Embattled Missouri governor Eric Greitens has spent the last few months insisting that the sexual misconduct charges against him—which include taking a surreptitious nude photograph of a woman he was having an affair with to coerce her into silence—are scurrilous slanders dreamt up by an imbalanced woman and crazed partisan prosecutors. But according to a shocking new report by Missouri House investigators, the accusations aren’t only credible—they’re worse than we thought.
The report, released Wednesday evening by the House’s Special Investigative Committee on Oversight, reveals the testimony of Greitens’ former hairstylist in lurid detail: that in 2015 he invited her over to his house, coaxed her down to his basement, and tied her hands to a pull-up bar. He then undressed and photographed her—both, she testified, without her consent. She further testified that he coerced her into performing oral sex on him before letting her leave the basement.
The committee—which is chaired by a Republican and on which Republicans outnumber Democrats 5 to 2—judged the alleged victim’s account to be “credible,” and said her story was corroborated by other witnesses she informed in the immediate aftermath of the event. These witnesses included friends as well as her estranged husband, who secretly recorded conversations in which she confessed to infidelity with Greitens and who broke the story of the affair to the press last year. At the same time, the committee acknowledged that their report was only able to focus on the alleged victim’s side of the story. Greitens refused to cooperate with or provide any information to House investigators, saying he preferred to fight the allegations in court.
In a brief press statement delivered an hour before the report was to be released Wednesday, Greitens savaged the House investigation as “a political witch hunt” and said the report was “full of more false, outlandish, and salacious statements.”
“The people of Missouri see through this, and they know far better than to trust one-sided tabloid trash gossip that was produced in a secret report,” Greitens said. “This is exactly like what’s happening with the witch hunts in Washington, D.C.”
Greitens’ pugnacious denials don’t appear to have convinced many of Missouri’s most influential politicians. State House Speaker Todd Richardson—another Republican—described the allegations as “beyond disturbing” and said House leaders would call a special session to determine whether they should pursue impeachment proceedings. Others, including Senator Claire McCaskill and her presumptive challenger Attorney General Josh Hawley, called for Greitens to step down at once.
“The House Investigative Committee’s report contains shocking, substantial, and corroborated evidence of wrongdoing by Governor Greitens,” Hawley said in a statement. “The conduct the report details is certainly impeachable, in my judgment, and the House is well within its rights to proceed on that front. But the people of Missouri should not be put through that ordeal. Governor Greitens should resign immediately.”
