Eric Greitens could join his investigator, Josh Hawley, in Senate

Come January 2023, the pair could be Senate rivals, making for an awkward reunion of sorts from their Jefferson City days, since the office of Hawley, when he was state attorney general, investigated the then-governor.

Greitens is running to replace Hawley’s current Missouri Senate counterpart, Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, who said he will not seek reelection next year.

Hawley, elected to the Senate in 2018, is expected to have a strong influence on who will serve alongside him, and his rocky relationship with Greitens may put a roadblock in the former governor’s pathway to the chamber.

Though once a pivotal swing state, in recent years, Missouri has become reliably red, giving the GOP primary winner a strong shot at becoming its next senator. Greitens, 46, said he’s running for his state’s open Senate seat next year to fight the Democrats’ “leftist agenda” and defend the policies of Trump.

But, Greitens, a Duke University graduate, Rhodes scholar, and Navy SEAL, brings serious political baggage to the race. His Senate bid comes three years after he stepped down as governor amid possible impeachment by his fellow Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly.

Greitens resigned in June 2018 after being charged with felony invasion of privacy and other crimes.

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The charges against Greitens were dropped months later, but this was amid a sexual assault allegation, which a state House committee found credible. GOP lawmakers, who controlled both chambers of the General Assembly, threatened to impeach the then-governor. Several Missouri representatives at the state and federal level, including Hawley, urged Greitens to resign.

As attorney general, Hawley also investigated Greitens over his use of a charity donor list to solicit donations to help his 2016 gubernatorial campaign. At the time, Hawley accused Greitens of felonious behavior over the findings of his investigation.

And as Greitens enters what is expected to be a highly contested Senate race, painting himself as the most pro-Trump candidate, he may have trouble getting the influential support of his former colleague, who has made himself to be one of the most nationally recognized Trump loyalists in just two years.

Hawley, 41, has already been in talks with the former president about potential candidates to fill Blunt’s seat.

Hawley has not directly spoken out on Greitens’s candidacy, and he did not return the Washington Examiner’s request for comment, but he pointed out that there are more candidates in the pool for next year besides the former governor.

“I imagine I’ll support the Republican nominee, I mean, whoever it is. But there’s a lot of game to play here,” Hawley said Monday.

Hawley, a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School and a clerk to Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, added that he has no regrets about calling for Greitens’s resignation in 2018.

“I think Hawley will do everything in his power to prevent Eric Greitens from being his home state colleague for a lot of reasons,” said former state Sen. Jeff Smith, a Democrat.

But despite potential bad blood with Hawley and a scandal that forced Greitens from office, some Missourians say his legacy may not be politically fatal.

“Missourians didn’t vote him out of office. He resigned and was replaced, so I am interested to see if people will be able to overlook [his legacy] because it almost seems like the time has passed where a scandal like that would ruin someone’s career. It’s like you can honestly recover from it and not be affected by it,” St. Louis resident Emily Johnson told the Washington Examiner.

Jeff Roberson/AP

Could Greitens be damaged goods?

In January 2018, Greitens was accused by his hairstylist of having taken her to his basement, blindfolding her, binding her hands, and forcing her into performing oral sex. His accuser also claimed that Greitens took nude photos of her and threatened to release them if she told anyone about the incident.

The woman also testified to the state House committee that Greitens had slapped her, grabbed her, and called her degrading names. All of the allegations predated Greitens’s successful 2016 gubernatorial run, his first bid for public office.

Greitens later confirmed that he had an extramarital affair, but he denied allegations that he had blackmailed the woman or was violent with her.

In early 2020, Greitens was fined $178,000 by a Missouri ethics regulator, following a long-running investigation of his campaign that found two violations of state law related to campaign finance regulations.

A consent order allowed Greitens to pay $38,000 of the fine as long as he committed no further violations, a deal Greitens’s team declared as a legal victory.

Claire Grissum, president of the University of Missouri College Republicans, said she worries that these kinds of headlines may come back to haunt the former governor if he gets the GOP nomination.

“I don’t know if he can beat a Democratic candidate with the reputation that he has, and I don’t know how productive he would be in office when I’m sure the majority of people will always remember the big controversies that he went through while in office and will associate him with that, associate Missouri with that, and it’s just kind of a tricky situation to put the state in,” Grissum told the Washington Examiner.

For David Woods, who lives near Wentzville outside St. Louis, he said he’s more concerned with how Greitens would govern at the federal level than his controversial past.

Though others support Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who announced his candidacy this week, and Reps. Ann Wagner and Vicky Hartzler have been floated as other possible contenders for Blunt’s seat, Woods said he would prefer someone like Greitens, whom he said is outspoken and opinionated, rather than a candidate who tries to stay in the political middle.

“I honestly still wish he was our governor,” Woods told the Washington Examiner. “We’d love to see Eric Greitens do it, and I’d vote for him.”

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Hawley retains hold on Trump base

Since ousting two-term Democrat Claire McCaskill in 2018, Hawley has emerged as a conservative firebrand and a possible contender for the 2024 presidential race.

Hawley’s loyalty was put to the test when he spearheaded the push for Congress to object to the Electoral College votes to certify President Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, a day that was later met with a riot at the Capitol that left five people dead.

Following the riot, Hawley’s approval ratings dropped 9 points from before the riot, according to a poll by Morning Consult. A survey conducted among 743 registered voters found 49% disapproved of the junior senator, while 36% of respondents said they approved.

But Smith argued that Hawley’s defiance against the 2020 election results helped him in some political circles.

“In my view, Sen. Hawley got what he hoped for, which is raised his national profile, and endeared himself from the hardcore MAGA base, which in most states is still a winning position in the primary,” Smith said.

To Tammy Bickel of Springfield, Hawley’s objection was a sign of strength, and she liked that he kept his position to oppose the results, even after other lawmakers changed their minds after the riot.

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Bickel added that she would also be likely to support Greitens, even if Hawley puts up a fight against his nomination.

“We don’t really care about the relationship between the men. It’s about the governing of the state,” Bickel told the Washington Examiner. “If they are what we are for, that’s what we care about: our agenda, what we want, how we want our lives lived. And there, Greitens and Hawley are on the same page.”