{"id":62941,"date":"2018-04-12T12:40:28","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T12:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=62941"},"modified":"2018-04-12T12:40:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T12:40:28","slug":"pressure-grows-for-missouri-governor-greitens-to-step-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/politics\/pressure-grows-for-missouri-governor-greitens-to-step-down.html","title":{"rendered":"Pressure grows for Missouri Governor Greitens to step down"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt;color: #000000\">Pressure grows for Missouri Governor Greitens to step down<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Missouri Governor Eric Greitens on Thursday faced another day of bipartisan pressure to resign or face impeachment after the release of a report finding that he abused and tried to blackmail a woman with whom he was having an affair.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The most recent calls for the married father of two to step down came after a special committee of the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives released its 24-page report on Wednesday regarding the scandal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Claire McCaskill, said the report \u201ccontains shocking, substantial and corroborated evidence of wrongdoing\u201d by the 44-year-old governor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">\u201cThe conduct the report details is certainly impeachable, in my judgment,\u201d Hawley said in a statement. \u201cThe people of Missouri should not be put through that ordeal. Governor Greitens should resign immediately.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Greitens, who was charged in February with felony invasion of privacy in connection with an admitted extramarital affair in 2015, before his election, repeated on Wednesday that he is innocent of any criminal wrongdoing and called the relationship in question \u201centirely consensual.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Greitens said he was determined to stay in office while fighting to clear his name in court. He said he was the victim of a \u201cpolitical witch-hunt\u201d stemming from a \u201cprivate mistake\u201d that had nothing to do with his job as governor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">According to the House report, the woman recounted their first liaison as a menacing and coerced sexual encounter in which he bound her hands, blindfolded her and ripped off her clothes without her consent before snapping a photo of her and threatening to disseminate the image if their affair became public.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Greitens has denied threatening to blackmail the woman, a hair stylist referred to only as \u201cWitness 1\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The woman testified that she ultimately agreed to perform oral sex on Greitens so she could leave, saying the interaction left her frightened, humiliated and disgusted. She acknowledged consenting to several more sexual encounters over the next few months before finally insisting that they cease further contact.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The report describes in lurid detail a tumultuous, months-long affair punctuated by instances of physical abuse, jealous rage and manipulative behavior by Greitens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The Missouri state constitution counts \u201cmoral turpitude\u201d as grounds for impeachment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">\u201cThe Governor has to resign period!!!,\u201d State Rep. Bruce Franks Jr., a Democrat, said on Twitter. \u201cIt\u2019s time to go!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 8pt;color: #000000\">Source:-https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-missouri-governor\/pressure-grows-for-missouri-governor-greitens-to-step-down-idUSKBN1HJ1QH<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/politics\/pressure-grows-for-missouri-governor-greitens-to-step-down.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pressure grows for Missouri Governor Greitens to step down Missouri Governor Eric Greitens on Thursday faced another day of bipartisan pressure to resign or face impeachment after the release of a report finding that he abused and tried to blackmail a woman with whom he was having an affair. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":62942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5251,129489,1878,130853,130233,130232],"class_list":["post-62941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-latest-politics-news","tag-politics-live-news-online","tag-politics-news","tag-pressure-grows-for-missouri-governor-greitens-to-step-down","tag-today-politics-news","tag-top-political-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}