JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) A former campaign aide to Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens testified that he was duped into taking the fall when the governors campaign was trying to explain how it had gotten a list of top donors to a veterans charity that Greitens had founded, according to a legislative report released Wednesday.
The report from a special House investigatory committee indicates that Greitens himself received the donor list of The Mission Continues so he could call key supporters and explain that he was stepping down as CEO in 2014. It says Greitens later directed political aides to work off the charitys list to raise money for his gubernatorial campaign even though he had signed an agreement never to disclose the charitys confidential donor information.
The report shows the governor took advantage of a charity that works hard to take care of our veterans, said Republican Rep. Jay Barnes, chairman of the bipartisan committee charged with investigating whether to try to impeach and remove the first-term Republican governor from office. The charity donor list was taken without permission and used inappropriately for political gain.
Transcripts of an aides testimony indicate that Greitens campaign lied when it settled a Missouri Ethics Commission complaint last year by categorizing the charity list as an in-kind donation valued at $600 provided on March 1, 2015, by Daniel Laub, who had functioned as Greitens campaign manager.
The whole document made me sick, Laub said in an April 18 deposition. One, because it was misrepresented; and two, because now I was in a round of news stories falsely portraying what happened.
The House report also indicates that Greitens began consulting with and paying political advisers before he officially created a campaign committee in February 2015, raising more questions about whether he skirted state campaign finance laws.
Catherine Hanaway, an attorney who lost to Greitens in the 2016 Republican primary, issued a statement on behalf of Greitens campaign committee saying that Barnes never asked or allowed it to provide testimony.
Former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Chip Robertson Jr., who is counsel to the House committee, in response said the House will issue subpoenas to campaign personnel. In a statement, he said the committee report had its desired effect: causing those affiliated with Greitens team to offer to do what they have so far refused to do when asked to provide information to the committee.
Hanaway also defended the decision to report Laub as the source of the charity list by noting that the list already was in his possession when Greitens officially created his political committee.
This is, at its core, a minor campaign finance issue, Hanaway said.
Greitens already faces a felony charge of tampering with computer data for allegedly disclosing the charity donor list to his political fundraiser in 2015 without the St. Louis-based charitys permission. Greitens has not been charged with filing a false campaign report, which is misdemeanor crime, but authorities are reviewing the matter.
Greitens also faces a May 14 trial in St. Louis on a felony invasion-of-privacy indictment for allegedly taking and transmitting a nonconsensual photo of an at least partially nude woman in March 2015. Greitens has acknowledged having a consensual affair with his former hairdresser but has denied criminal wrongdoing.
