JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. _ Despite an earlier pledge to provide information to a special House committee investigating Gov. Eric Greitens, an attorney representing his campaign operation has not fully complied with subpoenas issued by the Missouri House, the chairman of the panel said Monday.
Rep. Jay Barnes said the special committee is still working to secure all of the records that were requested in the aftermath of a May 2 report alleging that Greitens ran an off-the-books political campaign in 2014, took a private charity's donor list to raise campaign funds and lied about that list to the state's ethics commission.
"We're in the process of reviewing the documents that were provided to this committee, of which there was a substantial number," Barnes said. "We are considering our options of which path to take to enforce the Legislature's and this committee's subpoena power."
At issue are statements made by attorney Catherine Hanaway after the committee released its stinging report.
Hanaway, a former House speaker who lost to Greitens in the 2016 GOP primary, said the special panel did not seek out information from Greitens that might have helped committee members as they consider impeachment.
"If Chairman Barnes were on a quest to find out the truth, he has unfinished business to conduct. He ought to ask the campaign for its version of events before acting as judge and jury in a matter that was settled long ago," she said at the time.
In response, the committee issued subpoenas to Greitens' campaign fund, his Georgia-based campaign adviser Austin Chambers and A New Missouri, the dark money nonprofit formed to promote Greitens' agenda.
"Unfortunately, after having promised to be fully open and fully transparent, Hanaway responded by providing some documents that were responsive to our subpoenas. She also objected to other large categories of documents," said Barnes, R-Jefferson City.
In a statement, Hanaway said Barnes comments are "intentionally misleading."
"Since the time my clients received requests for documents, we have cooperated with the committee counsel and put in a good faith effort to give them the information requested. It is disappointing the chairman didn't mention the more than 14,000 documents provided," she said.
"We continue to go through the burdensome process of gathering and organizing thousands of additional documents for review by the committee, and of course, my clients will assert the same rights any party would have to object to requests that aren't relevant to the committee's investigation."
The special committee was initially formed after Greitens acknowledged he had an extramarital affair in 2015 and was subsequently charged with felony invasion of privacy.
Jury selection in the felony trial is underway in St. Louis.
A second felony case charges Greitens with felony computer tampering for taking the donor list in question. He also faces a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court over alleged destruction of public records.
The House probe soon expanded into questions over possible campaign finance irregularities and turned up evidence that Greitens and associates lied in campaign filings, a class A misdemeanor, and violated campaign finance law _ a civil offense _ when he operated a shadow campaign before filing required paperwork with election authorities.
For example, prior to forming his campaign committee in February 2015, Greitens paid advisers personally and through his companies and used a grant from Washington University to supplement an aide's pay.
The committee has not issued a recommendation on whether the governor should be impeached. The House and Senate, however, have scheduled a special session to begin Friday to consider the possibility of ousting the first-term chief executive.
