Embattled Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) “has called off a statewide tour to promote a tax cut plan as he continues to face fallout from bombshell allegations that he threatened a former mistress with blackmail,” CNN reports.
“Greitens appears poised to remain out of the public eye this week, however, as the controversy continues to swirl.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the governor’s aides “would not reveal his whereabouts.”
“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]
Missouri gubernatorial nominee Eric Greitens (R) says he’s an “outsider” who will “take aim at politics as usual” so he thought it would be instructive to fire a machine gun in his new ad.
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Bob Dixon (R) announced his run for Missouri governor saying he had “spent almost 23 years as a strong supporter of traditional marriage” but neglected to mention that he “once lived as a gay man until a spiritual epiphany turned him straight,” the Riverfront Times reports.
“Bob Dixon would soon go on to marry a woman, have three kids and serve fifteen years as a Missouri lawmaker, first in the House and then the Senate. On Monday, Dixon announced his intention to join an already crowded field of Republican Gubernatorial hopefuls.”
“The late Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich (R) talked to those close to him about killing himself for years — long before the alleged anti-Semitic ‘whispering campaign’ that obsessed him in the weeks and hours before his suicide,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Said a police investigator: “He had talked about it [suicide] with family … He had mentioned that he had those thoughts before, with his family members. It was something that, according to his wife, he had mentioned off and on, for several years.”
Huffington Post: Missouri appoints new auditor
“We often hear that words can’t hurt you. But that’s simply not true… Words do hurt. Words can kill. That has been proven right here in our home state.”
— Former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO), quoted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, at the funeral for Missouri state Auditor Tom Schweich (R), who killed himself last week.
Missouri state auditor Tom Schweich (R), a leading contender for the governor’s office in next year’s election, has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Politico: “The incident sent a shudder through Missouri government and political circles. Schweich had been in the early stages of an already-tense primary against Catherine Hanaway, a former state House speaker and U.S. attorney.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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