Eric Greitens.Photo: Jeff Roberson/AP Photo
FormerMissouri Gov. Eric Greitenswas defeated inthe state’s U.S. Senate primary Tuesday,losing the Republican nomination toEric Schmitt, the state’s attorney general.
While Greitens didn’t win the primary, he commanded considerable attention in the race, due to years-long personal controversies andads he aired during his campaign.
Greitens was seen as something of a rising star when he was elected as governor in January 2017. But that same year, the former Navy SEAL wasindictedon a felony charge of computer tampering, following claims that he improperly took a donor list from his nonprofit veterans group to help his political campaign.
Then, in 2018, Greitens was indicted ona felony invasionof privacy charge related to allegations that he had tried to blackmail a woman with whom he had the affair (that charge was laterdropped).
As the Missouri lawmakers readied impeachment proceedings, Greitens announced that he would resign effective June 1, 2018 as part of a deal with the St. Louis prosecutor’s office which withdrew the felony charges related to the veterans' charity email list.
But even after leaving office, the controversy continued.
In March 2022, Greitens ex-wife, Sheena Greitens,accused her ex-husband of “unstable and coercive behavior"that included “physical violence” toward their two young children in an affidavit filed in an ongoing child custody dispute.
The former governor released a statement onTwitterat the time, calling his ex-wife’s claims “completely fabricated, baseless allegations.”
In a recent campaign stop, he again addressed the allegations, claiming that various other parties, including a therapist and a mediator “already said, all of these allegations were false.”
Even amid the allegations of violence, Greitens worked to portray himself as a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, releasing an ad in July in which he can be seen carrying a large gun and telling those at home: “Today, we’re going RINO hunting.”
The group then enters the home using force with guns in hand.
“Join the MAGA crew, get a RINO hunting permit,” Greitens says. “There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”
Schmitt will go on to face the winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary, nurse and Anheuser-Busch heir Trudy Busch Valentine, in November.
source: people.com
