Eric Robert Greitens ( ; born April 10, 1974) is an American politician, humanitarian, and former United States Navy SEAL. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 56th governor of Missouri from January 2017 until his resignation in June 2018. His resignation followed multiple investigations involving allegations related to an extramarital relationship, in which he was accused of blackmail and sexual assault, and improper campaign‑finance practices, although all the associated criminal charges were later dropped.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Greitens graduated from Duke University in 1996 and received a doctorate in 2000 from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar. For his humanitarian work, he was awarded the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award from Harvard Kennedy School and the President's Volunteer Service Award. During his four tours of duty as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer, he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander. He commanded a unit targeting al-Qaeda, and was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Later, after being a White House fellow, Greitens founded a nonprofit organization, The Mission Continues, to benefit veterans. In 2013, Time included him in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. He also taught public service at the Truman School of Public Affairs and was an adjunct professor of business ethics in the MBA program at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.
Greitens ran for governor of Missouri as a Republican in 2016. In the predominately Republican state, Greitens prevailed over three opponents in the Republican primary. He defeated Democratic Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster in the general election. He was Missouri's first Jewish governor. One of Greitens's signature acts in office was signing Missouri's right-to-work law, which was later repealed by statewide referendum.
In February 2018, Greitens was charged with felony invasion of privacy related to an extramarital relationship. Prosecutors alleged that he had taken an unauthorized photograph of the woman involved. The woman also made allegations that he had sexually assaulted her, which Greitens denied. A bipartisan Special Investigative Committee of the Missouri House of Representatives reviewed the matter and released a report in April 2018.
In April 2018, Greitens was separately indicted on a felony count of computer tampering. The charge concerned the alleged use of a donor list from The Mission Continues, the nonprofit organization he co-founded, for political fundraising without their permission. All criminal charges in both cases were dropped in May 2018.
Greitens resigned from the governorship on June 1, 2018, shortly after the Missouri General Assembly convened a special session to consider possible impeachment proceedings.
In 2022, Greitens attempted a return to public office, running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring incumbent Roy Blunt in the 2022 election. He lost the Republican primary to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who won the general election.
Early life and education Greitens was born on April 10, 1974, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Becky and Rob Greitens. Greitens's mother was a special education teacher and his father was an accountant for the Missouri Department of Agriculture. His mother is Jewish and his father is Catholic; Greitens was raised Jewish. He grew up in a Democratic family. Greitens graduated from Parkway North High School in 1992.
After high school, Greitens majored in ethics, philosophy, and public policy at Duke University. He graduated in 1996 with an A.B. summa cum laude.
Greitens won a Harry S. Truman Scholarship and was selected as a Rhodes scholar, which allowed him to pursue graduate studies at Oxford University. He studied how international humanitarian organizations assist children in war zones. He was a member of Lady Margaret Hall and received a M.Phil. in development studies in 1998 and a D.Phil. in politics, for research on humanitarian organization efforts on behalf of children in war-torn countries, in 2000.
During his 2016 campaign for governor, Greitens said, "I have worked in Cambodia with kids who lost limbs to land mines and are survivors of polio. I've worked in Bolivia with children of the street. I've worked in one of Mother Teresa's homes for the destitute and dying." For six weeks as a college student, Greitens worked at two refugee camps, the Puntizela camp outside Pula, Croatia, and the Gasinci camp outside Osijek, Croatia. Both are described in his book. Refugee camps in Croatia were temporary homes for Bosnians crossing the border. Greitens also traveled to Rwanda and Zaire as a volunteer U.N. photographer.
U.S. Navy SEAL (2001–2021) Greitens matriculated at the United States Navy's Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida, in January 2001, graduating in May of that year as an ensign in the United States Navy Reserve. He began Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL (BUD/S) training in Coronado, California, graduating with Class 237 in February 2002.
Greitens rose to be a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy Reserve. During his active duty career, he was deployed four times, to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and Southeast Asia. He was the commander of a joint special operations task unit, a Mark V Special Operations Craft detachment, and an al-Qaeda targeting cell.
In 2005, Greitens left full-time active duty to take a one-year White House fellowship.White House Fellows: Class of 2005-2006" Online Article , WhiteHouse.gov, July 16, 2008. Appointed by President George W. Bush, Greitens developed a program to get architecture and engineering students involved in rebuilding efforts in the South after Hurricane Katrina. He remained a Navy reservist and led a program that recruited advisers for special military operations around the world. As a White House fellow, he also worked in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
After his fellowship, he volunteered for a six-month tour in Iraq that began in October 2006. On March 28, 2007, two suicide bombers detonated trucks carrying chlorine gas at the Fallujah government complex where Greitens and other military personnel were sleeping. The attack was the seventh chlorine bombing in the Al Anbar province of Iraq by Al-Qaeda. Greitens was among about 15 who were wounded, and he received a Purple Heart. He was also awarded the Bronze Star and Combat Action Ribbon.
During a deployment in Thailand, Greitens learned of drug use by Navy personnel and initiated an investigation that led to their removal. In the Philippines, his crew effectively shut down a transit site for a terrorist organization, according to an evaluation report.
In January 2019, Greitens (in the Individual Ready Reserve) sought to be reinstated to the Navy's Selected Reserve. Navy officials, including Vice Admiral Robert P. Burke (then the Chief of Naval Personnel) and Brendan McLane (then the head of the Navy Recruiting Command) did not want to give Greitens a "major misconduct waiver" that would allow him to return, due to the allegations of sexual assault against him. The SEALs told Navy leadership that "he would not meet criteria for re-entry to the SEAL community given his age and unfavorable promotion likelihood."Tara Copp, Jason Hancock and Bryan Lowry, "Despite concern, Navy gave Greitens 'red carpet' return after pressure from Pence", Kansas City Star (August 1, 2020). But under pressure from Vice President Mike Pence, the Navy allowed Greitens to return, granting him a "red carpet" medical clearance.Daniel Desrochers, Navy: Eric Greitens is no longer with the Navy Reserve or the Department of the Navy, Kansas City Star (June 21, 2022).
Upon his return, however, the Special Warfare Command denied Greitens reentry into the SEALs.Tara Copp, Lindsay Wise, and Jason Hancock, Eric Greitens to return to military service — but not as an elite SEAL, Navy confirms, Kansas City Star (May 23, 2019). He was instead classified as a general unrestricted line officer, a category for reservists tasked with office duties. After spending two years as an active member of the Navy Reserve, Greitens resigned his commission in the Navy Reserve on May 1, 2021, two months after he launched his U.S. Senate campaign.
Affiliation switch to the Republican Party Greitens grew up as a Democrat. In 2015, he wrote a Fox News op-ed announcing that he had become a Republican. He said he had been raised in the tradition of Harry S. Truman and had been recruited as a Democratic candidate for Congress, but was pushed rightward after seeing the Department of Veterans Affairs fail to help many of his brothers in arms. He recalled being angered at how the Democrats' only solution was to "spend more money" on the VA. "The problem is that most Democrats seem to think more money and bigger government are the solutions to virtually every single problem", he wrote. He said he believed Democrats no longer had the right ideas to stand up for the middle class.
2016 Missouri gubernatorial election On September 26, 2015, Greitens announced his candidacy for governor of Missouri as a Republican. Shortly after a June 30, 2016, quarterly deadline for filing campaign contributions, he received the largest ever single contribution in a Missouri campaign, $1.975 million. The timing meant that he did not have to reveal it until October, months after the primary. The source was a previously unknown Superpac, "SEALS for Truth". SEALS for Truth had received the money from the American Policy Coalition (APC), another Superpac, on the same day APC received the entire amount. Greitens had assured voters he intended to increase transparency while reducing corruption in state politics as a campaign focus. APC, about which there was almost no information online, was headed by Ohio lawyer David Langdon, who had incorporated it in Kentucky in 2015. Between the 2010 election cycle and early 2015, at least 11 groups connected to Langdon spent at least $22 million on ballot initiatives against abortion and same-sex marriage, and on federal and state elections around the country, as tabulated by the Center for Public Integrity. On March 12, 2017, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Kansas City Star editorial boards published a joint editorial criticizing Greitens for "secret fundraising and secret spending", and for tactics such as ordering that "[s]ecurity staffers block reporters from getting close to him". In 2018, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, announced the opening of an investigation of Greitens's 2016 campaign financing.
Greitens won the August 2 Republican primary with 236,250 votes (34.6%) to businessman John Brunner's 169,425 (24.8%), Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder's 141,498 (20.7%), and former Speaker Catherine Hanaway's 136,350 (19.9%). Democrat-turned-Republican Greitens faced Republican-turned-Democrat Chris Koster in the general election on November 8, 2016, and won with 51.3% of the vote to Koster's 45.4%.
On April 28, 2017, the Missouri Ethics Commission fined Greitens's campaign $1,000 for violating state campaign ethics rules regarding campaign disclosure. Greitens did not contest the fine.
Governor of Missouri (2017–2018) Greitens identifies himself as a conservative outsider, and is a member of the Republican Party. He called himself a "Make America Great Again" candidate, and often voiced opposition to leading Republicans such as Mitch McConnell for being insufficiently conservative. He has opposed federal matching grants for state projects, saying they "unbalance" state budgets, and voiced support for block grants instead.
Cabinet
Greitens took office as governor on January 9, 2017. His initial Cabinet was: