The top defense lawyer for Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (R) is asking a Missouri House committee in Jefferson City to delay its report.
State Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, (left) and House Speaker Todd Richardson brief the Capitol Press Corps on February 26, 2018 in Jefferson City (photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)
The bipartisan Missouri House Special Investigative Committee on Oversight plans to issue a report this week, according to committee chairman State Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City.
A St. Louis City grand jury has indicted Greitens for one felony count of invasion of privacy, and his jury trial is scheduled for May 14th in downtown St. Louis.
Missourinet has obtained a copy of former U.S. Attorney Ed Dowd’s six-page letter to Barnes, which is dated April 6.
Dowd writes that the House committee’s report “will almost certainly contain information that will- in the course of the coming days and weeks- be publicly proven to be incorrect.”
Dowd’s letter also says the release of any report before the May trial will impact their ability to obtain a fair trial.
The letter also says the defense team will be deposing both the woman and her ex-husband on Monday.
Dowd, who’s served as U.S. Attorney, Assistant U.S. Attorney and as former Missouri Senator Jack Danforth’s Deputy Special Counsel during the Waco Branch Davidian investigation, calls the prosecution in this case “a profound miscarriage of justice.”
Dowd’s letter also focuses on the photograph in question.
The St. Louis City grand jury’s February indictment alleges that Greitens photographed a woman in a state of full or partial nudity in March 2015, and “subsequently transmitted the image contained in the photograph in a manner that allowed access to that image via a computer.”
Former U.S. Attorney Ed Dowd speaks to reporters in downtown St. Louis on March 26, 2018 (photo from Missourinet St. Louis contributor Jill Enders)
But Dowd’s letter says there is no photograph, adding that “the state loses if it cannot produce a photograph.”
This issue was also discussed in open court during a March 21 motion hearing in St. Louis.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner’s (D) assistant, Robert Dierker, told Judge Rex Burlison in March that Greitens “had exclusive control of the best evidence in this case for three years.”
The court transcript from March 21 says Dierker also told Judge Burlison that day that “there is, at a minimum, a strong circumstantial case that the defendant is guilty,” referring to Greitens.
Dowd’s letter also makes several allegations against the chief investigator for the St. Louis Circuit Attorney, saying he “lied under oath about his own conduct.”
Missouri House Republicans did not hold a Thursday afternoon press conference at the Statehouse in Jefferson City, as they normally do upon adjournment.
House Democrats did.
House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, D-Kansas City, told the Capitol Press Corps Thursday that she disagrees with Governor Greitens’ request that the committee delay its report until after the May trial.
“The reality is the governor spent $50,000 on (radio) commercials, he’s already out there tainting the jury, so I don’t see that our report coming out at this point does anything more than what he’s already doing,” Beatty said Thursday.
Beatty said she wants to make sure the committee’s report is accurate.
When he was appointed in late February, Barnes told Capitol reporters that the committee’s task was to investigate facts, and to do so “in a way that is fair, thorough and timely.”
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