JEFFERSON CITY • A Republican operative who served as campaign adviser to former Gov. Eric Greitens says he spoke to Missouri Ethics Commission investigators last month regarding lingering campaign finance mysteries dating to the 2016 election.
The meeting, Michael Hafner told the Post-Dispatch, was in regard to a complaint filed with the commission in July alleging that former Greitens adviser and outgoing White House official Nick Ayers may have solicited campaign contributions from a “restricted” donor and may have illegally worked to conceal donors’ identities.
A sharp-elbowed GOP strategist, Ayers announced Sunday he would be leaving the White House instead of serving as President Donald Trump’s chief of staff. He is currently Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff. Ayers will reportedly lead a Trump-allied Super PAC in advance of the 2020 election.
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Ayers is one of the central figures mentioned in the complaint — and Hafner’s acknowledgement of a recent meeting with investigators is the latest indication that ethics officials have not lost interest in scandals dating to the Greitens era. (The MEC neither confirms nor denies the existence of ongoing probes.)
Hafner said he was asked about the complaint, filed by state Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, and said he had been in contact with the Federal Election Commission regarding a separate complaint related to Ayers filed by the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Complaint against Greitens for Missouri and A New Missouri, Inc. presented to the Missouri Ethics Commission
“I will continue to comply with the ongoing investigations by federal and state election regulatory agencies into former Governor Greitens and his staff’s fundraising practices,” Hafner said in an email.
Greitens, a Republican, resigned on June 1 under a cloud. While the most eyebrow-raising issue surrounding the former governor was his infidelity — and related allegations of abuse and coercion — peripheral controversies included the labyrinthine way Greitens’ campaign apparatus financed its operations.
Ayers’ notoriety is rooted in the convoluted world of dark money mechanisms and political ad buying. He formerly worked with a political firm called Target Enterprises, in which he often was an ad buyer on campaigns on which he consulted, a lucrative position that provides the buyer with a percentage share of the cost of an advertisement. Financial disclosure forms filed when he joined Pence’s staff in 2017 showed he had a net worth of between $12 million and $54 million.
Alyssa Farah, press secretary for Pence, defended Ayers after Barnes filed his complaint in July: “This is a complaint lodged against former clients of Mr. Ayers, who has always complied with federal and state campaign finance laws meticulously, and did so in this instance as well.”
Catherine Hanaway, attorney for Greitens’ campaign, said in an emailed statement in July that the complaint was “full of false accusations.”
She declined to say on Monday whether she had been in contact with the MEC since Barnes filed his complaint.
Hafner, who said he left the Greitens campaign in early 2015 before Ayers came on board, also told Barnes’ investigative committee that Greitens’ campaign discussed soliciting donations from foreign nationals, which would be a violation of federal law.
“There were conversations that we had where foreign money was discussed and the possibility of foreign money being contributed to an entity,” Hafner testified on May 29, shortly before Greitens announced his resignation.
Hafner said he left the campaign soon after that incident and was not aware if those discussions continued.
“I stand by my testimony taken under oath on five occasions since November 2016 to the Missouri Ethics Commission, St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, Attorney General’s Office, and Missouri House Investigative Committee,” he said.
His most recent meeting with the MEC was not under oath, Hafner said. He testified to the House twice under oath.
In Barnes’ complaint, one potential donor, according to an email the Missouri House investigative committee obtained, was employed by a company that “manages money for the state of Missouri” — and could have thus been barred by federal law from donating to political campaigns.
It is unclear to what extent, if any, Ayers was involved in discussions with that particular donor. But an email from December 2015 shows that Ayers was in contact with the Greitens campaign about a person he referred to as a “restricted donor.”
Barnes also wrote that the committee obtained a June 27, 2016, email to Greitens fundraiser Meredith Gibbons from an undisclosed “early supporter and fundraiser of Greitens.” The person writes to Gibbons that “I’m pretty sure he’s not allowed to give,” because “[redacted] manages money for the state of Missouri.
“Eric can mention the 501(c)(4) if applicable, but no idea how [redacted] will react to that,” the email says.
It is unclear from Barnes’ July complaint who the prospective donor was, and whether the donor ultimately cut a check to help propel Greitens to office.
But Barnes wrote that on June 29, 2016, two days after the email, a 501(c)(4) group called Freedom Frontier donated $500,000 to LG PAC, the mysterious entity that spent more than $4 million to attack Greitens’ competitors in the 2016 primary.
Though the Greitens campaign denied coordinating with LG PAC, Ayers filed a financial disclosure form last year that said he worked for Freedom Frontier during the 2016 campaign.
The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington revealed last month, citing Freedom Frontier’s 2016 tax forms, that 75 percent of Freedom Frontier’s spending that year was political — a violation of tax law because the majority of a section 501(c)(4) nonprofit’s spending cannot go toward politics.
The group also wrote that Freedom Frontier’s Form 990 tax filing also showed that it paid Clark Fork Group LLC $354,000. Ayers has reported receiving compensation from Clark Fork Group in his financial disclosure forms.
In a separate matter, the Missouri attorney general’s office says it is still investigating whether Greitens used taxpayer resources for political purposes. Last week, Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is heading to the U.S. Senate next month, said the investigation was ongoing.
Gov. Mike Parson’s office said the administration is still producing documents to Hawley. Part of an open records request by Hawley asks for any emails between the governor’s office and Austin Chambers, a top Greitens political adviser and Ayers protege, and any emails to C5 Consulting, a now-defunct political shop owned by Ayers.
Locke Thompson, a Republican who will become Cole County prosecutor in January, also could examine criminal cases outgoing prosecutor Mark Richardson passed on — and could review any new cases that come to his office.
Thompson said he would be open to examining any files on Greitens.
“My priority needs to be on the violent crimes, but at some point I’m sure I would look at the investigative files as well, and that (Greitens) may be one of them,” he said.
Chuck Raasch of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.