Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, covered the plot by an ex-wife and her sister, a political consultant linked to Senate Majority Leader A. Mitchell “Mitch” McConnell (R.-KY.), to force Navy SEAL veteran Eric Greitens out of his run for the 2022 Missouri Republican Senate nomination.
Greitens is the America First candidate in the primary and an avowed opponent of McConnell, whose policy is to block conservatives from so-called safe Senate seats.
A source close to Greitens and familiar with his thinking told The Star News Network the Navy SEAL veteran is not getting out of the race.
TRANSCRIPT
McCabe: Retired Navy Seal Lieutenant Commander Eric Greitens is the America First candidate in the Missouri Republican Senate primary. Greitens is also an avowed opponent of Senator Mitch McConnell and the GOP establishment.
McConnell and the GOP leadership have a strict policy to block conservatives from so-called safe seats, so it should not have been a surprise when Greitens’s ex-wife met with her sister Catherine Linkul, a political consultant linked to McConnell, to launch a plot to take the conservative out of the race.
During a March 2022 school break, while the candidate was vacationing with his two sons, his ex-wife came to Linkul’s home in Washington and then signed an affidavit accusing her ex-husband of abusing her and the boys.
The affidavit was filed electronically on March 21st, 2022 at 9:16 a.m. But by 10:30 a.m., the Associated Press and other reporters were calling Greitens and his campaign staff for comment.
One staffer told The Star News Network the Associated Press gave Greitens 20 minutes to respond to the affidavit that was not available to Greitens and the public until after 2:30 that afternoon.
The Star News Network is also investigating the claims of physical abuse, such as the claim that the candidate struck his 3-year-old son across the mouth. In the March 21st affidavit, the ex-wife claimed Greitens hit the boy so hard that it led to an infection in the gums that cost him a tooth.
Yet in her June 9, 2020 email to her ex-husband, the University of Texas Professor complained that the boy’s injury was from roughhousing with his father. In her October 2020 email to her ex-husband, she complained about the incident, saying, ‘It seems like the boys are playing too rough.’
The roughhousing incident occurred in November 2019, and according to dental records obtained by The Star News Network, the tooth was pulled five months later on May 21, 2020. Despite the controversy stirred up by his ex-wife, a source familiar with the Navy SEAL veteran’s thinking told The Star News Network, there is no way Greitens is getting out of the race.
The Missouri Senate primary is August 2. Reporting for The Star News Network, Neil W. McCabe, Washington.
