A surreal and disturbing spectacle unfolded in Jefferson City this week. Like actors doing a table-reading of a script, members of the Missouri House committee considering impeachment of Gov. Eric Greitens performed dramatic readings from transcripts of previously secret testimony taken from "K.S.", the woman with whom Greitens had an affair in 2015.
Portions sounded like slut-shaming on a grand scale. Given the extraordinary circumstances of the case and the scorched-earth tactics of Greitens' lawyers, the tactic was probably inevitable.
The woman, having already endured months of public humiliation, had her salacious story retold via legislative script readers in a drab Capitol hearing room. The question-and-answer testimony reading was livestreamed online.
It would only be fair if Greitens were subjected to the same kind of invasive questions about his sex life. But that's not going to happen because the governor has declined the invitation to testify before the committee.
Nobody will ask him, as attorney Scott Rosenblum and other Greitens lawyers asked K.S., about orgasms or nipple piercing or oral sex technique or whether he wears revealing swimsuits. Nobody will be suggesting that he was a willing participant or directly accusing him of lying. Nobody will review pornographic photos while looking for likenesses of Eric Greitens, as committee members did for K.S. (Their efforts were unsuccessful.)
This is what too often happens when women make sexual charges against men. They become victims all over again.
The testimony-reading came from two grand jury sessions in February, before Greitens was indicted on a criminal invasion of privacy charge, and from an April 6 deposition that came after the indictment. The charge has now been dropped, but the woman's testimony will live on forever. If the case is refiled, she may be deposed again.
She said that Greitens coerced her into oral sex after blindfolding her, taping her hands to exercise rings in the basement of his home and taking a partially nude photograph. No photograph has been found.
Greitens' lawyers demanded that the House committee allow them to publicly cross-examine the woman. The committee said no, instead reading into the record her answers to questions Greitens' lawyers previously put to her. The testimony largely tracks with what she told the committee.
Greitens has a constitutional right not to testify against himself in a judicial proceeding or face cross-examination. He has said that the affair was consensual and has denied his accuser's allegations that he used force on her. But he has never directly answered questions about taping her hands, blindfolding her, pulling down her clothes or taking the photograph.
Greitens avoids answering questions even about innocuous matters, so it's no surprise he's dodging the committee, too. That's really too bad. If the accuser's morality is going to be called into question, it ought to go both ways.
