Missouri Governor Admits Affair, Denies Blackmail

“Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) and his wife, Sheena Greitens, issued an extraordinary statement late Wednesday acknowledging that he had an extramarital affair in the past and that the couple ‘has dealt with this together honestly and privately,'” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

“The statement came as a St. Louis television station aired a segment alleging that, during that affair, Greitens took a compromising photograph of the woman and threatened to publicize it if she exposed him.”

“The woman claims in the audio that they went into Greitens’ basement, where he bound her to a piece of exercise equipment with some kind of tape, put a blindfold on her and began partly undressing her and touching her. That part of the encounter was consensual, she indicates in the audio, but the alleged taking of the photograph wasn’t. She said in the audio that she wasn’t aware he was doing it until she saw a flash of light through the blindfold, followed by his alleged verbal threat.”

[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]Prior to this report, Greitens, a 43-year-old former Navy SEAL and Rhodes Scholar, had been seen by many Republicans as an aspiring presidential candidate.[/alert]