GOP legislative leaders call on Missouri governor to resign
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s top Republican legislative leaders abandoned fellow GOP Gov. Eric Greitens on Tuesday, calling on him to resign instead of continuing to fight allegations that he illegally took advantage of both a charity he founded and a woman with whom he had an affair.
Greitens quickly replied that he won’t quit and hopes to be vindicated at an upcoming criminal trial. Legislators could seek to force him from office regardless through impeachment proceedings.
Greitens already is facing a May 14 trial in St. Louis on a felony invasion-of-privacy charge related to an extramarital affair that occurred as he was preparing to run for governor in 2015. Earlier Tuesday, Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley suggested the St. Louis prosecutor could bring another felony charge against Greitens for allegedly taking the donor list from a veterans’ charity he founded and using it to raise money for his gubernatorial campaign.
Legislative leaders said the potential of a second felony charge was too much for the state to bear.