On the same day Attorney General Josh Hawley closed an investigation into whether Republican Gov. Eric Greitens and members of his staff violated Missouri’s record retention laws, Hawley on March 1, opened a separate inquiry into a charity founded by Greitens to assist military veterans.
The attorney general’s investigation relating to The Mission Continues, a charity Greitens founded in 2007 and ran until 2014, followed multiple news reports documenting Greitens’ apparent use the charity’s email and donor lists for campaign and fundraising purposes. As a non-profit charitable organization, The Mission Continues would be putting its tax-exempt status in jeopardy by participating in partisan election activities. The charity has denied sharing its lists with the Greitens campaign, raising questions of whether the lists were taken without permission.
Hawley’s first investigation involved the use of the Confide app by Greitens and senior staffers when conducting official business. Confide automatically destroys text messages after they’ve been read and prevents them from being saved, copied or forwarded, a potential violation of state laws that require most government records to be retained.
The investigation concluded it doesn’t appear Greitens’ staff broke any laws. This conclusion primarily was based on interviews with staffers who said the use of Confide was limited to “non-substantive matters such as logistics and scheduling.” However, investigators noted that they essentially were forced to take the staffers at their word.
“These accounts appear credible, though the nature of Confide necessarily means that no documentary evidence exists to corroborate (or contradict) this testimony,” according to the report.
The report also said the governor’s office “asserted a blanket objection to all questions regarding communications between the interviewees and the Governor based on the doctrine of executive privilege.” While commonly invoked by U.S. presidents, executive privilege for the Missouri governor doesn’t exist under state law. However, it doesn’t appear Hawley’s office challenged the governor’s assertion that it does.
Separate from the attorney general’s investigations, Greitens stands indicted by a St. Louis grand jury of first degree invasion of privacy, a felony, for allegedly photographing a former mistress in a state of undress without her permission while he was engaged in an extra-marital affair in 2015. A Republican-controlled House committee is also investigating the matter in secret proceedings that began March 7, but House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, has repeatedly dismissed the notion that the committee’s purpose is to lay the groundwork for articles of impeachment.
OK, the guy served in the military. Kudos. It does not excuse the blatant misuse of funds for veterans for campaign use and does not excuse possible use of these funds to meet with his lover not wife. There is so much abuse of campaign funds now that it has become common place. From Long going to Las Vegas and not meeting in open meetings with citizens to Blunt making use of insider info on ethanol plants when his acreage grows corn we should not be amazed at abuses at the political level. Let us not get into Trump and his dealings with his resorts, his children traveling on government planes with security for their business dealings. The system is now in the "full corrupt" mode and it seems that Republicans in our state and national levels are willing to excuse these actions because they got a great tax break. I am sure old timers familiar with politics of old would just smile and say, "you guys have got this honed to a fine edge of stealing from the citizens".
ReplyDelete@ 7:07 AM - I truly believe we're in the end days. Take a close look, there is corruptness at all levels of our government. Hell, you don't have to look no further than good old boy Jasper County. This place is the epitome of corruptness.
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