ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens announced Monday he will run for U.S. Senate in 2022. He made the announcement during an appearance on FOX News Channel Monday evening.
“I have been so encouraged by the people of Missouri that I’m happy to announce that I am running for the United States Senate to continue serving the people of Missouri,” Greitens told FOX News host Bret Baier, as he sat in front of a backdrop showing the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
“I served as a Navy Seal, I did four deployments overseas, including to Iraq and Afghanistan, came home after my team was hit by a suicide truck bomb and we pulled together a fantastic team of people to help veterans who had PTSD, who had traumatic brain injury, who’d lost eyesight, who’d lost limbs and we were able to save lives together,” Greitens said.
During the appearance with Bret Baier, Greitens said he’s “seeking redemption.”
Greitens also made it clear what his priorities will be if Missouri voters elect him to the Senate.
“I think now the people of Missouri need a fighter in the United States Senate. They need someone who will go, as I will, as I’m committed to do to defending President Trump’s America First policies and also to protecting the people of Missouri from Joe Biden, Nancy Peolsi, and Chuck Schumer’s radical leftist agenda.”
Greitens was a rising GOP star after his 2016 election, a charismatic former Navy SEAL officer and Rhodes Scholar, founder of a non-profit benefiting veterans. He didn’t hide his ambitions, reserving the website EricGreitensForPresident.com.
Those ambitions seemingly came crashing down over the course of a few months, after Greitens was indicted on an invasion-of-privacy charge in February 2018 in St. Louis, accused of taking a compromising photo of a woman without her consent during a 2015 extramarital affair.
In short order, a Missouri House committee began investigating campaign finance issues, and Greitens faced a second felony charge in St. Louis, accused of providing his political fundraiser with the donor list of his veterans charity.
The criminal charges were dropped when Greitens resigned in June 2018. The former lieutenant governor who took over, Republican Mike Parson, pledged “to bring honor, integrity (and) transparency to the governor’s office.”
Greitens’ rebirth was seemingly fueled in February, when the Missouri Ethics Commission issued a ruling on a campaign ethics investigation.
The commission found “probable cause” that Greitens’ campaign broke the law by not reporting that it cooperated with a political action committee in 2016, and required payment of a $38,000 fine. But it also “found no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of Eric Greitens, individually.”
Grietens will run for the seat currently held by Senator Roy Blunt who announced he is retiring.
