Republican Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens knowingly deceived the state ethics commission on how he obtained a veterans charity’s donor list, according his former campaign manager, who also claimed he was duped into taking responsibility for the move.
A 23-page report released Wednesday by the Missouri House Special Investigative Committee On Oversight said Greitens signed an arrangement where he promised he would not share confidential information about donors of The Mission Continues — a veterans group he launched in 2007. When Greitens announced he intended to resign as CEO of the organization in May 2014, the group created a list of powerful donors to share the news.
Later on, that same list was used to solicit funds for his bid for governor, said Daniel Laub, who was Greitens’ campaign manager in 2014.
Laub, whose allegations were listed in the report, also claimed he was tricked into having his name put down in an Missouri Ethics Commission settlement as the one responsible for supplying the list to the campaign. Laub testified that he wasn’t the individual who provided the list to the campaign and said he did not write his name on the consent decree, according to the report.
The Mission Continues has maintained that it does not know who Laub is and claims it did not provide the list to the campaign — a move that would break federal law and jeopardize the organization’s tax-exempt status, according to the Kansas City Star.
Greitens faces a computer data tampering charge related to the donor list and an invasion of privacy charge connected to accusations that he blackmailed a woman with whom he was involved in an extramarital affair.
Last month, the Missouri House committee released a report outlining that some of the sexual encounters the woman had with Greitens were not consensual and that he hit her on several occasions.
Prior to the release of last month’s report, he accused the investigation of being a “political witch hunt” and said he believed it would contain “false” and “salacious accusations.”
Greitens, a former Navy SEAL who previously had been a Democrat, was elected governor as a Republican in 2016. The affair occurred in 2015 shortly before he was elected.
