Anti-LGBT Governor resigns after ‘coercing mistress into oral sex’
(Craig Barritt/Getty)
Anti-transgender Governor Eric Greitens has announced his resignation following allegations from his mistress that he slapped her, blackmailed her and coerced her into sex.
In 2016, the Missouri Governor accused President Barack Obama of “allowing grown men to go into little girls’ bathrooms” by passing legislation protecting the rights of trans students.
Greitens, 44, was in the middle of a successful election campaign built on a platform of family values, but his time in office has been derailed by reports of his affair with a hairdresser, which he has admitted.
Eric Greitens (Public domain)
She has testified before the Missouri House’s Special Investigative Committee on Oversight that he tied her up in his basement, blindfolded her and spat water into her mouth during the affair in 2015.
Greitens then took a photo of her, she said, before telling her: “You’re not going to mention my name.
“Don’t even mention my name to anybody at all, because if you do, I’m going to take these pictures, and I’m going to put them everywhere I can.
(Michael Thomas/ Getty)
“They are going to be everywhere, and then everyone will know what a little whore you are.”
He then coerced her into oral sex, she said, testifying that she was still crying and felt she had no other choice if she were going to get out of the basement.
On another occasion, Greitens slapped her in the face and called her a whore, she said.
During one sexual encounter between the two, the woman said he “smacked me and grabbed me and shoved me down on the ground.
“And I instantly just started bawling and was just like, ‘What is wrong with you?’
U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley (L-R), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Eric Greitens (Whitney Curtis/Getty)
“I just laid there crying while he was just like… ‘You’re fine, you’re fine.’
She said that it “actually hurt, and I know that I actually was really scared and sad when that happened. He basically made it clear that he felt that I was a thing to him.”
Greitens has denied all these allegations, saying that the relationship was consensual.
In February, a St. Louis grand jury charged him with invasion of privacy in relation to the allegations.
(Michael Thomas/Getty)
In the face of impeachment over the accusations and a campaign finance enquiry, the Governor decided to leave the office, indicating that his resignation would take effect on June 1.
In a news conference on May 29, he said: “The last few months have been incredibly difficult, for me, for my family, for my team, for my friends and for many, many people that I love.
“This ordeal has been designed to cause an incredible amount of strain on my family,” he added, before again denying that he had broken the law.
“For the moment let us walk off the battlefield with our heads held high,” he continued. “We have a good and proud story to tell our children.”
Greitens is far from the first Republican to attract a backlash for his behaviour over the past year.
Earlier this month, Dana Rohrabacher, a 15-term Californian congressman, incurred a backlash after saying it’s fine to refuse to sell a house to LGBT customers.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Last year, Ohio congressman Wes Goodman – a married Republican lawmaker with a long history of campaigning against LGBT rights – resigned after being caught having gay sex in his office.
(Wes Goodman)
Republican Ralph Shortey, a senior member of Donald Trump’s primary campaign team in Oklahoma, stepped down as state senator last March after being discovered in a hotel room with a 17-year-old boy who Shortey hired as a prostitute.
Ralph Shortey
Later in the year, he pleaded guilty to a child sex trafficking offence for soliciting sex from the boy.
In exchange for this plea, federal prosecutors dropped three counts of child pornography against the former politician.
Erika Harold
And in March, it was revealed that Erika Harold, a Republican candidate for Illinois Attorney General, allegedly said she would rather hand over a child to known child abusers than a loving gay couple.
