On Thursday, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens was indicted by a grand jury in St. Louis with one felony count of invasion of privacy from an extramarital affair in 2015.
In January, Greitens admitted to having an extramarital affair following allegations made by his mistress’ ex-husband that the Republican governor took nude photos of her to use as blackmail to keep their affair a secret. St. Louis prosecutor Kimberly Gardner subsequently announced they were launching a full investigation into the matter, prompting the indictment.
Greitens continues to deny the allegations and called the indictment a “misguided political decision” by a “reckless liberal prosecutor.”
“As I have said before, I made a personal mistake before I was Governor. I did not commit a crime,” Greitens said in a statement. “With today’s disappointing and misguided political decision, my confidence in our prosecutorial system is shaken, but not broken. I know this will be righted soon. The people of Missouri deserve better than a reckless liberal prosecutor who uses her office to score political points.”
Gardner is a registered Democrat.
Whether or not the criminal allegation is true, he still admitted to having an extramarital affair with a woman. Even if he was a private citizen at the time of the affair, he had aspirations to office, and it’s conduct unbecoming of a public official.
In our late-January editorial, we argued that conservative politicians and pundits need to recognize that character, whether it be the president’s or of other public officials, matters. That still holds true. It’s easy to recognize that we are all human and therefore imperfect, but it’s imperative that we hold public officials accountable at least to the standards that we would expect of our best selves, and probably higher ones.
Siraj Hashmi is a commentary video editor and writer for the Washington Examiner.
