JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

With the passage of time, it is becoming increasingly clear how lucky former Gov. Eric Greitens was.

Last spring, two criminal charges against him were dropped — one because he agreed to resign, the other because of prosecutorial overreach — and last week fellow Republican and Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley dropped investigations into two possible misuse-of-funds cases.

It is absolutely galling to see such a loathsome individual walk off into the sunset with so much scandal in his wake. He certainly appears to be one of the crookedest people to reach Missouri’s highest elective office in many decades.

Just to recap…

:: On May 30, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner announced her office has reached a deal to dismiss a felony charge of computer data tampering against the governor. That was a day after Greitens announced he was stepping down.

:: Earlier in May, Gardner dropped another felony charge in the wake of accusations she had failed to properly oversee a special investigator who investigated an allegation that Greitens had taken a compromising photo of a woman with whom Greitens had had an extramarital affair.

:: Last Friday, with Hawley on his way out as attorney general (he’ll be sworn in today as a U.S. Senator), his top assistant cleared a veterans’ nonprofit group, The Mission Continues, which Greitens founded, of allegations it had illegally supplied its donor list to Greitens’ gubernatorial campaign. (The donor list was also at the root of the computer-tampering charge.)

:: Hawley’s top assistant also cleared Washington University of St. Louis of possible wrongdoing pertaining to an academic grant. Greitens’ campaign was suspected of using part of a $362,000 grant from WashU and the John Templeton Foundation to pay political staff as he began his run for governor. The A.G.’s office said there was no evidence anyone with the university knew about or participated in any misappropriation.

…Yesterday, in its lead story, The Kansas City Star built up false hopes that somehow, some way, Greitens could still end up being held accountable for some of his suspected chicanery. The story reported the release of a report prepared by a special committee of the Missouri House of Representatives.

Even though the committee’s jurisdiction over the matters involving Greitens  ended with his resignation, the chairman of the special committee, Republican Jay Barnes of Jefferson City, said he hoped the Missouri Ethics Commission would “take appropriate action to endorse Missouri’s campaign finance laws against Eric Greitens.”

Jay Barnes

I applaud Barnes for not wanting to bring the hammer down on Greitens, but it is laughable to suggest that the Missouri Ethics Commission might take meaningful action. Although the Ethics Commission can refer complaints to prosecuting authorities, it mostly levies fines for campaign finance violations.

In one of its last significant actions, dating to 2012, it fined two Freedom Inc. officials about $3,000 each for financial irregularities. It also fined the organization’s former treasurer a little more than $500 for failing to keep accurate records.

What can we expect the Ethics Commission to do about Greitens?

Don’t hold your breath. Don’t cross your fingers, and don’t give it another thought. If it does anything, we’ll read about it in a very short story in a year or two. In all likelihood, however, Greitens will keep distancing himself from his past legal troubles.

Our best hope for him getting any kind of comeuppance is that, having emerged legally unscathed from his appallingly scandalous governorship, he resumes his reckless behavior and gets caught in some new, legally questionable foray.

What a turd. At least we can be thankful that when we closed the books on 2018, he was out of the picture.