Eric Greitens, a former lieutenant colonel and Navy SEAL with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, is a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in refugee studies. He founded a nonprofit serving fellow vets. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mike Mullen called Greitens “one of the most remarkable young men I have ever encountered.”
Greitens was elected governor of Missouri at age 43.
One profile during his gubernatorial run said the following about him: “If the man has an Achilles’ heel, it’s perfection.”
Not quite.
Greitens’ Achilles was not in his heel, as it turned out, but rather it was slightly below his belt.
Greitens, in reality, appeared to have everything going for him except a conscious, a soul, and a sense of shame or morality.
Greitens was indicted on February 22, 2018, on a felony charge of invasion of privacy. The indictment came a month after a television station said Greitens “cheated on his wife, secretly took photos of the (married) woman he cheated with, and then attempted to blackmail the woman into silence by threatening to release the photos,” Vox reported.
The Missouri state GOP initially defended Greitens. GOP strategist Jeff Roe blamed Greitens’ scandal on the influence of Democratic billionaire George Soros.
“You never know when the Soros money will come your way,” Roe told the Kansas City Star.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article201771419.html
That’s right, a GOP strategist named Jeff Roe blamed Greitens’ scandal on George Soros.
Really.
Greitens later admitted to the affair but denied the blackmail charge.
He did not blame George Soros.
Greitens was later charged with violating campaign laws by tampering with a computer and removing a donor list from a nonprofit group he had founded. Missouri’s GOP attorney general was Josh Hawley, who is now one of the state’s U.S. senators, led the investigation.
GOP leaders in the State Legislature said they were considering impeachment against Greitens.
Greitens resigned from office and the charges against him were dropped.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/23/eric-greitens-senate-governor-affair/
Greitens’ wife Sheena divorced him after learning of his extramarital affair and charged him with sexual assault.
The Hill reported that her affidavit included that Eric Greitens threatened to shoot himself if his wife did not provide “specific public political support” for him before his resignation. Sheena Greitens alleged that her ex-husband became physically violent with her and her children.
“Prior to our divorce, during an argument in late April 2018, Eric knocked me down and confiscated my cell phone, wallet and keys so that I was unable to call for help or extricate myself and our children from our home,” she wrote in the filing.
Eric Greitens’s behavior, Sheena said, “included physical violence toward our children, such as cuffing our then-3-year-old son across the face at the dinner table in front of me and yanking him around by his hair.”
She also said that he allegedly threatened to use his political connections to win custody of the children.
Greitens, his reputation destroyed, sold the last shred left of his soul and announced he was running for the U.S. Senate as a MAGA Republican.
The Washington Post reported that Greitens had “tied his political fortunes to former president Donald Trump, by backing Trump’s false claims about mass election fraud and promising on Twitter that would ‘continue Trump’s America First policies.’ ”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/23/eric-greitens-senate-governor-affair/
Greitens then hired a number of Trump’s high-profile supporters, including former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was pardoned by Trump after he pled guilty to tax fraud, and former interior secretary Ryan Zinke, who resigned from the administration amid ethics scandals.
https://apnews.com/article/842c84a03e5f405fae83277a97905841
Greitens also hired Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend and. disgraced Fox News commentator – are there any other kind of Fox News commentators? — to chair his campaign. Guilfoyle resigned from the network after she faced a sexual harassment complaint from a female assistant.
Greitens thought his hard work sucking up to Trump had paid off when Trump endorsed “Eric” for the Senate race, leaving Republicans wondering if this meant Greitens, Eric Schmitt, the state’s attorney general, or one of the other candidates, Eric McElroy.
When asked for some clarification, a Trump spokesman said only that the “endorsement speaks for itself.”
Schmitt – with Trump’s endorsement – won the election.
Greitens and McElroy – who also had Trump’s endorsement – lost the election.
