Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley announced Tuesday that Republican Gov. Eric Greitens may have committed a felony after his office “obtained evidence of potential criminal violations.”
Hawley said his office uncovered the evidence during its investigation into Greitens’ use of a donor list from The Mission Continues, a veterans organization he founded in 2007. Hawley said the evidence “goes beyond Missouri’s charity laws” and indicates “potentially criminal acts were committed by” the governor.
In a press conference Tuesday, the Missouri attorney general said his office believes Greitens allegedly obtained, transmitted, and used The Mission Continues’ electronic donor list to solicit donations for his gubernatorial campaign.
“He did all of this without permission of the Mission Continues,” Hawley said. “If proven, these acts could amount to the unauthorized taking and use of property, in this case electronic property. Under Missouri law, this is known as computer tampering. And given the value of the list in question, it is a felony.”
Because the alleged criminal act took place in St. Louis, Hawley’s office lacks the jurisdiction to prosecute Greitens. The evidence was shared with St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner after Hawley received permission from a court to do so, Hawley said.
Greitens dismissed the allegations from the Missouri attorney general.
“Fortunately for Josh, he’s better at press conferences than the law. Anyone who has set foot in a Missouri courtroom knows these allegations are ridiculous,” Greitens said in a statement. “Josh has turned the ‘evidence’ he claims to have over to St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner — a liberal prosecutor funded by George Soros who allegedly suborned perjury, falsified documents and withheld evidence. We will dispense with these false allegations.”
Hawley opened an investigation into Greitens’ use of The Mission Continues’ donor list in February. But concerns regarding his campaign’s use of the list have been ongoing since 2016.
Last year, Greitens and his lawyer signed a consent decree declaring that the campaign received the list in March 2015 as an in-kind donation from his campaign manager, Daniel Laub, according to the Kansas City Star.
The Mission Continues has stressed it did not give Greitens’ campaign its list of donors, as it would be a violation of federal law. The organization has also said it does not know Laub.
Greitens has been under increasing scrutiny after it was revealed he had an extramarital affair with his former hairdresser and allegedly took photos of her without her permission in an attempt to blackmail her to remain quiet about the relationship. The governor has admitted to the affair but denied blackmailing the woman.
The woman told a bipartisan investigative committee from the Missouri House of Representatives that she and Greitens had several sexual encounters, some of which were consensual and others that were not. She also claimed the governor hit her.
