Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens has been fined $178,000 by the state ethics commission for two campaign finance violations, while a host of other allegations contained in a complaint filed shortly after he resigned from office in 2018 were dismissed.

The Missouri Ethics Commission said in a consent decree released Thursday that while there were reasonable grounds to believe Greitens’ campaign broke Missouri law, its investigation “found no evidence of any wrongdoing on part of Eric Greitens, individually, and no evidence Gov. Greitens knew” about any violations.

If Greitens pays $38,000 of the fine and commits no more violations, the rest would be forgiven.

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The former governor said in a statement that he was vindicated and glad “the truth had won out.”

In a social media post Thursday afternoon, Greitens expanded on his statement, saying “in 2018, our justice system was abused,” accusing those who pushed him out of office of “a criminal effort to overturn the 2016 election.”

While Greitens claimed exoneration, others weren’t so sure.

The liberal government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint involving Greitens in 2018 that is still pending with the Federal Elections Commission.

Jordan Libowitz, the group’s communications director, said Thursday’s ruling by Missouri’s ethics commission lays out evidence of extensive coordination between the Greitens campaign and dark money nonprofits that likely violates federal law.

“And beyond the legal matter itself,” he said, “this should make a lot of people uncomfortable.”

Greitens resigned from office in June 2018 as part of a plea deal that ended a felony prosecution in St. Louis. His resignation also ended a push by the Missouri General Assembly to impeach him.

Thursday’s fine was the result of an ethics complaint filed shortly after Greitens resigned by former state Rep. Jay Barnes, a Jefferson City Republican who led the impeachment effort.

Barnes accused Greitens’ gubernatorial campaign and a nonprofit that promoted Greitens’ agenda of multiple campaign finance violations. He referred to Greitens’ political organization as a “criminal enterprise,” accusing the former governor’s nonprofit of being designed to “illegally skirt donation limits and conceal the identities of major donors.”

The Missouri Ethics Commission reviewed the complaint, along with “235 pages of supporting documentation; the issuance of 23 subpoenas, which resulted in the production of roughly 8,000 multi-page documents, emails, and videos; approximately 20 interviews conducted by commission investigators.”

It concluded that Greitens’ campaign failed to report spending by a federal PAC and his political nonprofit, A New Missouri Inc., as in-kind donations, but said Greitens wasn’t aware of the violations.

On a host of other allegations contained in the complaint, the commission determined that there was not enough evidence to support the accusations.

Barnes declined comment on Thursday.

 
 

Dark money

At the heart of the two violations were millions of dollars in anonymous cash that boosted Greitens’ political rise.

In the lead-up to the Republican primary in 2016, Greitens got $4 million from a group called LG PAC.

Based in Kansas, LG PAC spent heavily on TV ads lambasting Greitens’ rivals for the nomination. Its name appeared to be an attempt to convince the public that it supported former Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who was also seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

It was later revealed that all of LG PAC’s money came from Freedom Frontier, a Texas-based nonprofit. By funneling the money through a nonprofit, which isn’t required to disclose its donors, the true origin of the contribution remains hidden.

Despite Greitens’ public assertions that there were no connections between his campaign and LG PAC, his top 2016 campaign adviser — Nick Ayers — was paid by both Freedom Frontier and the Greitens campaign.

Ayers would eventually go on to serve as chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence.

The ethics commission determined that Greitens’ campaign committee compiled a list of donors in late 2015 who “either could not give, or elected not to give, directly to the (Greitens for Missouri) committee.”

The ethics commission did not specify why the donors couldn’t give to the campaign. At that time, Missouri did not have campaign contribution limits capping the amount individuals or groups could donate to candidates.

According to the ethics commission, the names of donors compiled by the campaign were forwarded to Freedom Frontier.

Calls were then organized between campaign staff and attorneys affiliated with Freedom Frontier. That included David Langdon, an Ohio attorney whom the Center for Public Integrity labeled the “nexus of one of the nation’s most mysterious networks pouring secret money into elections.”

There was evidence, the ethics commission concluded, of communication and coordination between LG PAC and Greitens’ campaign that should have required the advertisements be disclosed as in-kind donations.

The complaint also targeted A New Missouri, Greitens’ political nonprofit.

For a time in 2017, both the nonprofit and Greitens’ campaign were housed in the same building in downtown Jefferson City. The same team of advisers were running both operations.

A New Missouri raised millions of dollars, which it used to magnify Greitens’ message and attack his political opponents. It became a lightning rod of controversy, even among Greitens’ fellow Republicans, because it was not required to disclose its donors.

While those around Greitens deny it played a part in his decision to resign, his critics point to the fact that he stepped down from office shortly after a Cole County judge ordered A New Missouri to abide by a subpoena issued by a Missouri House investigative committee and turn over communications and documents showing potential coordination among the nonprofit, the governor and the governor’s campaign committee, as well as expenditures related to advertising.

The ethics commission determined that Greitens’ campaign failed to disclose the receipt of polling data that was paid for by A New Missouri and given to the campaign.

 
 

Other allegations

Greitens was also accused of running an illegal off-the-books campaign in 2014 and early 2015 by failing to file proper paperwork with state regulators.

The ethics commission said it did not investigate this allegation because “it was outside of the commission’s subject matter jurisdiction.”

Greitens’ campaign was accused of trying to illegally conceal donors by accepting $1.9 million during the 2016 campaign from a PAC called SEALs for Truth.

On the day the campaign received the $1.9 million contribution, it made two payments totaling a little more than $2 million to a media-buying firm affiliated with Ayers.

Just like with LG PAC, Greitens denied any knowledge of where that money originated, despite the fact that he admitted speaking with SEALs for Truth’s treasurer, Nicholas Britt.

And also just like LG PAC, all of SEALs for Truth’s money came from a nonprofit connected to Ohio attorney David Langdon called American Policy Coalition.

The ethics commission determined that “while there were email discussions in general terms about directing potential contributions to unnamed nonprofit corporations, no evidence produced in this investigation showed (Greitens for Missouri) directed any contributions to (American Policy Coalition).”

Libowitz, with the liberal watchdog CREW, said both in the case of LG PAC and SEALs for Truth, “it looks like action was taken explicitly to get around the law.”

“These were people trying to get around the law, either to hide their names or because they couldn’t legally give,” he said. “And this was millions of dollars to help Greitens in a way that is contrary to the law as written, but also the intention of campaign finance laws.”

CREW’s 2018 complaint against LG PAC and SEALs for Truth has not moved forward because President Donald Trump has not appointed new members of the FEC, leaving the agency with less than the legal minimum of four commissioners to meet or conduct business.

In September, CREW filed a lawsuit asking a court to force the FEC to take action on the complaint.

 
 

Scandal-plagued

Greitens, a former Navy SEAL who has returned to work for the Navy since leaving elected office, stormed into the Governor’s Office in January 2017 vowing to clean up a state government he said was corrupt.

He resigned 17 months later, his political career buried under an avalanche of scandal and felony charges.

His tenure was dominated by a steady stream of corruption allegations, most stemming from his reliance on anonymous campaign contributions routed through secretive nonprofits.

But the scandal that ultimately sealed his fate involved allegations by a woman with whom he had an affair in 2015, who alleged that he took a nude photo without her consent to use as blackmail to keep her from talking about their relationship.

She later testified under oath that their 2015 affair involved numerous instances of sexually violent misconduct by Greitens.

The graphic allegations inspired a parade of high-ranking Missouri Republicans, including now-Sen. Josh Hawley, to demand that Greitens resign or face impeachment.

Greitens was later accused of knowingly lying to the state ethics commission about how he came to possess a donor list belonging to The Mission Continues, a veterans charity he founded in 2007. Hawley, who was serving as attorney general at the time, alleged Greitens committed a felony by taking the donor list without permission.

Greitens denied any wrongdoing. But facing felony charges and seemingly inevitable removal from office, he resigned from office, saying that the financial cost of his defense and the personal cost on his family was too much to continue fighting.

In his social media post Thursday, Greitens said he will not seek revenge.

“Revenge is about the past,” he wrote. “Justice is about the future. And I’ll tell you, the future is bright.”

This story was originally published February 13, 2020 2:07 PM.

Jason Hancock is The Star’s lead political reporter, providing coverage of government and politics on both sides of the state line. A three-time National Headliner Award winner, he has written about politics for more than a decade for news organizations across the Midwest.