JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. _ Legislative leaders announced Thursday night that they will convene a special session on May 18 that could lead to the impeachment of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.
The announcement was made at a news conference called by Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard and House Speaker Todd Richardson.
The decision was made after 138 House members and 29 senators signed a petition calling for the session on the controversies surrounding the governor. The session will begin an estimated 30 minutes after the regular session is set to end, Richard told reporters.
Richard was not sure when senators would actually convene because the upper chamber's duties are dependent on what the House does.
"Keep in mind, it's new territory," Richard, a Republican, said.
Richardson, a Republican, was solemn in his announcement of the session.
"This path is not the one I would have chosen for Missouri and my colleagues," he said. "Unfortunately, this is where the facts led."
If the session leads to an impeachment, it would be a first for a Missouri governor. Only one state official has been ousted by impeachment in Missouri's history. That was Secretary of State Judith Moriarty in 1994.
The unprecedented move comes a day after the House released a second scathing report on the governor and sets the state for the special session to start during the governor's trial on felony invasion of privacy charges related to an extramarital affair he had in 2015.
The petition began circulating among Republican members on April 17. Under state law, three-fourths of House members _ 123 of 163 _ had to sign the document to call themselves into a special session, a power generally reserved for the governor.
In the Senate, 26 of 34 members had to sign in order to trigger the session.
GOP Rep. Kevin Engler said he favored a special session because it would allow a special House committee investigating Greitens to complete its work, as well as allow the House to meet without pause in the final weeks of the regular session.
"I think it's prudent that we go into a special session," Engler said. "By doing this, it gives us another 30 days."
"I think this makes sense. This is what we need to do," said House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, a Democrat.
The push for a special session comes as Greitens battles for his political life.
He will be tried May 14 in St. Louis Circuit Court on a felony invasion of privacy charge alleging he took and transmitted a photo of his partially undressed lover without her consent. A second felony case charges him with felony computer tampering for taking the donor list of a charity he founded, to use it to raise campaign funds. He also faces a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court over alleged destruction of public records.
Wednesday's report found that Greitens ran an off-the-books political campaign in 2014, took a private charity's donor list for campaign fundraising and lied about that list in a signed statement to the state's ethics commission.
The report showed 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.
The report and its reams of exhibits plot the former Navy SEAL's rise from nonprofit founder to long-shot candidate to governor of Missouri, a journey he made by relying in part on money he raised from members of the charity's donor list that he had pledged to keep private.
GOP Rep. Don Rone, who has signed the petition for a special session but hasn't criticized the governor, said the second report didn't change his mind. However, he had a sense that it might edge the Legislature closer to holding a special session.
"Every time something comes in," he said, "it moves people one way or the other."
Rep. Lyle Rowland, a Republican, also has signed the petition but has not publicly called for impeachment. He said he wanted the special session because it would allow the body to focus on legislation in the final days of the regular session.
The committee, meanwhile, continues to investigate the governor and is planning to subpoena top Greitens aides to discuss the governor's fundraising practices.
A date for when those subpoenas might be issued and to whom were not available Thursday, but former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward "Chip" Robertson Jr., an attorney for the legislative committee, said it would happen.
Robertson's pledge came in response to Greitens' campaign attorney Catherine Hanaway, who complained that the committee didn't give the campaign a chance to be heard before it released the blistering report.
Only one Greitens aide who was involved in the campaign during its early stages remains on the governor's staff.
Jennae Neustadt, who is the governor's legislative director, is listed in the committee's report as being at some of the planning meetings Greitens was having as he plotted his bid for statewide office.
Other aides came to the campaign after his original team had departed and left the campaign payroll before the ethics commission settlement.
Greitens' spokesman Parker Briden, who also was on the campaign payroll, said no taxpayer dollars would be used if staffers were subpoenaed.
"Counsel for the Office of the Governor would not represent any staff member in connection with testimony regarding campaign matters," Briden said Thursday.
Among those who continue to be paid by the campaign and could face questioning before the committee are campaign manager Austin Chambers, finance director Meredith Gibbons and Scott Turk, who returned to the campaign after working in the governor's office last year.
Greitens' problems also won't end with the committee. In addition to facing the May 14 trial on felony invasion of privacy charges related to his affair, Attorney General Josh Hawley's office also continues to investigate the governor.
"Our investigation is ongoing," Hawley spokeswoman Mary Compton said.
