 • A14 RAY FARRIS PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER • GILBERT BAILON EDITOR •

TOD ROBBERSON EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

Goodbye, governor‌ With his resignation, a long-awaited end to the Eric Greitens myth. ‌

G

damage to my family and friends” — as if ov. Eric Greitens has finally put Greitens had been a devoted family man an end to the sham that was his victimized by powerful forces beyond 17-month term in office. He his control. His strategy has consistently should have resigned long ago been to dismiss as “tabloid trash gos— for the sake of the “forgotten” Missip” and “lies and falsehoods” the serisourians he cynically claimed to serve. ous allegations against him instead of But the truth is, Greitens could never accepting his personal responsibility for allow his own political ambitions to take the damage he caused. a back seat to any other interest.

Greitens accused those unnamed eneEven as he resigned in disgrace Tuesmies of engaging in “endless personal day, Greitens still couldn’t bury his massive ego as he tried to get in a few extra jabs at unnamed enemies who, he suggested, had plotted against him. Let the record be clear: There was no plot, no group of nefarious evildoers who had set out to drag down this mythical defender of freedom and righteousness. The only person responsible for the governor’s downfall was Eric Greitens.

Had Missouri voters known in November 2016 about the sordid extramarital affair that got Greitens into so much trouble, he never would have gotten out of the starting blocks.

His generous dark-money funders would have sprinted to back more worthy candidates.

Greitens persists in trying to sell the same myths upon which he built his gubernatorial bid from the early days of 2015.

Myth 1: He was a devoted family man and ex-Navy SEAL who had dedicated his life to defending AmerROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com ica. In fact, Greitens was a Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens announces his resignation in military short-timer who the governor’s office on Tuesday in Jefferson City. reneged on his commitattacks designed to cause maximum ment to the SEALs once he caught the damage to family and friends. … It’s clear scent of political opportunity. that for the forces that oppose us there Myth 2: He was in this to “fight for is no end in sight. I cannot allow those the people of Missouri.” Greitens always forces to continue to cause pain and difhad his eyes on higher public office, ficulty for the people that I love.” made painfully obvious by his overzealFinally, the state can move forward. ous dark-money fundraising and his The low-profile Republican lieutenreservation of a presidential campaign ant governor, Mike Parson, now must website well before he had won the scramble to establish his own political gubernatorial election. Greitens was in agenda and acquire the leadership skills this fight for Greitens. required of the state’s highest officeIn his resignation remarks, he alluded holder. Luckily, he doesn’t have a hard to unnamed enemies out there who act to follow. somehow “designed” the extramaritalaffair scandal “to cause maximum

Assessing the aftermath ‌ Three things are clear in wake of Greitens’ resignation.‌

I

n the aftermath of the five-month saga of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and his legal troubles, a few things have become abundantly clear: • The Missouri Republican Party emerges with its dignity and integrity intact. Instead of being devastated by the resignation of its titular leader, the party held together and pursued the truth of shocking allegations against Greitens in a way that should serve as an inspiration to the national Republican Party.

• Missouri voters learned a difficult lesson about electing inexperienced political outsiders who come out of nowhere promising to clean up corruption.

Greitens, armed with an impressive but lightly vetted résumé and explosive (literally) campaign commercials monetizing his brief service as a Navy SEAL, was revealed to be far out of his depth.

• His campaign was funded in large part with anonymous dark money. No one knew where the money had come from, and its source remains a mystery. Missourians, at the same time they were electing Greitens in November 2016, overwhelmingly passed a measure that sought to limit the influence of big money in Missouri elections. Voters soon found out that the anti-corruption crusader had brought a bigger problem with him.

James Klahr, executive director of the Missouri Ethics Commission, has since ruled that dark money is illegal in state elections. It is noteworthy that a few hours before Greitens resigned, a Cole County Circuit judge had ordered Greitens and his campaign committees, light and dark alike, to turn over financial

records to the state House committee considering the governor’s impeachment. After all the drama about Greitens’ 2015 extramarital affair with his hairdresser, protecting the donors may have been the tipping point.

Missourians owe a debt of gratitude to Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, and top legislative leaders like Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, and House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff. As soon as a St. Louis grand jury indicted Greitens for felony invasion of privacy in February after sordid allegations about his extramarital affair became public, GOP leaders did their duty. They impaneled a committee to consider disciplinary measures and put Barnes, an independent-minded lawmaker and an experienced litigator, in charge of it.

Barnes and his committee never backed off, adding questions about campaign fund improprieties to their agenda.

There was no love lost between veteran lawmakers and the arrogant young governor, who had pointedly campaigned against the Legislature’s “culture of corruption” and who watched, if not encouraged, his dark money committee’s attack on a GOP state senator.

One possible beneficiary of Greitens’ resignation: Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley, who vigorously investigated the governor and called for his resignation in April. As he campaigns for the U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill, Hawley won’t have the Greitens millstone around his neck.

Nor will the rest of Missouri.

See editorial cartoons from around the country online at stltoday.com/opinion.

YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Former U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North addresses the National Rifle AssociationInstitute for Legislative Action Leadership Forum in Dallas in May.

ended the shooting in eight of those incidents. Their selfless actions likely saved many lives.”

In Oklahoma City on May 24, a man opened fire at Louie’s Grill & Bar, striking three people. As the gunman was fleeing the scene, two bystanders armed with pistols confronted the shooter and fatally shot him outside the restaurant, Oklahoma City police Capt. Bo Mathews told reporters.

We read about mass killers in the paper, day after day, providing inspiration for the next mass killer. Why do we not read in the Post-Dispatch about these heroes who stop the mass killers?

Eugene Hanneke • Ellisville

North, NRA are right: lawful use of guns not to blame The media have shown little interest in the NRA board of directors’ selection of Oliver North for their next president, and unfortunately most Americans only connect North’s name with the Iran-Contra affair, which they don’t understand.

Lt. Col. North and retired military officer Gen. John Singlaub, both upstanding and competent military officers, circumvented U.S. law to get small arms and supplies to the citizen rebels of Nicaragua, creating a chance to survive the oppressive Sandinista government, while Soviet vessels in the bay prepared to offload artillery, tanks and helicopters for the Sandinistas. It was a compelling beachhead for Russia. Success could have let communism expand into Mexico and South America. We can thank North and Singlaub for those ships taking their cargo home.

Singlaub was no longer a major general, despite serving at the front in WWII and in later U.S. actions including Vietnam and Cambodia. He was recalled and fired by President Jimmy Carter for an off the record political comment. Later, North fell on his sword for President Ronald Reagan and America, as neither could afford to be involved in the IranContra fallout.

We’ll hear more from North after he leaves Fox News. Meanwhile, I agree with him that our harmful gun culture results largely from incessant violence offered “for our pleasure” by Hollywood, television and video game makers, not from NRA’s vigorous support of safe and lawful use of firearms.

Bob Hutton • Chesterfield

Reporting should reflect when heroes with guns save lives A report released by the FBI on Feb. 13 has provided detailed information regarding active shooter incidents in the U.S. in 2016 and 2017. The FBI defines an active shooter as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” There were 50 such incidents during the two years covered by the report.

An interesting finding is that in 12 percent of the events, a civilian with a concealed-carry gun intervened and stopped the shooter, sometimes without having to fire a shot. In all such interventions, the citizens possessed valid firearms permits. On two occasions, the citizens were able to stop the rampage and detain the shooter until law enforcement arrived, without having to fire a shot. In four other cases, the citizens engaged in gunfire with the shooter to stop the killing. In one instance, an armed citizen attempting to halt the shootings was wounded.

The FBI stated: “Armed and unarmed citizens engaged the shooter in 10 incidents. They safely and successfully

J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

Gov. Eric Greitens addresses the media outside the Civil Court building on May 14 after a case against him was dismissed.

Greitens isn’t the problem that needs our focus and money With Gov. Eric Greitens in the news constantly and the various charges brought against him dropped, then reopened, it appears to be a witch hunt. All the time, energy and money spent in prosecuting and defending him is ridiculous.

If half of those efforts and funds were put toward stopping the constant shootings in St. Louis, maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad place to live. Let’s work on what needs fixing the most first.

Gary Precht • St. Louis

Electric vehicles are solution to high price of gasoline in U.S. There is a solution to the high price of gasoline. The auto industry has the capability of converting to self-sustained electric vehicles. Some companies are already shifting to trucks with those types of power trains.

I believe that major automotive manufacturers could make the conversion within three years, after that the United States could do without so much oil, and that would result in billions of dollars in trade.

Norman Green • East St. Louis

Economy already tough; Prop A on ballot will make it harder Our generation faces unprecedented student loan debt with fewer jobs available to pay it off. Now politicians and out-of-state CEOs have tried to eliminate our economic opportunity and democratic voice by forcing Proposition A, the right-to-work referendum, onto the August ballot.

If Proposition A passes, it could destroy jobs in Missouri and force us to accept lower wages. That means many of the good job opportunities we did have will now be gone.

We need to stand together to preserve the American spirit of economic opportunity for our generation. We need to vote No on Proposition A on Aug. 7.

Hannah Wheaton • St. Louis Read more letters online at STLtoday.com/letters

TOD ROBBERSON Editorial Page Editor • trobberson@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8382 KEVIN HORRIGAN Deputy Editorial Page Editor • khorrigan@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8135

I know that my retirement will make no difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty • JOSEPH PULITZER • APRIL 10, 1907 PLATFORM •

STLtoday.com/ThePlatform Find us at facebook/PDPlatform • Follow us on twitter @PDEditorial E-MAIL MAIL Letters to the editor St. Louis Post-Dispatch, letters@post-dispatch.com 900 N. Tucker Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63101 Letters should be 250 words or fewer. Please include your name, address and phone number.

All letters are subject to editing. Writers usually will not be published more than once every 60 days.