gov greitens
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vets doku # Against All Enemies – FULL MOVIE jdv
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ding dong redux? trump backs ERIC (3?)
https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/eric-greitens/
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/watch-eric-greitens-releases-second-violent-campaign-ad/
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hayes https://www.msnbc.com/all
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/analysis-viral-rino-hunting-ad-goes-too-far
corruption [fbk removed twt block sharing]
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/hayes-for-the-far-right-violence-and-the-threat-of-it-are-the-point-142483525874
online ad rino hunt no bag limit
https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/missouri-newspaper-slams-eric-greitens-for-vile-deeply-appalling-ad-promoting-violence-against-fellow-republicans/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/gop-senate-candidate-releases-rino-hunting-ad-aimed-fellow-republicans-rcna34388
nbc
ric Greitens, theembattled former Missouri governor-turned-GOP Senate candidate, released a campaign ad Monday in which he and a group of armed men in tactical gear are on the hunt for "RINOs" — Republicans in name only.
"We're going RINO hunting," a shotgun-toting Greitens, with a handgun holstered at his side, says before he bursts into a house with the men in tactical gear, one of whom throws what appears to be a flash-bang grenade.
"Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country,” he says at the end of the video, which encourages donors to pay $25 for a "RINO hunting" sticker.
Earlier in the video, Greitens, who resigned as governor in 2018 amid a sexual misconduct scandal and a campaign finance felony charge that was later dropped, says, "The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice."
The video was posted on Greitens' YouTube page, and he tweeted out a link to the ad. Hours after the tweet, Twitter put it behind a warning that said it "violated the Twitter Rules of abusive behavior" but that the site had "determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible."
A spokesperson for Facebook owner Meta said, “We removed this video for violating our policies prohibiting violence and incitement.”
David Lapan, a retired Marine colonel and former Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security spokesman,tweetedthat Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, "has dishonored himself, his oath, and the Navy.”
“This clear call for violence against his political opponents, using military images, is depraved & dangerous," he said.
"He is unfit for elected office & should be held accountable," Lapan said.
The Missouri Democratic Party tweeted that the ad was "Disgusting. But not surprising." It said it was another example of "violence, irresponsibility and reckless behavior from Greitens."
Greitens' campaign manager Dylan Johnson responded to the backlash by saying, "The response from America First voters to our groundbreaking ad has been overwhelming and supportive. Those who have an issue with the video and the metaphor are either lying or dumb. We believe Big Tech and its oligarchs are both."
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/31/republicans-guns-ads-posts/
no lnx
Guns are all over GOP ads and social media, prompting some criticism
The images have in recent years become more prevalent, and intentionally provocative, in Republican advertising, holiday greetings and other forms of communication with the public
Image without a caption
By Colby Itkowitz
May 31, 2022
audio: Mehmet Oz, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, posted a campaign ad addressing his support for the Second Amendment on April 29. (DoctorOz/Youtube)
Former hedge fund CEO David McCormick first shoots the hunting rifle he says he used as a teenager. Pow. Next, he cocks the rifle he says he used at the U.S. Military Academy and fires. Pow. Then he points a semiautomatic assault rifle like one he says he used in Iraq at a faraway target. Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow.
Former television personality and surgeon Mehmet Oz loads a shotgun and shoots. “When people say I don’t support guns? They’re dead wrong,” Oz says. The camera then zooms in on Oz locking a magazine onto an AR-15 style rifle.
McCormick and Oz, the finalists in a high-stakes Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania that has gone to a recount, have spent months trying to showcase their conservative bona fides to GOP base voters and head off skepticism of their elite backgrounds on Wall Street and in Hollywood, respectively. Part of that strategy involved commercials showing them shooting guns.
On April 29 Republican Pennsylvania senate candidate Mehmet Oz posted a campaign ad addressing his support for the 2nd Amendment. (Video: DoctorOz | YouTube)
Although candidates in both parties have long used guns as a campaign prop, the images have in recent years become more prevalent, and intentionally provocative, in Republican advertising, holidays greetings and other forms of communication with the public. Such placements convey a cultural and political solidarity with conservatives more powerfully than most anything else, according to Republican strategists and aides.
“It is a very visual example. It’s an illustration of where both sides are in that the more the right feels they are going to lose their Second Amendment rights, the further they’re going to go to defend them,” said Terry Sullivan, a veteran Republican strategist.
But as the nation reckons with a pair of deadly mass shootings at a Buffalo grocery store and a Texas elementary school, some are warning that these photos and videos are harmful and glorify the use and ownership of firearms designed to kill.
“These ads create a dangerous impression that firearms, and assault-style firearms specifically, are casual tools rather than dangerous weapons,” said Kris Brown, the president of Brady, a gun violence prevention organization. “To use them to grandstand and to provocate is dangerous.”
Some Republicans rejected that position, arguing they are promoting safe and legal gun use.
Last Christmas season, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) posted a holiday photo on social media showing him and his family posed in front of a Christmas tree, all clutching military-style firearms.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who has built her political brand in large measure around her devotion to guns, responded to Massie’s tweet with a photo of her and her sons holding similar assault rifles with a message to her colleague: “The Boeberts have your six” — military jargon for having someone’s back.
While most representatives of the elected officials and candidates cited in this report did not immediately respond to a request for comment, John Kennedy, communications director for Massie, defended his boss’s decision to promote his photograph and said it did not send a dangerous message.
“Rep. Massie’s photo was so popular with his Kentucky constituents that the most commonly heard complaint we received was that this photo was not released as the actual Christmas card,” Kennedy said.
Over the past several election cycles, Democrats running in rural, conservative-leaning states have also featured guns in their ads. In 2010, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) famously shot a gun at a Democratic environmental and energy proposal bill in a campaign ad, and eight years later, he released another one shooting at a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats in recent years have outpaced Republican spending on gun-related ads, a signal of the party’s increasing inclination to campaign for stricter gun laws. But so far this year, Republicans have aired dozens more ads about guns than Democrats, according to data analyzed by AdImpact. The media-tracking firm identified 121 Republican ads dealing with guns and just 18 Democratic ones that are gun-related.
Sullivan said Republicans who highlight gun imagery in primaries where the competition for GOP base voters is intense might pay a political price in the general election. Others took a similar view.
“It seems to be a rite of passage now for Republicans in primaries to prove how tough they are protecting the Second Amendment,” said Neil Oxman, a Democratic communications strategist in Pennsylvania. “It is their calling card to tell Republican voters that they are conservative, and by doing that, you don’t really have to do anything else.By doing that, that’s enough for the Republican primary voters who have gone further and further to the right.”
Olivia Troye, who was a homeland security adviser to former vice president Mike Pence and worked on mass shootings and domestic terrorism issues, warned that the promotion of guns and violence by Republican candidates and elected officials has far reaching implications, in part by “normalizing and mainstreaming a weapon that is designed and meant to kill.”
Ron Filipkowski, a lifelong Republican who also broke with the party over former president Donald Trump and now tracks right-wing messaging, said he first noticed the uptick in gun-related GOP ads in August when he kept seeing Republican candidates sharing images of themselves with assault-style firearms and decided to tally them. He said he got to about a dozen before they became too frequent to keep up with in real-time.
“It’s really become a cultural thing now. It used to be a cultural thing as hunting goes, but these guys aren’t hunting … I’m talking about running around playing warrior. They view that as a sport now, and to participate in that sport, you need assault weapons,” Filipkowski said. “It’s the posing with them in pictures to say, ‘Hey, I’m a tough guy. I’m a badass. Come and take this away.' ”
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.)recently sent a mailer to constituents that showed her clutching an AR-15-style weapon in one picture and shooting a handgun in another. Kevin Knoth, Hartzler’s spokesman, said in an email that the mail was approved May 12 and sent for delivery May 13 before the deadly mass shootings at supermarket in Buffalo and an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex.
Knoth did not respond directly when asked if Hartzler regrets that some of her constituents received the mailer after those tragedies, saying only that the congresswoman “is praying for all those lost and their loved ones” and is urging support for legislation to allow off-duty and retired law enforcement personnel to carry concealed firearms on school grounds.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey pointed guns at protesters in St. Louis who were marching to call for the resignation of Mayor Lyda Krewson on June 28, 2020. (Video: Daniel Shular via Storyful)
Mark McCloskey, who once pointed a gun at Black Lives Matter protesters and is now running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Missouri, has images of assault weapons all over his social media. “Firearms are the ultimate equalizer,” one post says, over a photo of him holding a gun. On his campaign website, he boasts that his story “has empowered thousands of new gun owners across the country to purchase a firearm and learn how to defend themselves.”
This year, an Arizona Republican running to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly released an ad that portrayed him as a sheriff and showed him in an old Western-style standoff with actors playing Kelly, President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
In the ad, the GOP candidate, businessman Jim Lamon, says: “The good people of Arizona have had enough of you. It’s time for a showdown.” The three Democrats draw their weapons. Lamon points his gun and shoots the weapons out of their hands. The Kelly, Biden and Pelosi characters run away. The ad drew some criticism, including from Republican rivals.
Last spring, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) posted a video on Twitter of himself shooting an AR-15 in a gun range. “Now, why would anybody need to own an AR-15?” Graham asked in a follow-up post. “If there is a breakdown of law and order, and that can happen … it’s not impossible to find yourself in the modern world without any police protection, because that’s just the way the times are in which we live in.”
“Senator Graham is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment,” Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop said, when asked about the senator’s social media posts.
Political campaigns and organizations have held contests gifting military-assault weapons to supporters. In Georgia, Josh Clark, a Republican Senate candidate who recently lost the primary to former football star Herschel Walker, said in March that he planned togive away an AR-15 every weekuntil the election. His goal, he said, was to “advance” the use of AR-15 rifles, which he said “should be one of the most commonly owned firearms across America.”
Last fall, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) gave supporters a chance to win a 50-caliber rifle she used in an ad to blow up a Toyota Prius with the word “socialism” emblazoned on its side.The footage showed the massive explosion from various angles and directed viewers to a website that allowed them to enter to win Greene’s rifle.
“This is the same type of gun that TRIGGERS theFake News Media and Democratsall across the country,” Greene’s webpage read. “And it’s the same type of gun the hate-America gun-grabbers in DC would love to BAN if they ever get the votes.”
In January, Greene posted a photo with the contest recipient, both smiling as he cradled the massive weapon.
Isaac Arnsdorf contributed to this report.
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/eric-greitens/
facts matter?
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an 622
no lnx
MAGA v. McConnell: Why Kimberly Guilfoyle is going after the GOP leader
Kimberly Guilfoyle speaking at the 2021 Student Action Summit, hosted by Turning Point USA at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida, Gage Skidmore
Jon Skolnik June 19, 2022
Kimerly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancé, on Thursday accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of waging a "smear campaign" against former Missouri governor Eric Greitens, who is running to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.
The attack came this week in an email blast by Guilfoyle, Greitens' campaign chair, who alleged that the Senate Minority Leader "made a backdoor deal to try and have [Greitens] REMOVED."
"[McConnell has] gone to unimaginable lengths to keep a MAGA warriorlike Eric from winning the 1 SEAT we need to take back the 50-50 Senate," she exclaimed. "He even launched a smear campaign targeting Eric's children. When the RINO establishment employs the exact same tactics as the radical Left, enough is enough!"
Guilfoyle's remarks are the latest in a broader response to claims that Greitens subjected his ex-wife, Sheena Greitens, and their kids to physical abuse during their time together. Those abuse allegations were first levelled back in April 2020, shortly after the couple divorced.
Eric Greitens, for his part, has adamantly denied his ex-wife's account, arguing that if he had been abusive, the two would not have arranged a divorce settlement granting him joint physical custody of the children. Greitens has also alleged that his ex-wife's allegations, which were outlined in a signed affidavit, are part of a coordinated smear campaign waged by McConnell and GOP operative Karl Rove.
"I want to tell you directly, Karl Rove and Mitch McConnell," Greitens tweeted back in March. "Hear me now. You are disgusting cowards. And we are coming for you. We are no longer going to allow you to attack me and attack my kids and to destroy this country."
To support that claim, Greitens has cited a report by right-wing news site Breitbart alleging that Rove had forehand knowledge of Sheena Greitens' abuse allegations. The article also reported that Sheena Greitens' sister is employed by McConnell at the three different political consulting firms. Neither of these details clearly suggest that both McConnell and Rove mounted a coordinated attack against Eric Greitens' Senate campaign.
Both Rove and Sheena Greitens have denied conspiring against the former Missouri governor. Still, Breitbart has continued to suggest such involvement, most recently reporting on claims by Missouri Republican Rep. Billy Long that McConnell meddled in the GOP Senate primary by pressuring Long to drop out of the race.
"McConnell's efforts to get Long to drop out of the race could be an attempt to take away votes from former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, the frontrunner in the race," the outlet suggested. "McConnell has a vested interest in stopping Greitens candidacy as the former Missouri governor has campaigned on voting against McConnell as Republican Senate leader."
Eric Greitens is currently coming out on top in the Senate primary, according to a recent poll by The Hill and Emerson College. The Senate candidate is the only one in the race to boast double-digit support.
For the most part, the former governor has attempted to align himself with MAGA values, even though he was reportedly reluctant to back Donald Trump in the 2016 election, according to Politico. Still, Eric Greitens has not yet received an official imprimatur from the former president.
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https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/shades-roy-moore-steve-bannon-helps-candidacy-eric-greitens-after-reports-abusive
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bad polls?
https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/poll-missouri-senate-eric-greitens/
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/mike-pences-office-pressured-navy-to-reinstate-controversial-former-missouri-governor-foiad-documents
in June 2018, Republican Eric Greitens — who had been battling criminal charges — resigned from his position as governor of Missouri. Greitens served as Navy SEAL before pursuing a career in politics, and according to the Kansas City Star, Vice President Mike Pence tried to pressure the U.S. Navy into reinstating the former Missouri governor in 2019. But Pence’s office, according to the Associated Press, has flatly denied that the vice president intervened in the matter.
Star reporters Tara Copp, Jason Hancock and Bryan Lowry explain that according to documents the publication has obtained, “Greitens had been charged with a felony in 2018 connected to allegations of violent sexual misconduct. Though the charge was ultimately dropped, the Navy wasn’t ready to welcome the former governor back at a time when the military was facing intense criticism over its response to sexual assault in its ranks. It was after the intervention of Vice President Mike Pence’s office that Greitens was allowed to return as a reservist, the documents show.”
In an e-mail dated May 24, 2019, the Star reporters note, Navy Vice Adm. Robert Burke wrote, “Since he was in the (individual ready reserve) at the time, we had no recourse. If he were in the AC (active component), or even RC (reserve component) on active duty, we would have gone after Art 120 (Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, rape and sexual assault). But for a reservist not on orders, or the IRR, we have no authority; it’s like holding a civilian accountable. How could/should that have been accounted for in the administrative move from IRR to [selected reserve)?”
Copp, Jason Hancock and Bryan Lowry report that through the Freedom of Information Act, the Star has obtained “more than 850 pages of documents” that shed light on “behind-the-scenes tussling over allowing the former Missouri governor back into the Navy” — which, they note, didn’t want him back in early 2019.
devin O’Malley, a Pence spokesperson, denies that the vice president’s office had anything to do with Greitens’ reinstatement. Malley told AP, “Vice President Pence did not, nor did he authorize any staff to, intervene on behalf of Mr. Greitens.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/it-looks-like-kansas-kris-kobach-is-illegally-using-nonprofit-border-group-to-raise-campaign-funds/
no lnx
It looks like Kansas’ Kris Kobach is illegally using nonprofit border group to raise campaign funds
Written by Jen Hayden / Daily Kos August 2, 2019
Former (hallelujah!) Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach may have run afoul of the law in his latest bid to attain higher office. Kobach suffered a humiliating defeat in November 2018’s gubernatorial race in Kansas, losing to Democrat Laura Kelly. He’s back, and although nobody asked him to run again, with the possible exception of Trump’s white nationalist advisor Stephen Miller, he’s inserted himself as a candidate in the race for Sen. Pat Roberts’ seat after the longtime senator announced he would be retiring in 2020. You know it’s bad when Republicans are desperate to recruit someone, anyone other than Kobach to run. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is rumored to be considering it. He may want to give it more thought if federal prosecutors begin looking into Kobach’s fundraising. The Daily Beast reports Kobach sent out a fundraising email for his senate campaign to the nonprofit group We Build The Wall. Kobach sits on the board of the group and acts as its legal counsel.
“As a donor to WeBuildTheWall, I humbly ask you to support my run for the Senate,” Kobach’s email pleaded. The email provided links to the campaign’s official fundraising page and asked for “a financial contribution of $50, $100, $250, $500, or any amount up to the maximum of $2,800 per individual.”
The solicitation likely violated federal campaign finance laws, according to Paul S. Ryan, the vice president for policy and litigation at the group Common Cause
“At a minimum, this Kobach for Senate fundraising solicitation email appears to violate the ‘paid for by’ disclaimer requirement” for official campaign communications, Ryan said in an email, referencing the requirement that campaigns clearly disclose the financial sponsors—generally the campaigns themselves—behind official political communications.
The We Build The Wall organization has faced significant legal challenges. Its goal is to use private funds to build a wall along the southern border. Its fundraiser for the purpose went viral among MAGA types, and it raised $22 million. Since then, it claims to have built a half-mile of border wall on private land in New Mexico, but it’s since gotten a cease-and-desist letter from the city because the wall violates city code.
The barrier also surpasses the city ordinance’s maximum allowed height of six feet, Perea added, meaning [fundraiser Brian] Kolfage’s wall is “not in compliance.”
City officials issued a cease-and-desist order Tuesday as lawmakers condemned construction efforts. In a statement to the Silver City Sun News, El-Paso-based Democrat Rep. Veronica Escobar took particular aim at Kobach and Bannon.
“It’s deeply disturbing when outsiders, like Kris Kobach and Steve Bannon, come in and use our community and people as a backdrop to further their racist agenda,” Escobar said. “It’s even more disturbing that a business in our community is furthering this xenophobic narrative. While this wall may be necessary fuel for the president’s political campaign, it will not prevent people from seeking asylum.”
In neighboring Missouri, former Gov. Eric Greitens was indicted for similar use of an email list from a nonprofit organization he ran.
Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens was indicted Friday on suspicion of stealing an electronic list of donors to the pro-veterans charity he founded in order to raise money for his political career, prosecutors say.
The new charge against the Republican governor comes at the tail end of the three-year statute of limitations, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said in a news release.
According to a probable cause statement, Greitens instructed the April 22, 2015, disclosure of a donor list owned by the Mission Continues, a nonprofit Greitens founded, without the charity’s permission.
That charge was dismissed when Greitens resigned. He also stood accused of blackmailing a woman he’d had an affair with after he took nude photos of her without her permission and threatened to release them publicly if she ever told anyone of the affair.
Needless to say, prosecutors should be looking at Kobach’s fundraising through the nonprofit. Based on the reporting from the Daily Beast, it seems clear that the blurring of the lines between Kobach’s campaign and the nonprofit are at a minimum worth more scrutiny, possibly rising to the level of a felony.
“You’ll sometimes see a campaign paying to rent a c4’s list, but that’s clearly not what’s happening here,” said Brendan Fischer, the director of federal reforms at the Campaign Legal Center. “[T]he content of the message describing a We Build the Wall event and the logo at top make clear it is an official communication from the c4 itself.”
In the email, Kobach even compares his role as the nonprofit’s top lawyer to the one he hopes to play in the upper chamber of America’s legislature, writing, “I’m [sic] want to represent you in the United States States [sic] the same way I’m going to continue to represent WeBuildTheWall as General Counsel.”
Kansans were already tired of Kobach embarrassing the state with one legal misfire after another. As secretary of state, Kobach worked tirelessly to make sure as many people as possible lost the right to vote. He used his Crosscheck voter system, which flagged allegedly questionable voter registrations, to systematically kick voters off the voter rolls by demanding they present proof of citizenship, voters who happened to have names like Garcia and Jackson.
He also tried to create a two-tier voting system, one that would allow people to vote in federal elections (because of the constitutional right to vote), but not in state elections if they didn’t jump through his citizenship hoops. He was essentially laughed out of court. Again. His performance in court defending these laws was so bad, and his paperwork filled with so many errors, that a federal judge ordered Kobach to take remedial legal classes.
He is also the man who was the architect of the most racist law in modern American history, Arizona’s S.B. 1070, which allowed law enforcement officers to stop anyone they pleased to demand citizenship paperwork on the spot and indefinitely detain them if they didn’t carry their birth certificate or citizenship paperwork with them. Nicknamed “Papers Please,” the law meant that officers could detain an entire family. Kobach hoped to take it nationwide. Indeed, it does seem similar to what ICE and Trump are now doing, doesn’t it?
And with all of that, please enjoy this just-released video from Kris Kobach in which he spends five full minutes waving around an empty coffee mug while helpfully explaining that all the articles about him being a super-duper racist are wrong.
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From 2017-18, JCN continued quietly bankrolling a small but expanding circle of conservative groups aimed at attracting women, with $75,000 to the Susan B. Anthony List; $35,000 to the American Women’s Alliance; and $250,000 to Winning for Women, which was launched in 2017 as a conservative counterweight to EMILY’s List.
The Susan B. Anthony List boosted Kavanaugh’s nomination and continued to support him after he was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford, a Stanford University professor who knew the justice when he was in prep school. Winning for Women also threw their support behind Kavanaugh, spending on hundreds of videos and Facebook ad buys targeting women.
JCN also donated $500,000 to A New Missouri, a dark money organization established to support the state’s former Republican governor, Eric Greitens. He resigned last year amid an investigation into the organization.
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no lnx
Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri Resigns: 5 Takeaways
Image
Gov. Eric Greitens announced on Tuesday that he would resign, amid a growing scandal involving allegations of sexual misconduct and political impropriety.CreditCreditJeff Roberson/Associated Press
By Julie Bosman and Mitch Smith
May 30, 2018
After more than four months of spiraling political scandal, criminal charges and the threat of impeachment, Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri made a surprise announcement: He would resign his office by the end of the week. It was a sudden switch for a governor who for months defiantly rejected a chorus of calls to quit and who said he had done nothing illegal.
On Wednesday, prosecutors in St. Louis said they would dismiss a felony charge against him as part of a deal reached if he resigned.
Here are five takeaways from Mr. Greitens’s saga.
His playbook sounded a lot like President Trump’s, except for one thing.
As he defended himself in recent months, Mr. Greitens chose his words carefully. “Let’s call this what it is,” he said at a news conference last month. “A political witch hunt.”
An ad last week, paid for by the governor’s political operation, also used language that sounded borrowed from Mr. Trump.
How to whitelist
“Don’t let the liberals get away with it,” the narrator urged. “Stand with Eric Greitens.” The ad also referred to “fake news” and a “liberal prosecutor funded by George Soros.”
And for months, Mr. Greitens has refused to back down from accusations swirling around him: an extramarital affair and impropriety relating to his political campaign.
But unlike Mr. Trump, the governor of Missouri did not survive the scandals that have dogged him for most of the year.
One key difference is that Mr. Greitens had only dwindling support from lawmakers in his own party in Missouri, where Republicans control both the governor’s office and the State Legislature.
Since winning election as a political outsider in 2016, he had openly clashed with Republicans, vowing to shake up the way government is conducted.
When pressure to resign began to mount this year, Mr. Greitens had few Republicans to lean on. A committee dominated by Republicans was conducting a monthslong investigation into the governor’s conduct.
Even after Mr. Greitens announced that he would resign, some of the most scathing statements came from Republicans he had alienated.
“For all practical purposes, Missouri has been without a governor for the last five months,” said State Senator Mike Kehoe, the majority leader.
Why quit now? Prosecutors will drop a criminal charge.
St. Louis prosecutors agreed to drop a felony computer tampering charge against Mr. Greitens once he resigned, said Susan Ryan, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office. The prosecutors had accused Mr. Greitens, a former member of the Navy SEALs who founded a charity for returning veterans,of using the charity’s donor list to benefit his political campaign in 2016 — the election that gave Mr. Greitens the governorship (and his first foray into any sort of elective office).
Departing apparently ends that line of legal risk for Mr. Greitens, who could have faced four years in prison had he been convicted of tampering. The prosecutor, Kimberly Gardner, announced her decision to drop the case this way: “I remain confident that we have the evidence required to pursue charges against Mr. Greitens,” adding, “But sometimes, pursuing charges is not the right or just thing to do for our city or state.”
But the dropping of a criminal count may not have been the only reason Mr. Greitens suddenly chose to leave.
State lawmakers were moving forward with hearings that could have led to impeachment, and Mr. Greitens had been subpoenaed to testify before them next week.
And a judge ruled on Tuesday — hours before his resignation — that Mr. Greitens’s campaign fund and a political group tied to the governor had to turn over documents to lawmakers.
Biggest winners in Mr. Greitens’s resignation: Missouri Republicans
For months, Republicans in Missouri found themselves in a bind. Their own governor was enveloped in a crisis that seemed to grow more sordid by the week. With midterm elections quickly approaching and a highly competitive United States Senate seat at stake, the political conversation around the state seemed consumed with the one thing Republicans didn’t want to fixate on: the latest chapter in the Greitens story.
All along, plenty of fellow Republicans condemned Mr. Greitens’s conduct. Among them: Josh Hawley, the state’s Republican attorney general who is expected to face a tight Senate race against Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat seen as vulnerable in a state that has become solidly Republican. (Mr. Trump won the state by 19 percentage points.)
But weeks of pleas that Mr. Greitens step aside could not seem to quell the worries of Republicans: Would the scandal depress Republican turnout? Would divisions among Republicans over what should happen to Mr. Greitens create turmoil? Would an ugly fight over impeachment — by a State Legislature that is controlled by Republicans — cause problems for lawmakers in their own re-election fights?
Then came Mr. Greitens’s announcement that he was quitting. For Republican lawmakers, the timing couldn’t have been more auspicious in its optics: They had taken deliberate steps toward investigating the governor, but there would be no need to vote on whether to impeach. Mr. Hawley had his first praise for the governor in months, lauding him for doing “the right thing,” namely, leaving.
The woman at the center of the case never wanted it to be a case.
The woman at the center of the scandal around Mr. Greitens — his former hairdresser with whom he had a sexual relationship — has always held a complicated role.
Intimate, elaborate details of her sexual encounters with Mr. Greitens were made public, published on the front pages of newspapers and read aloud by state lawmakers as part of their investigations. But little else about her was known. Only her initials, K.S., were made public, not her name. A rare television interview with her didn’t show her face. And she said again and again that she had not brought concerns about Mr. Greitens to the public; her ex-husband’s lawyer had.
“I didn’t want this,” she told a St. Louis television station. “I wasn’t out to get anyone.”
Mr. Greitens’s relationship with the woman touched off a criminal count against him, sending the political scandal into a legal realm in February. He was charged with invasion of privacy, accused of taking an explicit photograph of the woman without her permission, and then threatening to reveal it publicly if she told anyone about their relationship.
The charge was abruptly dropped by a prosecutor days before it was to go to trial, but another prosecutor then said she was reviewing the case, and that investigation is ongoing.
The woman declined an interview request this week, as she had repeatedly. Her lawyer, Scott Simpson, released a statement: “Now that the governor has resigned, I hope my client can go back to being a private citizen and put this matter behind her.”
What does Mr. Greitens’s future hold? Who knows.
Where Mr. Greitens goes next — after returning to life as a private citizen at the age of 44 — is an open question.
No Missouri governor has resigned since 1857, but Mr. Greitens has plenty of examples around the country of governors who have left the office early.
Robert Bentley of Alabama, a Republican, resigned over a sex scandal last year. He is currently a practicing dermatologist in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York, a Democrat, resigned in 2008 after a New York Times investigation revealed his ties to a prostitution ring. He became a columnist for Slate, hosted a short-lived political talk show on CNN, wrote op-eds in newspapers and ran for New York City comptroller in 2013 (and lost).
In Illinois, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached in 2009 after his arrest on federal corruption charges and is now serving a sentence in federal prison in Colorado.
Mr. Greitens has reasons to stay in Missouri, his home state. His wife, Sheena, is a political-science professor and a director of the Institute for Korean Studies at the University of Missouri. They own a six-bedroom home in Innsbrook, a resort town about 80 miles from the governor’s mansion in Jefferson City.
Asked in an email about the governor’s future plans, a spokesman for Mr. Greitens did not respond.
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no lnx
POLITICAL FIX
VP Pence's top aide, tied to Greitens, targeted in new Missouri ethics complaint
By Jack Suntrup
and Kurt Erickson St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Jul 11, 2018 (…)
Vice President and Missouri governor visit vandalized cemetery
Vice President Mike Pence and Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens walks through the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017, after viewing some of the damage done the previous weekend when more than 150 headstones were overturned. Photo by J.B. Forbes, jforbes@post-dispatch.com
JEFFERSON CITY • The chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence discussed soliciting contributions from “restricted donors” while he was advising future Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens’ 2016 campaign, according to a complaint filed Tuesday with the state’s ethics commission.
Nick Ayers
The complaint also says that Greitens for Missouri, which Pence chief of staff Nick Ayers advised, “funneled” donations through 501(c)(4) nonprofits, which do not have to reveal donor identities.
One potential donor, according to an email a Missouri House investigative committee obtained, was employed by a company that “manages money for the state of Missouri” — and could thus be barred by federal law from donating to political campaigns.
It is unclear to what extent, if any, Ayers was involved in discussions with that particular donor. But an email from 2015 shows that Ayers was in contact with the Greitens campaign about a “restricted donor.”
The revelation is contained in a 24-page complaint by Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, who led the now-defunct House committee that was collecting evidence to determine if Greitens should be impeached and removed from office.
Greitens, who was enmeshed in multiple scandals and had faced two potential felony court cases that were later dropped, resigned on June 1 after 17 tumultuous months in office. Greitens’ whereabouts have been unclear since he moved out of the Governor’s Mansion.
Barnes asked the ethics panel to investigate several alleged campaign infractions by Greitens and his campaign. The complaint singles out three close advisers: Ayers, fundraiser Meredith Gibbons and campaign manager Austin Chambers.
Barnes wrote that the committee obtained a June 27, 2016, email to Gibbons from an undisclosed “early supporter and fundraiser of Greitens.” The person writes to Gibbons that “I’m pretty sure he’s not allowed to give,” because “[redacted] manages money for the state of Missouri”.
“Eric can mention the 501(c)(4) if applicable, but no idea how [redacted] will react to that,” the email says.
Complaint against Greitens for Missouri and A New Missouri, Inc. presented to the Missouri Ethics Commission
It is unclear from Tuesday’s complaint who the prospective donor was, and whether the donor ultimately cut a check to help propel Greitens to office. But Barnes wrote that on June 29, 2016, two days after the email, a 501(c)(4) group called Freedom Frontier donated $500,000 to LG PAC, the mysterious entity that spent more than $4 million to attack Greitens’ competitors in the 2016 primary.
Though the Greitens campaign denied coordinating with LG PAC, Ayers filed a financial disclosure form last year that said he worked for Freedom Frontier during the 2016 campaign.
White House debating how to deal with Greitens, a man who refuses to quit
White House debating how to deal with Greitens, a man who refuses to quit
"There's been interest from the White House about how this is playing out politically in Missouri," said one Republican, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In addition, Barnes said that on Dec. 4, 2015, Ayers and Gibbons exchanged emails about a “restricted donor,” though the two do not elaborate.
“There is a restricted donor that we’d like for you to reach out to when you have time,” Gibbons wrote to Ayers. “I can explain more over the phone.”
“Will buzz you soon re: restricted donor,” Ayers replied.
Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer advocacy organization, said if a “restricted” person ended up donating to Greitens’ cause, the person could have violated federal pay-to-play rules.
He said there is a “long history” of financial firms attempting to win government business by “making campaign contributions to endear themselves to those who are responsible for rewarding the contracts.”
Alyssa Farah, press secretary for Pence, defended Ayers in a statement issued Tuesday evening: “This is a complaint lodged against former clients of Mr. Ayers, who has always complied with federal and state campaign finance laws meticulously, and did so in this instance as well,” Farah said.
Catherine Hanaway, attorney for Greitens’ campaign, said in an emailed statement that the complaint was “full of false accusations.”
Hanaway wrote: “The Greitens for Missouri campaign never attempted to solicit or receive campaign contributions from prohibited sources. There was never any attempt by staff or consultants of the Greitens Campaign to violate campaign finance law. Missouri law was not violated — period. Any suggestion otherwise is completely false, and the facts prove that.”
Chambers could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
In a joint statement, two of the three Democratic members of the 10-member committee — Reps. Gina Mitten of Richmond Heights and Tommie Pierson Jr. of St. Louis — said they were confident the ethics commission would determine that punishment is warranted.
“With the ethics complaint that has been filed based on the work of the House investigative committee, the Missouri Ethics Commission has overwhelming evidence to conclude that Eric Greitens, his campaign committee and affiliated dark money organization broke state campaign finance laws,” the statement noted.
Other infractions
Barnes alleges several campaign infractions by the disgraced former chief executive, including that Greitens failed to form a campaign committee after spending $500 on his statewide bid and that he did not report the $4 million spent by LG PAC as an in-kind contribution.
A letter Greitens' GOP rival sent before the 2016 election foreshadowed issues to come
A letter Greitens' GOP rival sent before the 2016 election foreshadowed issues to come
"Missouri voters are wondering: To whom are you, as the next Governor of our state, beholden?" then-Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder wrote to the future governor in October 2016.
He said the Greitens campaign violated Missouri law by purposefully concealing the ultimate source of the $4 million spent by LG PAC, as well as the source of a $1.97 million donation to the Greitens campaign from the opaque group called SEALs for Truth.
Barnes also released a Nov. 17, 2015, email exchange between Chambers and Gibbons, in which the two discuss directing two Democratic donors to an unknown 501(c)(4) “so that they don’t appear on our reports,” Chambers said.
Evidence the House committee obtained “strongly suggests that Greitens for Missouri engaged in activity purposefully designed to conceal donor identities,” Barnes wrote.
Though the ethics commission can only consider civil punishment for breaches of campaign finance law, the complaint also mentions another possible violation of state law: using taxpayer resources for political purposes.
Barnes said that “upon information and belief”Greitens’ taxpayer-paid general counsel Lucinda Luetkemeyer “regularly attended meetings” with the Greitens campaign and A New Missouri, Greitens’ political nonprofit. State employees are barred from political activities while they are on the clock.
The Post-Dispatch reported in January that Luetkemeyer was on a fact-finding mission in the hours before news broke that Greitens had an extramarital affair with his hairdresser in 2015. Luetkemeyer did not respond to an inquiry on Tuesday.
Barnes also said that once in office, Greitens formed A New Missouri to skirt campaign donation limits and purposefully conceal the identities of donors.
Barnes said last year’s formation of A New Missouri to support Greitens’ agendawas in response to the 2016 passage of a statewide referendum that placed caps on campaign contributions at $2,600 per election.
“The principals of Greitens for Missouri set up A New Missouri Inc. for the purpose of evading the newly-enacted campaign finance laws in Amendment 2,” the complaint says.
That, Barnes said, violates the state constitution, which bars people from using fake names to contribute money to political causes.
Two Post-Dispatch reporters visited the downtown Jefferson City offices of A New Missouri on Tuesday. The organization shares office space with Greitens’ campaign committee. The reporters rang a doorbell, but no one answered. It appeared that no one was at the office.
It is not uncommon for governors throughout the United States to use similar dark money groups.
According to a June report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, more than one in three governors holding office as of Jan. 31, 2017, can be linked to 501(c)(4) groups.
Of those, 70 percent did not voluntarily disclose their donors to the public, the CREW report noted.
Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the left-leaning group, said the unchecked spending allows special interest groups and wealthy donors to exert influence on the political process.
“Shadow governance groups allow governors to benefit from unlimited spending by sources unknown to the public — but possibly known to them,” Bookbinder said. “This is a growing, cutting-edge way for secret money to influence politics, and we need to start paying more attention to it.”
Other governors with similar organizations include Ohio’s John Kasich, New York’s Andrew Cuomo and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker.
The registered agent for A New Missouri is Robin Simpson of Monroe City. Simpson, who was appointed by Greitens to serve on the Missouri Lottery Commission, has not responded to telephone messages.
The ethics commission does not comment on pending complaints.
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Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri Resigns: 5 Takeaways - The New York ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/us/eric-greitens-missouri-takeaways.html
May 30, 2018 - After more than four months of spiraling political scandal, criminal charges and the threat of impeachment, Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri made ...
Eric Greitens - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Greitens
2.
Years of service: 2001–2017
**Other political affiliations**: Democratic (before 2...
Service/branch: United States Navy
Early life · Career · Governor of Missouri · Personal life
Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens Resigns : The Two-Way : NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/.../missouri-gov-eric-greitens-resigns
May 29, 2018 - Eric Greitens, pictured earlier this month, announced his resignation Tuesday asgovernor of Missouri. The Republican, who is facing an ...
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Tony Messenger is the metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Tishaura Jones and Paul DeGregorio make a political odd couple.
Jones, the treasurer of the city of St. Louis, is a Democrat known for her progressive politics. DeGregorio, a former director of the St. Louis County Election Board, is a lifelong Republican.
This month, they found common ground.
“I know your father,” DeGregorio said to Jones as they sat down for a panel discussion in a back room at Three Kings Public House on Delmar Boulevard.
The panel’s focus was dark money, that plague of the American political system by which wealthy individuals and corporations hide their intentions to control politicians and fool voters by giving millions of dollars to untraceable nonprofit committees. Those donations then are sent to candidates or other political action committees, thus making it next to impossible for voters to know who is trying to buy their votes. I was on the panel, too, along with attorney Elad Gross, who is suing the former dark money committee called A New Missouri that contributed to the rapid rise and fall of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.
As a younger man, DeGregorio worked on the campaign of former Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft, a Republican. That’s where he met Virvus Jones, Tishaura’s father. The Democrat crossed over to support Ashcroft in 1984.
A generation later, DeGregorio and Jones are joining together to support an anti-corruption initiative that in some ways has its roots in Ashcroft’s election more than three decades ago. Amendment 1 is the bipartisan initiative pushed by Clean Missouri that would limit campaign contributions, require a two-year cooling off period before lawmakers become lobbyists, reduce political influence in legislative redistricting, limit lobbyists gifts, and increase legislative transparency.
It is the most comprehensive statewide ethics initiative since Ashcroft first tried to create the Missouri Ethics Commission in a 1990 initiative. That proposal was dropped from the ballot because it violated constitutional requirements that an initiative not cover too many unrelated topics. Opponents have filed a similar lawsuit against Amendment 1, though its organizers are confident they will survive the legal challenge. Each of the provisions modifies Article III of the Missouri Constitution.
DeGregorio and Jones both support Amendment 1, but that’s not the primary reason they were on a panel that day. It was to talk about director Kimberly Reed’s “Dark Money” documentary. The film, which premieres on Nine Network in October, focuses on a legal and political dispute in Montana over wealthy outsiders trying to buy influence by electing lawmakers in that state with dark money. There is a cameo byMissouri attorney Lucinda Luetkemeyer, who sought to protect the dark-money interests who don’t want voters to know who is trying to buy their elected officials.
Spoiler alert: Luetkemeyer lost in Montana.
Not long after that, Greitens appointed her as his lead attorney in his short-lived administration, where she lost again.
DeGregorio campaigned for Greitens. But he turned against the governor over dark money, a scourge of secrecy he had been decrying long before the phrase became part of the political lexicon.
The insidious nature of dark money is everywhere these days in Missouri politics.
Unknown forces are pouring millions of dollars into campaign ads in the race for U.S. Senate between Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, and Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican. The ads, which come from outside groups, tend to be more dishonest and full of hyperbole, because it’s easier to lie when nobody can identify who you are. A Washington Post analysis of a recent pro-Hawley ad, for instance, called it “misleading” and a “smear campaign.”
Luetkemeyer is out of government, but her husband, Tony, won a Republican state senate primary awash in dark money. He was backed by much of the same coalition that backed Greitens, and some of the same people now battling Amendment 1, including the law firm where Luetkemeyer used to work.
Even Amendment 1’s backers can’t avoid the taint of dark money, taking in more than $300,000 from two organizations that don’t disclose their donors.
That won’t stop DeGregorio and Jones from supporting the initiative. These two political veterans remember when the art of compromise was a more common attribute in a political system that these days is highlighted by extreme dysfunction.
“It’s not just Montana,” investigative reporter John Adams says of dark money in the movie.
Indeed, it’s not. It’s Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida and every place in between.
In Montana, the people fought back, and they won.
Missouri’s opportunity to join the fight is coming.
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While journalists and political junkies are focused on the latest implosion of the GOP effort to repeal Obamacare and gut Medicaid, conservatives in several states have been working to decrease the minimum wage that businesses can pay to their workers.
In Missouri, Republicans just passed a law overturning a local measure passed by the city of St. Louis that had raised the minimum wage to $10 per hour.
The new law will prohibit counties and cities within Missouri from creating their own minimum wage laws. It will also roll back the St. Louis minimum hourly wage to the statewide floor of $7.70.
Notably, Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, refused to sign the law, even though he spoke out in favor of it. Under the Missouri constitution, bills passed by both houses of the state assembly automatically become law.
In a news conference June 30, Greitens focused on procedural objections to the bill. He faulted the Republican-controlled Senate for utilizing a procedural loophole to block a Democratic filibuster of the measure, which had prevented it from being voted on until the final day of the chamber’s legislative session.
“I disapprove of the way politicians handled this,” Greitens said, as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “That’s why I won’t be signing my name to their bill.”
The governor’s refusal to sign the law was interpreted as an at of cowardice by some Democrats.
“Signing it would have shown the fact that he is heartless and that he really doesn’t care about the working poor,” state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed told the Post-Dispatch. “So what he didn’t want to do is sign a bill to take money out of the pockets of those who already have an increase, but still do so.”
During the Senate delay, the city ordinance went into effect on May 5. It is unclear how many local businesses will reduce their employees’ wages to $7.70 after paying the higher $10 rate.
Missouri is not the only state where Republican elected officials have successfully targeted minimum wage laws. Until recently, such an action seemed like a conservative pipe dream. Thanks to a years-long hollowing out of the Democratic Party in rural and exurban areas, however, right-wing politicians have become able to pursue policies that were once impossible.
The GOP effort in Missouri came on the heels of an earlier success in March, when Iowa Republicans managed to roll back mandatory pay increases passed by local jurisdictions. It was the first time such a law had ever been passed, according to the National Employment Law Project, a liberal nonprofit group that supports higher minimum wage laws.
Terry Branstad, Iowa’s Republican governor, was decidedly more gung-ho in his response to the idea. He held a formal signing ceremony for the bill and spoke on its behalf, citing his desire for a single wage across the state.
“I think that uniformity is critically important, especially when you have communities that are in more than one county,” Branstad said as he signed the new law.
In February, Branstad said he did favor “a modest increase” in wages, however.
Advocates of lowering the minimum wage have also had success using lawsuits. In October, Kentucky’s Supreme Court overturned a 2014 Louisville ordinance that would have raised the city’s minimum wage to $9 an hour. In a 6-1 ruling, the court ruled that the local law violated the state constitution.
Republicans in Maine have also been successful at changing local minimum wage laws. While GOP efforts in other states have been opposed by low-wage workers, in the Pine Tree State, bartenders and restaurant employees appear to have assisted them and a number of Democrats joined in.
The unusual coalition behind decreasing wages in Maine highlights one of the emerging controversies in the debate over the minimum wage: whether employees who receive tips should be paid the same minimum wage as those who do not.
Under federal law, employers are required to supplement payments to workers who do not earn enough tips to reach the minimum wage threshold. The federal minimum wage for non-tipped employees is $7.25 per hour. Congress has not passed an increase since 2007.
Free-market advocates and restaurant industry representatives argue that adding tips onto a full minimum wage will cripple many food establishments by forcing them to raise prices or reduce staffing levels.
James Dill, a Democratic state senator in Maine, had resisted that position but changed his mind after he received hundreds of of emails and phone calls from waiters and bartenders asking him to support lowering the amount that tipped workers must be paid.
“I believe in a higher minimum wage,” he told the Washington Post. “But the people who this was impacting didn’t want it.”
The measure passed Maine’s House of Representatives 100 to 37 and cleared its Senate 23 to 12. Once it goes into effect in January, the minimum wage for tipped workers will return to the previous state minimum of $3.75 per hour.
During his 2016 campaign, President Donald Trump appeared to support raising the minimum wage requirement to $10 an hour. Since he assumed office, however, Trump has made no movement toward promoting the idea.
According to a poll released in June by the University of Maryland, 74 percent of respondents favored increasing the federal minimum wage to $10 per hour. Even 58 percent of self-identified Republicans supported the higher wage.
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