Josh Hawley faces questions on Greitens, guns and Trump as he files for Senate bid | The Kansas City Star

The top law enforcement official of Missouri officially filed for U.S. Senate five days after the state's governor, a fellow Republican, received a felony indictment.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, the top Republican recruit to challenge U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, carefully navigated the controversy surrounding Gov. Eric Greitens' indictment Tuesday after Greitens' team ratcheted up attacks on the Democratic prosecutor heading up the investigation.

“A criminal indictment, felony indictment, by a grand jury is a serious matter. The criminal justice system here in our state needs to be allowed to proceed without regard to party or to partisanship and without party or partisan interference,” said Hawley.

Hawley, who is conducting his own investigation into Greitens’ use of a private messaging app, would not speculate on whether the governor’s indictment could hurt Republican candidates in 2018.

“That’s your job,” he joked.

The ongoing investigation and the upcoming trial of the governor could definitely hamper Hawley's candidacy, said John Hancock, a former state Republican chair.

"The issue has the potential to affect all of our candidates. That’s just the cold hard reality of all of this," said Hancock, a St. Louis-based political consultant.

In the days since the indictment, both Greitens’ campaign and the state Republican Party have hurled a series of attacks at St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner. Hancock said that because the governor selects the chair of the state party, it functions "in a very real sense" as a "political arm of the governor."

Greitens’ campaign sent out an email Monday with the subject line “George Soros declares war in Missouri” in reference to Gardner’s previous campaign contributions from super PACs linked to Soros, a New York billionaire.

The email quoted a lengthy passage from an article from Breitbart, the right wing website that was previously run by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and encouraged supporters to share it on social media.

“Money talks: and in this case, George Soros’s money has empowered a prosecutor for whom going after political opponents is more important than dealing with crime in the streets. It’s an embarrassment to the Show-Me State, and conservatives around the country need to speak up,” Breitbart said in a portion of the article quoted by Greitens’ campaign.

Pressed on whether he was disappointed by the attacks by his fellow Republicans, Hawley said his previous comments stood on their own.

"Politics and partisanship should have no role in that process,” he said.

McCaskill, the Democratic incumbent and a former Jackson County prosecutor, also chose her words carefully when asked about the indictment and the ensuing attacks on the prosecutor.

“Because I have been a prosecutor, I think it is inappropriate for me to comment on any criminal case that is ongoing,” McCaskill said. “We’re trained over and over again that you should not comment on a criminal case that is pending, and this one certainly is, so I’m not going to comment.”

Greitens’ campaign sent out an additional email attacking Gardner on Tuesday, quoting an article by Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican candidate for state Senate in northeast Missouri, who called the investigation “a witch hunt from by a liberal prosecutor run amok.”

U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, disagreed with the barrage of attacks against the investigation by the state party and governor’s office.

"I think both the legal system and the legislative look at this will be appropriate,” he said.

Trump, who has endorsed Hawley in the Senate race, has made similar attacks on the special federal investigation into his 2016 campaign, which has led to multiple indictments against his former campaign chair Paul Manafort and other Trump associates.

“WITCH HUNT!” Trump said on Twitter Tuesday morning in all capital letters.

Asked if he agreed with Trump, Hawley said that he supports the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, but also thinks it should conclude soon.

“I think he needs to wrap it up. He shows every sign of doing so. So let’s see what the facts are that he gets out there, but I am for that investigation proceeding as it needs to but wrapping up quickly,” Hawley said.

Trump will join Hawley at a fundraiser in St. Louis in March. “I’m always happy to have the president’s support,” Hawley said.

Hawley said he agreed with Trump’s push to restrict bump stocks in the wake of a school shooting in Florida that killed 17 people, but he took a nuanced view when asked about the president’s proposal to arm teachers as a way to prevent future school shootings.

“Individual schools can do what they think is best for their school. I do think it is very important that we make additional funding available to schools for school security and trained security personnel,” Hawley said.

“When I drop my boys off at pre-school, I want to know that their safe and I know that every Missouri parent has got to feel the same way,” Hawley continued. “I don’t want to impose a one-size-fits-all solution on schools and districts. They can make their own decisions on what they want… but we ought to make options available.”

Hawley said that he also wants improvements made to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is intended to prevent people with a criminal history or severe mental illness from purchasing guns.

He said state law enforcement agencies should be required to share information with the federal system, noting that right now it is optional. He also said the system needs more thorough records on mental health.

“Mentally ill people should not have guns, any kind of guns. Not just this weapon or that weapon, but none at all,” Hawley said.