{"id":1399570,"date":"2022-03-24T23:59:44","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T03:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1399570"},"modified":"2022-03-24T23:59:48","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T03:59:48","slug":"exclusive-donor-confidante-says-karl-rove-had-prior-knowledge-of-eric-greitenss-ex-wifes-allegations-before-filing-rove-denies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-donor-confidante-says-karl-rove-had-prior-knowledge-of-eric-greitenss-ex-wifes-allegations-before-filing-rove-denies\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive \u2014 Donor Confidante Says Karl Rove Had Prior Knowledge of Eric Greitens\u2019s Ex-Wife\u2019s Allegations Before Filing, Rove Denies"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">38<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-donor-confidante-says-karl-rove-had-prior-knowledge-of-eric-greitenss-ex-wifes-allegations-before-filing-rove-denies%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1399570&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">GOP establishment consultant Karl Rove had prior knowledge of contents of a now-public filing that Sheena Greitens, the ex-wife of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, filed in a dispute over the parenting structure for their two boys, a top confidante of GOP mega-donors told Breitbart News exclusively. Rove, in response, issued a statement to Breitbart News denying the donor confidante\u2019s account of events.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, a top ally of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell employs Sheena Greitens\u2019s sister at three different political consulting firms.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Rove, who was once the right-hand political consultant of former President George W. Bush and is now close with many top GOP donors, told a top confidante of GOP donors nearly two weeks before Sheena Greitens <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/2022-midterm-elections-texas-eric-greitens-missouri-elections-0f24f4daa98e0a310cd72acb0cb3764e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">filed her complaint<\/a> with a state court in Missouri that something like it was forthcoming, per that donor-connected Republican who spoke on the record with Breitbart News. In response, Rove denied making comments this person said he made.<\/p>\n<p>This revelation gained additional significance because Sheena Greitens released a press statement on Tuesday evening which said, in part, that she did not discuss the contents of her affidavit before filing it in court with anyone other than her attorney\u2014and only after she filed it did she tell close family members. But if that were true, then how could Karl Rove have known?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Statement on my affidavit to the Boone County court: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hguCjGNZL8\">pic.twitter.com\/hguCjGNZL8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sheena Chestnut Greitens (@SheenaGreitens) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SheenaGreitens\/status\/1506327576310124550?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 22, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>An attorney for Sheena Greitens has not replied to a detailed request for comment for this story.<\/p>\n<p>Then there\u2019s this: Sheena Greitens\u2019 sister works for not one, but three different political consulting firms run by a top ally of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell has a clear vested interest in seeing Eric Greitens\u2019 U.S. Senate campaign fail, as Greitens has very prominently called for the removal of McConnell as the GOP leader in the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of this filing is also significant in that it comes just as previous allegations against Greitens began to completely crumble. The former FBI agent, William Tisaby, who a George Soros-funded local prosecutor hired to investigate then-Gov. Greitens just this week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kmov.com\/2022\/03\/23\/investigator-hired-by-st-louis-circuit-attorney-work-case-against-former-governor-greitens-accepts-plea-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cut a plea deal<\/a> after facing seven felony counts including fabricating evidence and perjury. The actual prosecutor, Kim Gardner, <a href=\"https:\/\/fox2now.com\/news\/missouri\/st-louis-circuit-attorney-kim-gardner-accused-of-misconduct\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">faces an ethics complaint<\/a> of her own and could possibly lose her law license or be disbarred at an upcoming April hearing for her alleged misconduct in the case. That comes after an ethics commission in Missouri <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/news\/politics-government\/article259317179.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cleared Greitens himself<\/a> of wrongdoing previously, leading the front-running U.S. Senate candidate to claim he has \u201ctotal exoneration\u201d on the now discredited previous charges. So that all begs the question of why new allegations would surface now, who might be connected to or trying to politically benefit from them, and who may be using them to their advantage in the contentious primary that could set the tone for the future of the Republican Party nationally.<\/p>\n<p>Eric Greitens, for his part, is not going down without a fight. \u201cThey are completely false allegations,\u201d he said on a local radio program on Thursday morning. \u201cAnd let\u2019s point out that what a coincidence that on the very week, the very week when William Tisaby pleads guilty, on the very week when we are going to be fully exonerated and everyone is going to see this entire criminal conspiracy that Soros funded come crashing down, on that very week they release another series of terrible, false allegations. It isn\u2019t just me saying that they\u2019re false. Anyone with any common sense knows that they\u2019re false. I\u2019ll tell you what we know now, here\u2019s what we know now. Last week, while I was on spring break with my boys for eight days, and we\u2019re having a great time\u2014we\u2019re hiking and biking and climbing and playing\u2014while that was happening, that document was being produced, notarized, and distributed to the press in Washington, DC. We also now know, a story should come out in the next 24 to 48 hours, showing exactly who the political operatives were who were working on that story and exactly who the political operatives were who it was handed to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of whether it actually was\u2014and regardless of the veracity or not of the allegations\u2014 the hit felt coordinated to many political observers given how quickly the entire national media and several of Eric Greitens\u2019s political opponents seized on the narrative to try to attack him and drive him from the race.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>It is possible that other candidates in the U.S. Senate primary also had prior knowledge of the then-forthcoming Sheena Greitens filing as early as last Friday. On a talk radio show in Missouri on Tuesday, former State Sen. John Lamping said that last Friday at a Lincoln Day dinner one of the candidates told him things were about to get nasty for Greitens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s interesting, I had a chance on Friday night to speak to all of the candidates,\u201d Lamping said on 97.1 Talk FM. \u201cOne of them\u2014I asked them all how it\u2019s going and you know what they thought of the campaign so far. One of them said to me \u2018well, it\u2019s about to get real, real soon.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Lamping continued by saying he thinks every other candidate against Greitens was aware this was coming. \u201cThere\u2019s no coincidence this was released yesterday at 10 o\u2019clock Monday morning\u2014I think all the campaigns were made aware of this coming out,\u201d Lamping said. \u201cYou saw a pretty well-coordinated effort. Vicky [Hartzler] did a video pretty much right away in response to this news. This is \u2018welcome to the campaign season, we\u2019re four months out.\u2019 Sadly, we\u2019re probably not going to talk too much about issues but we\u2019re going to focus on very personal issues like this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not only did Rove have prior knowledge of the forthcoming accusations, the donor confidante said, but he offered that if the confidante would travel to Texas, Rove could set it up so the confidante could hear directly from her.<\/p>\n<p>The confidante, Steve Hantler, confirmed the account on the record to Breitbart News when asked about it on Tuesday. Hantler is a well-known figure behind the scenes in the GOP donor community, and his credibility is clear. He rarely speaks on record with news outlets but is frequently involved in helping top conservative candidates and causes as well as serving as a go-between with GOP donors and candidates and groups.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>Between 10 and 14 days before Sheena Greitens filed her complaint with the Boone County court in Missouri, Rove was on a call with Hantler in which Hantler says Rove explicitly stated that Eric Greitens\u2019s ex-wife \u201cis going to,\u201d before the primary election, \u201cmake a statement or release something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hantler has known Rove for decades\u2014dating back to the 1990s\u2014and describes Rove a close friend. He spoke to Breitbart News about this after the story came out earlier this week. He also told Greitens\u2019 campaign for U.S. Senate about the call with Rove contemporaneously and before the filing was made, sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News.<\/p>\n<p>Hantler said in response to Rove during this phone call that he would call Sheena and ask her if it is true, and Rove replied \u201cwell, she won\u2019t talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, if you want to talk to her, I can set it up\u2014fly down to Austin and the two of you will be able to talk,\u201d Rove said, according to Hantler.<\/p>\n<p>Rove does not deny that the call in question took place, but he does deny Hantler\u2019s account of the call. In a written statement to Breitbart News, Rove said he did not have prior knowledge of the Sheena Greitens filing\u2014and claimed that the account from Hantler, who is a supporter of Eric Greitens, should not be believed. Rove also argues it is \u201cpatently absurd\u201d he would set up a meeting between Sheena Greitens and Hantler given Hantler\u2019s political support for her ex-husband.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSteve Hantler remains one of Eric Greitens\u2019 biggest boosters even after the sex abuse scandal that Greitens admitted to, which explains why he wants to distract attention from these horrific new revelations,\u201d Rove said. \u201cIt also explains why it\u2019s patently absurd that I\u2019d have proposed a meeting between him and Sheena Greitens, even if it were in my power to arrange it.\u00a0While I didn\u2019t know about Sheena Greitens\u2019 statement until after it was filed with the court, I have told Steve and others for months that there was a lot of troubling information out there about Eric Greitens, and not just his sexual habits and home life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After Rove denied this happened, Breitbart News reached back out to Hantler, who reconfirmed his accounting of events and said he is \u201cabsolutely certain\u201d that Rove made this offer. Hantler said that he has a \u201cvivid recollection\u201d that Rove made this offer because Hantler found it \u201codd\u201d that Rove would suggest a meeting in Austin, Texas, instead of Missouri, where Hantler said he thought Sheena Greitens lived. Hantler subsequently learned that Sheena moved to Austin and then he said it made to sense to him.<\/p>\n<p>After she and Eric divorced, Sheena Greitens moved to Austin, Texas\u2014where Rove coincidentally also lives\u2014as she is an associate professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Rove also teaches there and sources familiar with the matter say the two of them have interacted during the past year plus at the school and in other capacities.<\/p>\n<p>Despite living in Austin, Texas, Sheena Greitens also apparently spent the week leading up to the filing of the document in Washington, DC, where her sister lives and works. The actual affidavit was, interestingly, notarized in the nation\u2019s capital, not in the Texas capital. During this timeframe, for what it\u2019s worth, Eric Greitens actually had their kids with him for over a week for spring break as part of the custody sharing agreement that Eric and Sheena had previously made. Eric Greitens made this point to back up his case on that local radio interview on Thursday morning where he said his ex-wife\u2019s new allegations were \u201cprovably false\u201d because he said they are \u201cco-parents\u201d and have had a years-long agreement to that effect.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a joint custody plan,\u201d Eric Greitens said. \u201cIn that plan, the boys spend the majority of their time with me\u2014they\u2019re with me all summer, they\u2019re with me all Thanksgiving, they\u2019re with me all spring break, and they\u2019re with me every holiday weekend\u2014Memorial Day weekend, Columbus Day weekend, President\u2019s Day, every holiday weekend. That\u2019s in addition to the time that I spend with them in Texas on school days. Now, ask yourself and ask all of your listeners, use your own judgment, if any of this were remotely true\u2014if there was even a shred of truth to it\u2014would my ex-wife and the mediator and the court all have decided that the best thing for those boys, my beautiful boys, is to spend the majority of their free time with their dad? It makes no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In addition to all of the above, there is another interesting fact about this whole development: Sheena\u2019s sister Catherine Linkul now has a plum gig for a political consulting firm run by a close ally of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. Linkul is the vice president of strategy for <a href=\"https:\/\/p2publicaffairs.com\/team\/catherine-chestnut\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">P2 Pathway Public Affairs<\/a>. That firm is run by a man named Phil Cox, who currently serves on the board of McConnell\u2019s Super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund. Cox has other deep ties to McConnell including having been regularly quoted by media outlets backing up the Senate GOP leader.<\/p>\n<p>Linkul also, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/catherine-chestnut-linkul-85065727\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">her LinkedIn page<\/a>, has since 2018 served as Vice President of two other political firms\u2014GuidePost Strategies and <a href=\"https:\/\/50-state.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">50 State<\/a>. Both of those firms, according to their websites, are also run by Cox\u2014and the <a href=\"https:\/\/guidepost-strategy.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GuidePost Strategies website<\/a> boasts of his closeness to McConnell. Before linking up with McConnell\u2019s allies, Linkul previously worked on Greitens\u2019s successful 2016 gubernatorial campaign\u2014aiding her sister\u2019s then-husband in winning the governor\u2019s mansion in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Linkul has not replied to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>In many ways, this storyline seems <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/22\/pennsylvania-senate-candidate-sean-parnell-suspends-campaign-after-custody-loss-im-devastated-by-court-decision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eerily similar to<\/a> allegations the ex-wife of now former U.S. Senate candidate in Pennsylvania Sean Parnell made against him\u2014which led to him losing custody of his kids and dropping out of the Senate race late last year. That of course raises questions as to how these allegations came out, who knew about them ahead of time, and whether there is a political motive behind them or not. Answers to those questions may go a long way in determining the veracity of the allegations themselves.<\/p>\n<p>It is no secret that Greitens had faced a litany of nasty allegations which led to his downfall as governor. But an official ethics review board in Missouri found no wrongdoing by him and the former FBI agent tasked by local prosecutors with investigating him has now pled guilty after facing charges of evidence tampering and perjury for misconduct in the Greitens case. Greitens has ridden what he calls a \u201ctotal exoneration,\u201d combined with a political environment favorable to outsiders like himself and former President Donald Trump, to the top of the polls in the U.S. Senate primary in Missouri this cycle.<\/p>\n<p>Trump and Greitens, though having a bit of a rocky relationship at the beginning of this cycle, had been getting closer\u2014so much so that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/03\/04\/trump-greitens-endorsement-missouri-00014069\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">many expected<\/a> Trump to actually endorse Greitens ahead of the August primary. These fresh allegations from Sheena Greitens almost certainly nix any chance of that, and sources familiar with the matter say that Trump has told people he is not happy with this development. However, Greitens\u2014whose lead had factored into it an understanding from the electorate that he did weather these previous scandals\u2014may very well survive in the Show-Me State primary. Missouri has a reputation for rough-and-tumble politics, more so than other states, and even with his history the rest of the field has struggled to gain traction against him. Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) keep splitting the vote and dividing up key endorsements like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for Schmitt and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) for Hartzler. Neither endorsement seemed to move the needle, and Greitens has remained in the lead with the rest of the field divided.<\/p>\n<p>Trump, who has not endorsed, even issued a statement earlier this week while making clear he is not endorsing him asking Missouri voters if they have considered Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) in the primary. \u201cHave the great people of Missouri been considering the big, loud, and proud personality of Congressman Billy Long for the Senate?\u201d Trump said. \u201cDo they appreciate what they have in him, a warrior and the first major political leader to say, \u2018You better get on the Trump Train, it\u2019s leaving the station.\u2019 That was before I even announced I was running for President. This is not an Endorsement, but I\u2019m just askin\u2019?\u201d Long has struggled in polling remaining down well behind Greitens, Schmitt, and Hartzler in the divided field.<\/p>\n<p>Greitens having made opposition to reelecting McConnell a centerpiece of his campaign\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kcmikemahoney\/status\/1506294507817607178?s=21\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hartzler<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2022\/02\/27\/mo-senate-candidate-eric-schmitt-sidesteps-questions-mcconnell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Schmitt<\/a> have struggled with non-answers to the McConnell support question\u2014has made GOP establishment types like McConnell himself and Rove particularly desperate to try to stop Greitens from winning the GOP nomination.<\/p>\n<p>Rove\u2019s connections to this whole storyline directly connect McConnell to it as well given their deep and years-long relationship. Rove\u2019s protege Scott Jennings in 2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/wfpl.org\/former-mitch-mcconnell-aide-karl-rove-prot-g-launches-kentucky-super-pac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">launched<\/a> a pro-McConnell Super PAC called \u201cKentuckians For Strong Leadership\u201d to back McConnell in the 2014 U.S. Senate race. In 2016, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/news\/2017\/11\/mcconnell-nonprofit-received-millions-from-rove-group\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to<\/a> the Center for Responsive Politics, a McConnell-allied nonprofit called One Nation received millions of dollars in donations from a Rove-linked group called Crossroads GPS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GOP establishment consultant Karl Rove had prior knowledge of contents of a now-public filing that Sheena Greitens, the ex-wife of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, filed in a dispute over<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1399570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1399570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}