Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens announced Tuesday that he will step down from office Friday, abandoning a monthslong effort to stay in office as he faced felony criminal charges and threats of impeachment by the state Legislature.
Hours before Greitens' resignation, a Cole County judge had ordered a Greitens-linked nonprofit, A New Missouri Inc., to turn over documents to lawmakers seeking to determine whether Greitens or his supporters broke campaign-finance laws.
The head of the state House oversight committee investigating Greitens, Rep. Jay Barnes, a Republican, said last week that he had also spoken to the FBI about allegations that Greitens sought donations from foreign donors.
"I had direct conversations regarding foreign contributions with very high net worth individuals that Eric Greitens connected me with," Hafner tweeted, disputing Greitens' supporters' claims that he had given "dubious testimony."
The legislative oversight committee has also been unable to definitively establish who gave $100,000 to a St. Louis attorney who played a key role in revealing allegations of sexual misconduct against Greitens in January.
The attorney, Al Watkins, who represented the woman's ex-husband, distributed private audio recordings to local media outlets in which the woman accused Greitens of attacking her.
Before the story became public, Watkins received $100,000 in cash from a Missouri newspaper publisher who said he was delivering the money on behalf of a "wealthy Republican" who had a personal problem with the governor, Watkins told the Los Angeles Times.
Greitens' attorneys have suggested that the source of the money might be housing developers -- a powerful lobby in Missouri -- who stood to lose millions of dollars after Greitens spearheaded an effort to shut down the state's lucrative low-income housing tax credit program. Greitens' replacement, Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Parson, is a supporter of the tax credit.
In a twist that has vexed legislators, Scott Faughn, the publisher who delivered the money to the lawyer, said the cash was his own.
Faughn, who was convicted in March 2007 of three felony counts of forgery, refused to reveal how he got more than $100,000 in cash. Faughn's sworn testimony appeared to directly conflict with the testimony given by Watkins.
"I would presume that this could lead to questions of perjury," Republican Rep. Curtis Trent said during the hearing.
Faughn did not respond to messages seeking comment.