Wednesday, October 23, 2024

The Missouri Governor, His Affair, and the Chaos That Followed. Here’s What It Means.

April 13, 2018 by  
Filed under Choosing Lingerie

“I am very worried as a family man about the effects that this has on his family,” Mike Kehoe, the Senate majority leader and a Republican, said. “The governor’s political career might have two-and-a-half years on it at best, but he’s going to have a family for life.”

What does he say happened?

Mr. Greitens acknowledged having a consensual extramarital affair, issuing a statement — together with his wife, Sheena — shortly after delivering his State of the State address in January. He has portrayed the issue as a personal matter, not a legal violation, and his lawyers have pushed back vehemently against suggestions of criminal behavior or coercion of any kind. Mr. Greitens has dismissed the legislative report, which quoted extensively from the woman he had a relationship with, as “tabloid trash” and called the investigation into his behavior a “political witch hunt.” He declined to answer questions before the same legislative committee she spoke to.

On Thursday, he seemed to relish the prospect of having the invasion of privacy case against him heard next month. “In 32 days,” he said in a statement, “a court of law and a jury of my peers will let every person in Missouri know the truth and prove my innocence.”

Who has called on Mr. Greitens to resign?

Pretty much everybody in Missouri politics. After the release of the 24-page report this week from the state legislative committee, dozens of legislators and other elected officials — Republican and Democrat — reiterated calls for Mr. Greitens to step down. They include Josh Hawley, the attorney general of Missouri and a Republican; Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat; Mr. Kehoe, the Senate majority leader; and even financial backers like David Humphreys, a businessman whose family was one of Mr. Greitens’s top donors, giving him more than $2 million during his run for governor.

Does anyone still support Mr. Greitens?

An inner circle of advisers to the governor, including several strategists and donors, were said to be urging Mr. Greitens to resist calls to resign. Some evangelical leaders, who supported him in 2016 along with an overwhelming number of the state’s white evangelical voters, said they had maintained their support for the governor.

Brandon Park, the lead pastor at Connection Point, an evangelical church in Raytown, Mo., affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, said he did not think Mr. Greitens should resign. He supports the governor’s anti-abortion positions, and he says evangelical Christians respect him for his policies. “I see a lot of these personal attacks both on Trump and Greitens as a way to take away attention from the ideals that matter most to evangelical Christians,” he said. “It does seem to be a little bit of a witch hunt.”

Others, though, were more critical. Phil Hopper, the pastor of Abundant Live Church near Kansas City, Mo., said he would be “amazed” that anybody would be supporting Mr. Greitens, but said that due process must take its course.

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