Eric Greitens Used Charity Donor List For Campaign Purposes, New Report Indicates

This isn’t the first time Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens has made headlines. Previously, the Inquisitr reported on Greiten allegedly blindfolding a woman and taking a photo of her nude without the woman’s consent. Also, a House Committee Report said that Greitens allegedly forced a crying woman to give him oral sex. Now, a new report shows that Greitens’ previous account of how his governor’s campaign received a list of top donors to a veterans’ charity was untrue, according to News Leader.

The veterans’ charity in question is one that was founded by Greitens, called The Mission Continues. A list of top donors who had contributed at least $1,000 to the charity was used for Greitens’ political campaign, netting him around $2 million. When questioned about how so many of his donors were also donors to his veterans’ charity, Greitens told the AP that “No, we were not working off of a Mission Continues donors list.”

In April 2017, the Greitens campaign entered into a settlement with the Missouri Ethics Commission over misusing the charity donor list for political purposes. At that time, Greitens noted that Danny Laub, a former staffer, provided the donor list to the campaign and had to pay a fee. Greitens said that Laub transferred the list as an in-kind donation valued at $600.

Multiple BIG @EricGreitens stories published just now by @kcstar's politics team based on our digging into the new report released by the House investigative committee. Check 'em out at @kcstar or https://t.co/aaZbl1uqKb #MoGov #MoLeg https://t.co/xPrzmfcVqq

— Lindsay Wise (@lindsaywise) May 2, 2018

However, Laub testified that he never agreed to be named as the person who contributed the donor list to the campaign and that the settlement misrepresented what actually happened. According to Laub, Andrew Chambers, the campaign manager and now senior aide to Greitens, told Laub that “we need to put someone’s name down who was on the campaign at the time” in order for the settlement to be completed. Laub consented, thinking he would be named as a campaign manager, not realizing that they were going to use him as a scapegoat. When asked about Laub’s testimony, Chambers dismissed the allegations, saying Laub is “a disgruntled former employee.”

New information revealed by a House investigatory committee report reveals that Greitens was the one that procured the donor list, detailed CBS News. Greitens told the charity that he needed the list in order to contact top supporters to let them know that he was going to step down as the CEO as of 2014. Later on, Greitens told his political aides to use the donor list in order to raise money for his campaign to become governor.

There is a federal law that ensures that charities cannot intervene in political campaigns. Greitens’ lawyer is arguing that he should be allowed to use the list since Greitens had “built it donor by donor, friend by friend.” Meanwhile, an IRS law allows charities to rent donor lists at a fair market value, but for it to be legal, The Missions Continues would have had to share its donor list with all campaign candidates, which it did not do.

In between the donor list scandal and sexual harassment allegations, the House has deliberated on whether it should impeach or remove Greitens from his post as governor.