Missouri AG announces probe into Greitens’s former charity

Missouri’s attorney general has opened an investigation into a charity founded by Gov. Eric Greitens (R) after reports that his campaign raised significant amounts of money from donors who also gave to the charity.

Attorney General Josh Hawley’s (R) office confirmed Thursday that a probe had been opened to determine whether Greitens’s campaign illegally received a list of donors to the charity, The Mission Continues, according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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The Associated Press reported in 2016 that donors who appeared on the charity’s list gave more than $2 million to the governor’s successful campaign.

“The Attorney General’s Office has an open inquiry into the charitable activities of The Mission Continues, pursuant to the AGO’s enforcement responsibilities under the consumer protection and charitable registration and reporting laws,” Hawley’s deputy chief of staff told the Post-Dispatch.

Greitens, who founded The Mission Continues in 2007 and left the charity in 2014, denied using the charity’s donor list for his campaign.

“No, we were not working off of a Mission Continues donor list,” Greitens said in October 2016.

But by April 2017, Greitens admitted in a settlement with the Missouri Ethics Commission that his campaign manager, Danny Laub, gave the campaign the donor list in 2015 as an in-kind donation. 

A spokeswoman for The Mission Continues told the Post-Dispatch she wouldn’t “speculate” on whether Greitens or his team had obtained the donor list illegally, but stated that the charity had policies against sharing the donor list with outside groups.

“You’d have to ask the Greitens campaign,” Laura L’Esperance said Thursday. “I can’t speculate or won’t speculate. We did not give, rent, sell that list to any campaign or anyone connected to the campaign.”

Greitens was indicted last week on unrelated charges of felony invasion of privacy over naked photographs of a woman he admitted to having an affair with. He allegedly threatened to release them if she didn’t remain silent about the affair, an accusation the Missouri governor has denied.

Hawley, meanwhile, is currently seeking the state GOP’s nomination to run against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), who has been in office since 2007.