House Report on Greitens’ released, campaign worker says finance filing ‘made him sick’

The second report by the House Special Investigative Committee was released Wednesday afternoon.

The report found that by cross-referencing the names on the TMC list with Greitens campaign donors, the campaign raised nearly $2 million from people or organizations on the TMC list.

Around November 2016, an ethics complaint was filed against Greitens and Greitens for Missouri for failure to report the TMC list as an in-kind donation.

In a later filing with the Missouri Ethics Commission, Greitens and his campaign admitted that the campaign used the TMC list for fundraising purposes.

Documents and testimony from Michael Hafner, former Greitens’ campaign worker and Krystal Proctor, former executive assistant to Greitens, established that Greitens used prospective donor call lists that included information taken from the TMC list.

In April 2017, Greitens signed a Joint Stipulation of Facts, Waiver of Hearing Before the Missouri Ethics Commission and Consent Order with Joint Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in Missouri Ethics Commission v. Greitens for Missouri and Eric

With his signature, Greitens admitted that the campaign used the list to contact donors and stated that the TMC list was an in-kind contribution received from Danny Laub, former Greitens campaign worker on March 1, 2015, and had a value of $600.

On April 28, Greitens signed an amended campaign finance report for April 15, 2015, which also asserted that Laub donated the TMC list on March 1, 2015 with a value of $600.

Greitens electronically signed below the statement, “I certify that this report, comprised of this cover page and all attached forms, is complete, true, and accurate.”

In fact, however, the list was not an in-kind contribution from Danny Laub because Laub was never an employee of TMC, and was not able to authorize disclosure or use of the list, and the list was sent to Laub and Hafner by Proctor at Greitens’ direction.

Laub testified that Austin Chambers called him on April 24, 2017. This is how Laub described their conversation:

“And then Austin says to me, “I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a bull*** ethics complaint filed against us by the Democrat party about this Mission Continues donor list.” And he said, “I need someone who was on the campaign at the time, because I wasn’t, to put their name down so we can get this bull*** complaint dismissed. We will pay” – assuming him and the campaign – “will pay the fine, but we need to put someone’s name down who was on the campaign at the time, and I was not.” And he said, “Can we put your name down?”

Laub testified that he told Chambers the Greitens campaign could “put [his] name down,” which he “assumed… meant that [he] was the manager of the campaign at the time or in charge of the campaign at the time.”

Laub learned a week later that “putting his name down” as the donor of the TMC list “was not what I thought I told Austin on the phone he could use my name for.” Instead, Laub testified that he had been “affirmatively misled” by Chambers.

Laub testified that if Chambers had not misled him that he “would never have agreed for it to be perceived or otherwise that I in-kinded a list that I did not in-kind.” Laub testified he would have never authorized Chambers to use his name as someone who donated the list “because that’s untrue.” Laub testified that the TMC list was not donated to the campaign on March 1, 2015, and that nothing happened with the TMC list on that date.

Laub agreed that Greitens’ amended campaign finance report regarding the TMC list as an in-kind contribution was “false in every particular.” Laub further testified that everything of substance in the settlement agreement between Greitens and the MEC was untrue.

The report says Laub did not contribute the list to the campaign and that it was contributed to Greitens himself through his directions to Proctor.

The list was not donated to the campaign on March 1. Instead, its first use that Laub could remember was in December 2015, and the email records show its disclosure and use on January 6 and January 7.

Laub stated that the “whole document made [him] sick… because it was misrepresented [and] because [he] was in a round of news stories falsely portraying what happened.”

You can read the entire report below: