Eric Greitens, ex-Governor of Missouri, has a glittering resume (he’s an medal-winning Navy SEAL and Rhodes scholar, with an Oxford doctorate) And a devil may care attitude to campaign finance — when he is not committing adultery and possibly false imprisonment and blackmail. His latest offense? According to the St Louis Post Dispatch,
“An advocacy group is alleging former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens improperly tapped his state campaign fund to help pay for his current bid for the U.S. Senate.
In a complaint filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission, Washington-based Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a nonprofit focused on campaign finance laws and ethics, said the Republican spent more than $100,000 from his Missouri account to finance the startup costs of his political comeback attempt.”
Candidates for federal office may not use money donated to them for previous campaigns for state office. Federal campaign finance rules are different, and usually more stringent than states’ rules. In Missouri, there is no limit to how much individuals, corporations, political parties, PACS, and super PACS can give to candidates for state offices. However, for federal campaigns, the maximum an individual can donate is $2,800. And corporations cannot give anything. If a federal candidate was allowed to transfer from their state fund to their federal fund, there would be no effective limit on how much individuals could give to federal candidates.
Was it an honest mistake? Greitens’ track record makes that unlikely. During his candidacy for Governor, he received the largest ever single contribution to a Missouri campaign, $1.975 million The money came from the super PAC "SEALS for Truth", which had, in turn, received it from the American Policy Coalition (APC), another conservative super PAC.
What made the affair so disreputable was that the money was donated right after the June 30, 2016, quarterly deadline for filing an enumeration of campaign contributions. So Greitens didn’t have to declare he received the money until October 2016, after the primary vote. And to ice his hypocritical cake, on the very day he received the money, Greitens had assured voters he intended to increase transparency, while reducing corruption, in state politics.
On March 12, 2017, the St Louis Post-Dispatch and The Kansas City Star published a joint editorial criticizing Greitens for "secret fundraising and secret spending" and having "security staffers block reporters from getting close to him". In 2018, Missouri Attorney General, Josh Hawley, then running for U.S. Senate, announced the opening of an investigation of Greitens' 2016 campaign financing.
On April 28, 2017, the Missouri Ethics Commission fined Greitens's campaign $1,000 for violating state campaign ethics rules regarding campaign disclosure. Greitens did not contest the fine. And in February 2020, after a nearly 18-month investigation into Greitens's 2016 gubernatorial campaign, the Missouri Ethics Commission "found no evidence of any wrongdoing" by him, but required the campaign to update its reports with in-kind contributions from two groups, and to pay the commission about $178,000 in fees. So no illegal activity, just a bunch of shady dealings and hypocrisy.
And then there was the affair. The adultery is not in dispute. The details surrounding it are. Greitens invited the woman in the case, his hairstylist, to his home in 2015. She said that she undressed and consented to have her hands tied to exercise rings above her head. Then she claimed she was blindfolded and Greitens took pictures of her, which he threatened to publish if she said anything. She said he forced her to give him oral sex. And claimed that in later encounters he slapped her. Smacked her. And threw her to the ground.
All criminal charges were dropped after issues arose with the statute of limitations and problems with the evidence. However the Missouri House of Representatives released a report detailing allegations deeming the hairstylist’s accusations credible. In May 2018, they voted to start impeachment proceedings against Greitens. On June 1 he resigned. But now he’s running for the US Senate. And blaming liberals for his problems.
The CLC complaint says Greitens may have violated federal transparency requirements by falsely describing the spending as a personal contribution from himself to his Senate campaign. Greitens’s campaign responded by dismissing the complaint as the “ludicrous” work of “liberals.” Adding,
“Funds from the state campaign were used for compliance and to defend against attacks. These woke liberals went after President Trump, and now they are doing the same to Greitens, the MAGA candidate for the US Senate. We’ll continue to fight, put America First, and winning,”
Sexual assault and campaign finance violations? I’m sold. He is “the MAGA candidate for US Senate.”
Apart from all the others, including: the Missouri AG, Eric Schmitt, who is suing the federal government over vaccine mandates. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, who is an OG ‘birther’, and scores 100% on the usual conservative positions, and a vote against the ‘Violence Against Women Act’. Rep Billy Long, also a 100% conservative and active in election-denial. And Mark McCloskey, famous for waving his gun around during a BLM parade.
Eric Greitens may well win the election. And Missouri will send another sewer denizen to DC, where he will fit right in with the rest of that dismal band of crooks and hypocrits.
(Geitens’s personal details were sourced from Wikipedia.)