- McConnell reportedly said the GOP "caught a break" from new abuse allegations against Eric Greitens.
- The ex-Missouri governor and Senate candidate's ex-wife accused him of physical abuse in an affidavit.
- The Times described McConnell as "deeply concerned" about Greitens' candidacy.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell privately told his colleagues that the GOP "caught a break" with new allegations that embattled Republican Missouri Senate candidate Eric Greitens physically abused his wife and children, The New York Times reports.
Greitens resigned as Missouri governor in 2018 over multiple sexual misconduct and campaign finance scandals. He's now attempting a political comeback in the race to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt.
McConnell, who The Times described as "deeply concerned" about the possibility of a Greitens nomination, has so far publicly declined to condemn the new allegations of physical abuse or call on Greitens to drop out of the race.
"Look, I think all of the developments of the last 24 hours are things the people of Missouri are going to take into account, both in the primary, and I would assume it would be taken into account in the general," McConnell said in response to questions about Greitens at a Tuesday news conference on Capitol Hill.
Sheena Chestnut Greitens said in a sworn affidavit filed in Boone County, Missouri as part of a child custody case that Greitens physically abused her and her two young children, and used his position of power in elected office to intimidate and threaten her. She said in the affidavit that she "became afraid for my safety and that of our children at our home."
Sheena Greitens also said that Greitens admitted to taking a revenge porn photo of a woman he was having an affair with, which Greitens has consistently denied taking. Greitens was charged with invasion of privacy in connection with the photograph, but prosecutors later dropped that charge and a separate charge of tampering with a computer in an unrelated campaign finance case. An investigator who worked on the invasion of privacy case against Greitens also recently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor evidence tampering charge related to his work on the case.
In a statement, Greitens denied the physical abuse allegations as "completely fabricated" and "baseless," said his ex-wife should "get the help she needs," and suggested her claims may have been influenced by "political operatives" to undermine him.
Sheena Greitens, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas-Austin, pushed back on Greitens' claims in a follow-up statement, saying she did not discuss the contents of her affidavit with anyone other than her attorney before filing it. "I am not interested in litigating this matter anywhere other than the courtroom," she wrote.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senate Republicans' campaign arm led by Sen. Rick Scott, is staying neutral in 2022's crowded Republican Senate primaries, including Missouri's. The McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund has also so far declined to get involved in the Missouri Senate contest.
The other major primary candidates are Attorney General Eric Schmitt, Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long, Missouri Senate President Dave Schatz, and Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis lawyer who gained a national profile for brandishing an AR-15 at Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020.
Both Hartzler and Schmitt called on Greitens to drop out of the race in response to Sheena Greitens' affidavit.
The possibility of Trump endorsing Greitens is also looming over the race.
Trump has publicly and privately flirted with backing Greitens, who has emphasized his opposition to McConnell in order to win Trump's support.
A number of people in Trump's orbit are allied with different candidates, complicating matters further. Trump 2020 campaign surrogate (and Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancée) Kimberly Guilfoyle is on Greitens' team, Trump's former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is advising Long, and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley has endorsed Hartzler and is urging Trump to support her, Politico reported.
In a Wednesday statement, Trump said he was not endorsing but "just askin'?" whether anyone in Missouri was voting for Long, who he called a "big, loud, and proud personality."
"I do not want to see Mr. Trump embarrassed by a hasty endorsement," Peter Kinder, Missouri's former lieutenant governor and co-chair of Trump's 2016 campaign in Missouri, told The Times, calling Greitens a "badly flawed, badly damaged candidate."