Request to investigate possible violence at Greitens’ home went nowhere, naturally
Disgraced former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens’s polling in this year’s U.S. Senate race has not slipped all that much since we learned that his ex-wife has alleged under oath that he physically abused her and their children.
Why would it, really? Because in the view of his true believers, anything that anyone says against him is a lie. And, because he says so, is all part of a conspiracy orchestrated by “RINOs” Karl Rove and Mitch McConnell.
Here are a few representative samples from the candidate’s Facebook page:
“Never underestimate the wrath of a woman scorned!”
“She sounds psycho.”
“If I were Eric, I would have left you, too. Biach!”
“I wonder how much Soros paid for her.”
“Everyone involved in this coup against Eric Greitens should be arrested and incarcerated and placed on trial for TREASON against we the people of Missouri!”
If talking to reporters is treasonous, no one has more to worry about on that front than Donald Trump.
Resigned governor says Rove, McConnell behind charges
Greitens claims that his ex is scheming with Rove and McConnell. Though there’s no evidence that’s true, I’m confident that if Rove, McConnell, or anyone else who wants to see a Republican actually win this Missouri U.S. Senate race had heard about her allegations, well then of course they would have passed that info on to reporters.
That wouldn’t be a coup, but an attempt to save the seat. Because while Greitens has led the Republican primary all along, and is now in a three-way tie with Rep. Vicky Hartzler and Attorney General Eric Schmitt, he’s also polled worst against Democratic candidate Lucas Kunce, a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan.
To imagine that Rove and McConnell are behind her allegations, however, is a much bigger stretch. Did they also get the former governor’s apolitical former hairdresser to allege that he blindfolded, constrained and sexually coerced her and wouldn’t let her leave his basement?
How anyone believes that this is a political hit job on a righteous man makes me wonder when the people of the Show-Me State got so credulous.
Then again, that so many still think Greitens belongs in a position of public trust is not surprising if you listen to how he and his defenders, including those who are female, talk about women and sexual violence.
In late April of 2018, around the same time that Sheena Greitens says her husband knocked her down and confiscated her cellphone, wallet and keys so she couldn’t call for help or leave, I attended the Vernon County GOP Lincoln Days Banquet in Nevada, Missouri. Where none of the couple dozen Republicans I interviewed said that what his former hairdresser had alleged was in any way disqualifying.
“I don’t approve of what they’re saying he did, but it’s nothing the Democrats haven’t done,” said a retired carpenter.
“We want to see Greitens stay in there,” said the Vernon County clerk. “He’s still our governor, just like our president is still our president.”
That Greitens had been accused of sexual misconduct almost seemed like a selling point, I wrote at the time, in that it was just one more thing he had in common with Trump.
On Thursday, The Star broke the story of how a Missouri state senator, Jamilah Nasheed, “grew concerned enough about Gov. Eric Greitens’ potential for violence in April 2018 that she sent a letter asking the Department of Public Safety to investigate rumors of an incident involving ‘troubling behavior’ at Greitens’ private home.”
DPS Director Charles “Drew” Juden wrote Nasheed back the next day, saying he had asked around — at the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Capitol Police and in Warren County, where the Greitens lived — and found that nobody else had heard anything worrying.
So, end of story. Juden did not, Sheena Greitens said through her lawyer, ever reach out to her, so what kind of an investigation is that?
Ex-wife cited state senator’s request to look into abuse
Sheena Greitens, now an Asia scholar at UT-Austin, referred to Nasheed’s letter in a recent court filing in her custody battle: “In April 2018, the month in which I was knocked to the ground by Eric, a state legislator asked the Director of Public Safety to investigate claims of domestic violence and erratic behavior on Eric’s part at our Innsbrook home. To my knowledge, this request was declined by the Director, who Eric had appointed.”
Here’s how respectfully the former DPS director spoke about Sheena Greitens when asked about her reference to Nasheed’s request for a thorough investigation. “I don’t know what kind of drugs she is taking,” Juden said, “but that request was never made to me that I recall.” When in doubt, trash her.
After a reporter read Juden Nasheed’s letter and his own, too, he said, “Well, you obviously have the written documentation, so obviously I did. I certainly would have reached out to the chief law enforcement officer of the county. Obviously, if I reached out to him, which I obviously did, and he told me they had no report of it, then that’s pretty much where it ends.”
Obviously. Cops consulting one another is not an attempt to learn anything.
In response, the Greitens campaign threw mud on Nasheed: “None of these absurd allegations are true and come from a former state senator who has a violent criminal history,” campaign spokesman Dylan Johnson said, referring to the former lawmaker’s arrest for failing to move as directed during a 2014 protest in Ferguson, Missouri.
To review, Sheena Greitens is according to Greitens himself “deranged.”
“I don’t know what kind of drugs she is taking,” says the former director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, in response to a statement that’s demonstrably true.
And the former governor’s spokesman labels Nasheed a violent criminal over an act of civil disobedience.
So unfortunately, it makes perfect sense that Greitens is still in the race.
Gov. Mike Parson has said that he believes Sheena Greitens, yet he hasn’t called on him to get out of the race. So he thinks the allegations are true, yet does not see domestic violence as a career ender.
If we elect this man again, he’ll be just as unable to govern as last time, because he’s a one-man show. But what that would say about what Missourians were willing to overlook would be not just embarrassing, but tragic.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
