Category: Politics

Eric Schmitt: MO Candidate for U.S. Senate

A fighter

But for who? A history of Eric Schmitt.

Eric Scmitt for Senate

Missouri Attorney General

Eric Schmitt’s Twitter

Eric Schmitt

Eric Schmitt is Missouri’s 43rd Attorney General and currently a candidate for U.S. Sentate.

Eric Schmitt was born in Bridgeton, Missouri on June 20th, 1975. Eric and his wife, Jaime, have three kids. He attended DeSmet Jesuit High School and attended undergrad at Truman State University, then called Northeast Missouri State University. After graduation, he attended law school at Saint Louis University. Eric spend over 16 years in private legal practice.

2022 U.S. Sentate Campaign

In March of 2021, Eric Schmitt announced his candidacy for the United States Senate. His candidacy was backed by Rex Sinquefield.

Schmitt won the Republican primary on August 2, 2022 with 45.6% of the vote.

Eric Schmitt’s primary competition in this election is Trudy Busch Valentine, who Schmitt calls “the heiress.” He has tweeted that Busch Valentine was “plucked from her mansion by greedy consultants in an attempt to buy this seat.”

Growing up on Grant’s Farm, it’s hard to say that Busch Valentine hasn’t had a privileged life.

Eric Schmitt and Agape Boarding School

In March of 2021, Governor Mike Parson directed the attorney general’s office to assist Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Gaither in investigating abuse allegations at Agape Boarding School in Stockton, Missouri. Former students made claims of being restrained, beaten, sexually abused, and used for manual labor duing their time at the school.

The attorney general’s office recommended 65 criminal counts against 22 codefendents at the conclusion of its investigation. Those charges involved 36 victims, ranging from felonies for abuse of a child, felonies for tampering with a victim, and misdemeanor charges for endangering the welfare of a child and failure to report child abuse.

Gaither proceeded to charge only five staffers. In response, Eric Schmitt formally requested that the governor remove his office from the case. He stated that Gaither’s decision “indicated that he does not intend to seek justice for all of the thirty-six children who were allegedly victimized.”

Currently, the attorney general’s office has filed an injunction to have Agape shut down. The next hearing is taking place on October 11th at the Cedar County Court House.

Eric Greitens, St. Louis Golden Boy

When you do everything right and it still goes wrong

Eric Greitens could not have asked for a better resume. With political aspirations stemming from his early childhood, young Greitens worked hard at school, athletics, and later his military career. Now, Greitens is the cause of much contention among his own party, but where did it all go wrong?

Early Life of Eric Greitens

Eric Greitens is a St. Louis native, son of Rob and Becky Greitens. He has two brothers, Aaron and Marc.

It’s clear from media coverage that Eric was an outstanding young man. From a profile written by Jeannette Cooperman for St. Louis Magazine, Greitens has had his sights set on politics since Kindergarten.

Despite these high hopes, Greitens, like many of us, worried about how he would pay for school. As a senior at Parkway North High School, Greitens dreamed of attending Harvard or Duke, but with two younger brothers, Greitens and his parents worried about the climbing cost of a college education. The ambitious Greitens worked hard to find scholarships that would help him reach his dreams.

Thanks to the Amateur Athletic Union, Milky Way Mars Scholarship, Greitens would make those dreams a reality and attend Duke University. Greitens was the spitting image of that kid in high school that somehow managed to do it all. He maintained an A+ academic average, was the captain of the varsity soccer team, ran marathons, volunteered with and lead the local Kiwanis Key Club, and was a summer camp counselor.

While in high school, Greitens met a young Jeff Smith. They competed against each other in soccer and both attended the Missouri Boys State government leadership program.

Jeff Smith is a former Missouri Senator who spend time in Federal Prison after pleading guilty to two felony counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Smith certainly has some strong opinions about Greitens, as documented by his tweets.

From following the Jeff Smith Tweet-hole, I came across Eric Greitens: The Heart and The Myth, a youtube video made by a group of current and former Navy SEALS, some of whom served with or commanded Greitens.

Military Service

After being called out by his fellow SEALS, Greitens chose to release the following file on his website in 2016. This file includes a variety of documents from Greitens’ Navy career, liberally highlighted and not particularly well redacted.

record-2016Download

Greitens also released his own youtube video in response.

A Worried Mother

“He stays patient when his son fusses, recognizes the inherited flashes of temper that worried his own mother” says the 2016 profile in St. Louis Magazine.

The First Wife

Anyone that’s done some digging into Greitens knows of the mysterious first wife, a short marriage lasting only until 2003. In a chapter meant for the book Charlie Mike by Joe Klein, Greitens’ relationship was detailed, including romantic dates in the English countryside, humanitarian work, and a wedding in a castle in Wales. When Greitens returned stateside and began SEAL training, the relationship began to deteriorate, ending with Greitens returning home to spend Christmas with family without his wife only to find on his return that she had left.

Public records reveal that the two wed in October of 2000 in Denbigshire, Wales.

According to Klein, this marriage was the first thing he ever failed at.

While the name of Greitens first wife is published, I am choosing not to do so here. From what I can gather, Greitens was little more than a speed bump in a successful career and I wish her all the best.

Rhodes Scholar

Eric Greitens BoxerEric Greitens Boxer 15 Mar 1997, Sat Cambridge Evening News (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England) Newspapers.com

Greitens continued to excel academically after his time at Duke, becoming a Rhodes Scholar and earning a doctorate from Oxford University. During his time at Oxford, Greitens boxed and married his first wife before leaving for Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, while it seems that she stayed behind to continue her education. The two reunited while Greitens pursued SEAL training in Coronado, CA.

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