Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens vowed Thursday to beat charges of felony criminal invasion of privacy during a conference call with campaign contributors and supporters.
The Republican, indicted last week, remained defiant, according to a source who participated in the call. Greitens reiterated that the case against him was a sham, and then turned the call over to his lawyers to lay out the flaws in the criminal indictment, which is related to an extramarital affair the governor had with a hairdresser before he was elected in 2016.
“I want to let you know that we’re going to fight this, we’re going to win,” Greitens said. “We’re going to win and we will emerge stronger because of it.”
Some Republican insiders in Missouri are worried that the Greitens scandal could cast a pall over state Attorney General Josh Hawley, the presumptive GOP nominee for Senate against incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill, among the most vulnerable Democrats of the midterm cycle. Hawley could be called upon to assist in the investigation into Greitens in his capacity as the state attorney general.
However, Hawley, the consensus Republican pick to challenge McCaskill, still appears untouched by the controversy
Meanwhile, Greitens has shown no signs that he is willing to step aside, even as some Republicans in Missouri have called on him to do so. On the conference call, he promoted his plans to invest in infrastructure, and said other major initiatives would be unveiled next week.
