Today, National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar tweeted that while Josh Hawley’s campaign said they were going to release their Q1 2018 fundraising numbers last week, they “got distracted by breaking Greitens news.” Politico’s Jake Sherman immediately noted that this excuse raises concerning questions about whether Hawley’s political campaign is somehow involved with his official duties as attorney general.

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This is not the first time that there has been evidence that Hawley’s Attorney General’s Office may be inappropriately coordinating with his campaign. And as someone who claims to champion transparency, the Hawley campaign’s excuse also doesn’t address why they are still refusing to release their FEC numbers.

“Is Hawley making decisions pivotal to Missouri’s future based on his own political ambitions?” asked Missouri Democratic Party Deputy Communications Director Brooke Goren.

Yesterday, Josh Hawley held a press conference to announce that he is turning over evidence to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney regarding Governor Greitens’ use of a charity donor list. What Hawley conspicuously avoided telling reporters was that he sat on the case for so long that the prosecutor now has only three days before the statute of limitations expires to file charges.

Hawley claims he didn’t have jurisdiction into the alleged misconduct until the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on the charity’s involvement in February 2018, but the Associated Press reported in October 2016 that the donor list in question was created by a Mission Continues employee and last accessed by a Greitens campaign employee. As if that weren’t enough to prompt an investigation by the Attorney General, the Governor admitted wrongdoing to the MEC in April 2017 — nearly a year before Hawley announced an investigation.

“Hawley’s excuses here simply don’t pass the smell test. The facts make it abundantly clear that Hawley looked the other way to protect his friend and donor until it became politically untenable for him to do so.” — Missouri Democratic Party Deputy Communications Director Brooke Goren

Yesterday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board and Kansas City Star wrote about the harmful effects the Trump administration’s trade policies will have on Missouri farmers. “Real people can suffer enormous consequences,” wrote the Post-Dispatch editorial board, “The combination of Trump’s tariff decisions and forced renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement now threatens thousands of livelihoods.”

While Senator McCaskill has consistently warned against the dangers of the tariffs to Missouri farmers and ranchers, Josh Hawley has refused to stand up to President Trump on this issue.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board:

When the Dow Jones stock average drops 500 points at the opening bell, as it did Wednesday, it means someone is getting hurt. The market, confused at what a trade war with China might mean, bounced back later in the day, but the pain lingers for thousands of people associated with Missouri and Illinois agriculture. They can thank President Donald Trump for their troubles.
…China announced retaliatory tariffs against 106 U.S. export items that include pork and soybeans. Rural voters in Missouri and Illinois who supported Trump may now have second thoughts.

Missouri is second only to Iowa in pork exports to China. Nearly 15 percent of Missouri pork exports are sold to China annually, according to Forbes magazine. China’s planned 25 percent tariff on U.S. pork means producers will have to scramble to revise budgets and find alternative buyers.

“Some of our worst fears seem to be coming true,” hog farmer Brian Duncan, vice president of the Illinois Farm Bureau, told the Chicago Tribune. “This is significant, real and serious for rural America.”

China also is targeting soybeans, aircraft and aircraft parts — all of which could have significant impact here…

…Real people can suffer enormous consequences. The combination of Trump’s tariff decisions and forced renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement now threatens thousands of livelihoods. Corn growers are particularly nervous about the impact that the NAFTA talks could have on their exports to Mexico, this region’s largest foreign market.

…Trump’s rural supporters have him to blame for the trade war that now menaces them like a spring tornado…

From the Kansas City Star:

…The threatened tariffs from China could have a major impact on the economies of Kansas and Missouri, two states that went for Trump by double digits in 2016.

…“We raise about $4 billion in bushels of soybeans in the U.S. and so we just knocked a billion dollars off the value of our crop this morning,” said Blake Hurst, the president of the Missouri Farm Bureau.

Hurst owns a farm in Tarkio, and soybeans make up about half of his crop yield. Missouri ranked sixth among all states in soybean output in 2016, producing more than 270 million bushels, according to the USDA.

“We also got tariffs on cotton and a big tariff on pork, so a lot of Missouri products are getting hammered,” Hurst said.

Todd Hays, who owns a farm in Monroe City, Mo., said that the tariff on pork will hit him the hardest in the short term.

“With soybeans, we can hold it in a bin and wait until prices get better. With pork or beef, you have a live product and you can’t hold it. … Right now we’re selling everything at a loss,” said Hays, who raises pigs on top of growing 2,000 acres of soybeans and corn.

…Jerry Gidel, a Chicago-based analyst, said that soybean futures had dropped as much as 45 cents in the initial reaction to the possible tariffs.

…U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, said in a statement that she agrees with her “Republican colleagues who’ve said the Administration needs to scale back this escalating situation before it becomes a trade war that does nothing but slam some of Missouri’s most critical economic engines.”

 It’s been nearly a month since Josh Hawley cleared Governor Greitens of any wrongdoing in his use of text message deleting app Confide, and outrage over Hawley’s handling of the case has only increased as the public learns more about the “investigation.” On Tuesday, former state attorneys and a former MO Supreme Court justice slammed Josh Hawley’s “halfhearted” and “unbelievable” investigation in a letter, writing: “we are left to wonder if Hawley is protecting the governor or is simply incompetent.” The Kansas City Star Editorial Board wrote that Hawley’s investigation “was substandard, and therefore a disservice to all Missourians.”

Here’s a look at what else the press had to say about Hawley’s “investigation” into the Governor’s use of Confide:

Mar 1: Springfield News-Leader: No sign Greitens or his office broke law by sending self-destructing texts, Hawley says
Mar 1: Kansas City Star: Hawley inquiry into Greitens’ secret texting app finds no evidence of wrongdoing
Mar 1: AP: Report: No laws broken by Greitens staff using secretive app
Mar 1: St. Louis Public Radio: Hawley looking into The Mission Continues, clears Greitens for use of Confide app
Mar 1: Missourinet: Missouri attorney general says Governor’s Office did not break law by using secret texting app
Mar 1: Ozarks First: Governor’s Office Use of Messaging App was Legal, says Missouri Attorney General
Mar 1: KMIZ: Lawyers for Gov. Greitens expected in court involving Confide app lawsuit
Mar 1: KOMU: AG: Governor’s Office has not violated Missouri record retention laws
Mar 1: The Hill: AG finds no laws broken in Missouri gov’s use of disappearing messages app
Mar 5: Washington Missourian: Vindication?
Mar 5: St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Hawley sees no evil, speaks no evil in Confide probe against Greitens
Mar 5: The Missouri Times: Does the Governor have executive privilege?
Mar 8: Kansas City Star: AG’s Confide probe cleared Greitens, but lawyers suing over app say it helps them
Mar 8: St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Lawyer who filed Confide lawsuit takes Hawley to school
Mar 8: Washington Missourian: Greitens victory in Confide probe might be the best he can get
Mar 8: St. Louis American: DOJ should bolster Gardner, give Hawley a clue, in cases against Greitens
Mar 11: St. Louis Post-Dispatch: It’s Sunshine Week, but in Missouri, government secrecy reigns
Mar 12: St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Greitens’ attorneys in lawsuit over use of message-destroying app withdraw from case
Mar 12: KMIZ: Governor’s team wants halt on discovery in Confide lawsuit
Mar 16: Kansas City Star: Hawley’s office defends probe of Greitens’ use of secret texting app
Mar 16: Springfield News-Leader: Hawley’s office didn’t challenge Greitens’ executive privilege claim, fearing backfire
Mar 17: St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Democrats called his Greitens probe a ‘sham.’ Now, the investigator is defending himself
Mar 17: Jefferson City News-Tribune: Assistant AG defends Sunshine probe
Mar 19: Kansas City Star: Missourians can’t trust Hawley investigation into Greitens’ use of text-destroying app
Mar 20: Springfield News-Leader: Hawley’s office: ‘Not unusual’ that Greitens’ lawyer monitored staff’s Confide interviews
Mar 21: St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Former state lawyers criticize Hawley’s investigation into Greitens’ use of Confide
Mar 21: KMBC: Attorney General Josh Hawley under fire for handling of investigation into Gov. Greitens
Mar 21: National Journal: Hawley Denies Showing Preference to Greitens in App Investigation
Mar 22: Jefferson City News-Tribune: 6 attorneys challenge Hawley’s ‘Confide’ investigation

As Josh Hawley continues to try to contain fallout from his disastrous “investigation” into the Governor’s use of text message deleting app Confide, he has announced that he will hold a press conference tomorrow to talk about the status of his investigation into Governor Greitens allegedly misusing resources from the charity he founded, The Mission Continues.

This desperate attempt to turn attention elsewhere raises several key questions that Hawley must answer during tomorrow’s presser:

1. Governor Greitens admitted wrongdoing to the MEC for failing to disclose the illegally obtained charity list on April 29, 2017. As Attorney General, Hawley has jurisdiction over state law regarding charities. Why did Hawley wait nearly a year, until there were reports that the St. Louis prosecutor was looking into Gretiens and the Mission Continues, to announce his own investigation?

2. Why is Hawley commenting in the middle of an investigation? Isn’t it against his office’s policy to comment on ongoing investigations? Is it simply because he is desperate to change the subject from his botched handling of Confide?

3. Given that Hawley conducted a sham investigation into the Governor’s use of Confide in a transparent attempt to protect the Governor, how does he expect anyone to take his current investigation seriously?

4. Has Hawley spoken to the Governor — or any of the Governor’s staff —  for this investigation, and has the Governor claimed executive privilege?

“Josh Hawley is clearly desperate to turn the page from his sham ‘investigation’ into the Governor’s use of Confide. But after he so obviously used his office to cover for the Governor, it’s hard to imagine how any of the Attorney General’s future investigations can be taken seriously,” said Missouri Democratic Party Deputy Communications Director Brooke Goren.

Yesterday, six experienced Missouri attorneys, including both a former Supreme Court justice and a former appeals court judge, released a letter slamming Josh Hawley’s “halfhearted” and “unbelievable” Confide investigation. As the attorneys wrote, “we are left to wonder if Hawley is protecting the governor or is simply incompetent.”

From the letter:

…The only thing more suspicious than the governor’s secret communication system is our attorney general’s apparent willingness to accept bogus legal arguments and implausible narratives from the Governor’s Office.

We are left to wonder if Hawley is protecting the governor or is simply incompetent.

…Hawley’s ignorance of his own legal authority is inexcusable…

When an Attorney General starts an investigation, the public interest requires that he finish it. Is this to hard for Hawley — who has degrees from Stanford and Yale — to understand?

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger:

From MoScout:

From the Springfield News-Leader:

…Also Tuesday, six attorneys who worked for either former Gov. Mel Carnahan or former Attorney General Chris Koster publicized an open letter in which they slammed Hawley’s “halfhearted” and “unbelievable” investigation.

“The only thing more suspicious than the governor’s secret communication system is our attorney general’s apparent willingness to accept bogus legal arguments and implausible narratives from the Governor’s Office,” the six lawyers wrote. “We are left to wonder if Hawley is protecting the governor or is simply incompetent.”

The attorneys — Andrew Hirth, Joanna Trachtenberg, Joe Bindbeutel, Bradley Ketcher, Ronald Holliger and Michael Wolff — questioned Hawley’s willingness to believe that the governor’s office would resort to such secrecy for communications about mundane matters like agreeing on a time for a meeting.

“It makes no sense to coordinate the time, date, and location of meetings through a messaging app that shows only a few words at a time and immediately deletes the message after one reading,” wrote the group of former state employees, which includes a former Missouri Supreme Court justice and former appellate judge.

The letter also expresses confusion at why Hawley’s office appeared to believe that messages about logistics would be protected under executive privilege, which they note has never been recognized in Missouri. And like Pedroli, the six attorneys say Hawley could have filed his own lawsuit in order to increase his access to Greitens, but “simply gave up” instead.

“When an Attorney General starts an investigation, the public interest requires that he finish it,” the former lawyers for Democrats concluded. “Is this too hard for Hawley — who has degrees from Stanford and Yale — to understand?”

Yesterday, the Springfield News-Leader reported a second attempt by the Attorney General’s office (AGO) to clean up the political fallout from Josh Hawley’s highly criticized “investigation” into the Governor’s use of Confide. Unfortunately for Hawley, the unnamed AGO attorney who spoke to reporters contradicted previous claims from Hawley’s deputy attorney general, raising even more questions about the inquiry and its motives.

From the Springfield News-Leader:

Attorney General Josh Hawley’s office is continuing to defend its investigation into how Gov. Eric Greitens and his senior staff used Confide, a cellphone application that deletes messages after they are read.

A spokeswoman for Hawley reached out to the News-Leader on Monday to set up an interview Tuesday with an attorney in Hawley’s office on the condition that the lawyer not be named.

This interview followed a 45-minute conference call Friday with several Missouri reporters and Darrell Moore, the former Greene County prosecutor who oversaw the Confide investigation.

…The attorney general’s office Tuesday downplayed concerns about conflicts of interest, pushed back against the notion that Hawley went easy on Greitens, and attempted to reframe [deputy attorney general] Moore’s comments about the legal doctrine of executive privilege.

…Moore told reporters that Hawley’s investigators didn’t push to speak with Greitens personally for fear that an ensuing legal battle would lead to a court creating rules for executive privilege in Missouri. Investigators likewise didn’t challenge more formal assertions of executive privilege on behalf of the government.

Greitens’ office never formally invoked executive privilege for the governor himself but was more direct about asserting the doctrine for senior staffers regarding their communications with Greitens, Moore has said.

Hawley’s office characterized investigators’ logic differently Tuesday, saying that “looking carefully at the case law, we frankly did not think that we would prevail.”

“I would not say he’s wrong,” Hawley’s office said of Moore’s comments, adding that “we did not feel like we had a vehicle to have a court decide questions of executive privilege here, whether we wanted to or not.”

The Missouri Democratic Party and some other political observers have accused Hawley of going easy on Greitens, a fellow first-term Missouri Republican.

“It is abundantly clear that everything about Josh Hawley’s Confide ‘investigation’ was simply a show designed to protect his ally and donor, Governor Greitens,” said Brooke Goren, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Democrats, in a statement. “The fact that Hawley would allow a law firm defending Greitens to participate in this investigation shows just how far the Attorney General is willing to go to cover for the embattled Governor.”

Gabriel Gore, an attorney for Dowd Bennett — the law firm also defending Greitens against a felony charge of invasion of privacy — was present while Hawley’s investigators were quizzing several of Greitens’ top aides, Moore has said previously.

But it was “not unusual” that Greitens staffers were accompanied by legal counsel due to the possibility of civil litigation, Hawley’s office said Tuesday when asked about Dowd Bennett’s presence.

Hawley’s office said Tuesday that it understood that Dowd Bennett was representing the staffers individually as employees of the governor’s office.

This does not quite align with the account given by Parker Briden, Greitens’ press secretary.

“Dowd Bennett does not represent the Governor’s senior staff, nor has Dowd Bennett ever been ‘on retainer,'” Briden told the News-Leader in an email, adding that “Dowd Bennett served as counsel to the official office beginning in December to assist the Office’s cooperation with the Attorney General’s inquiry. Until the inquiry concluded, Dowd Bennett also agreed to perform the initial work on behalf of the office in related litigation.”…”The Governor’s Office has not paid Dowd Bennett to represent the staff. Dowd Bennett’s only representation was of the official office, never to individuals in their personal capacities, and the firm stated publicly that it was performing those services without charge.”

A Dowd Bennett partner and a personal lobbyist for Greitens did not respond to requests for comment.

…Mark Pedroli, the lawyer for a St. Louis-area man suing Greitens over Confide use, said he was surprised to hear that Hawley’s office didn’t think the facts supported a lawsuit.

Pedroli also said that once Hawley’s office realized it didn’t want a precedent for executive privilege in Missouri, it should have recused itself due to a conflict of interest.

…Hawley’s office said Tuesday that investigators thought “it was important for our inquiry to move as quickly as possible”…

…Hawley’s office also denied any conflict of interest related to executive privilege precedent and undercut Moore’s previous comments that Hawley’s investigators feared the possibility of an adverse court ruling.

…Hawley’s office has declined Sunshine Law requests by the News-Leader related to the Confide investigation on the grounds that documents such as transcripts of questioning or attorney’s notes of interviews would constitute confidential legal work product, if such records existed.

…The attorney general’s office still has not named all of the Greitens staffers interviewed for the investigation who admitted to using Confide. A Hawley spokeswoman did not respond to written follow-up questions Tuesday about those names and possible conflicts of interest inherent in Greitens’ legal tangles.

Today, the Kansas City Star Editorial Board wrote a scathing take-down of Josh Hawley’s “investigation” into Governor Greitens’ use of text message deleting app, Confide. The Editorial Board writes that by refusing to challenge the Governor’s suggestion that he might claim executive privilege, allowing Greitens’ lawyer to sit in on interviews with staff, and blindly believing Greitens’ staff without any evidence to corroborate their claims, Hawley’s investigation “was substandard, and therefore a disservice to all Missourians.”

From the Kansas City Star Editorial Board:

It’s increasingly clear the investigation into Gov. Eric Greitens’ use of a secret phone texting application was substandard, and therefore a disservice to all Missourians.

The investigation — conducted by the office of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley — found no evidence that Greitens and his staff violated the state’s Sunshine Law by using the app, called Confide.

…The app erases messages after they’re sent, so any hard evidence of improper use of the technology had vanished by the time investigators began their work.

That meant the attorney general’s office had to rely on the statements of the governor’s aides during the investigation. That reliance alone gives Missourians reason enough to distrust the findings in the case.

But there’s more: In recent days, additional disturbing details have emerged about the way the office approached the investigation. Those details further discount its conclusions.

It turns out, for example, that the attorney general’s office never interviewed Greitens.

…Greitens’ unwillingness to discuss Confide is not a surprise. But how are Missourians to believe the investigation’s conclusions when the governor declined to take part?

…The governor’s representatives hinted they would claim [executive] privilege if pressed by the attorney general’s office.

There does not appear to be any language in Missouri law permitting such a claim.

[Deputy attorney general] Moore said the office didn’t push back against executive privilege for fear of a court test that would establish boundaries for its use. That’s absurd.

Missourians should know what any governor can and cannot hide, including whether executive privilege even exists in the state. The attorney general’s office should want that answer as quickly as possible.

…There are other reasons to distrust the outcome of the attorney general’s Confide investigation. The Springfield News-Leader reported last week that a lawyer connected to Greitens’ criminal case sat in on the interviews with the governor’s staff. That’s highly unusual, and clearly contaminates the final results.

Moore said the interviews were truthful. “I detected no signs of evasion, no shiftiness of eyes, no hesitation, nothing that would indicate they were lying,” he told reporters.

Keep those tips in mind if you’re ever under legal scrutiny. Keep your eyes steady, talk firmly, and you too can walk out the door.

…Similarly, a lawsuit involving Confide is working its way through the courts. That case should go to trial. That way, the public can see the governor and his aides under oath — and judge for themselves if any eyes are shifting.

It’s National Agriculture Week, but Josh Hawley stands with President Trump — who last week indicated during a fundraiser for Hawley that his administration is likely to pull out of NAFTA, saying “the best deal is to terminate [NAFTA],” and claiming he would then try to renegotiate it, leaving farmers with an uncertain future.

Pulling out of NAFTA would devastate the backbone of Missouri’s economy: our farmers and agricultural industry. With the highest percentage of agricultural exports to Mexico of any state in the nation, the Chamber of Commerce found that 250,000 Missouri jobs would be at risk if the U.S. withdrew from NAFTA. Agricultural leaders across the state, including the Republican director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, have spoken out against NAFTA repeal as being detrimental for their respective industries.

“Repealing NAFTA could result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for Missouri’s agricultural industry. Josh Hawley can’t pretend to stand with Missouri farmers while supporting the President’s plan to repeal NAFTA,” said Missouri Democratic Party Deputy Communications Director Brooke Goren.

On Friday, the Kansas City Star, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Springfield News-Leader reported that on a press call, Josh Hawley’s deputy attorney general admitted that the attorney general’s office (AGO) never asked the Governor for an interview and “[Greiten’s staff] never formally asserted executive privilege…” — directly contradicting the AGO’s report on the “investigation” and providing further evidence that Josh Hawley’s probe into Governor Greitens’ use of Confide was a sham designed to protect the Governor.

Several former governor’s office staffers have recently questioned whether executive privilege even exists for the Governor of Missouri.

From the Kansas City Star:

The Missouri attorney general’s office is fervently defending its investigation of Gov. Eric Greitens’ use of a self-destructing text messaging app, suggesting those upset with its findings should focus on improving the state’s Sunshine Law.

The Star reported in early December that Greitens and most of his senior government staff were using an app called Confide, which allows someone to send a text message that automatically erases after it is read. It also prevents someone from saving, forwarding, printing or taking a screenshot of the text, raising concerns among government transparency advocates that the app could be used to subvert the state’s open records laws.

Attorney General Josh Hawley launched an investigation shortly after The Star’s report. It concluded last month with a report determining that there was no evidence of wrongdoing, in part because investigators could not find evidence.

…“To a person, when directly asked if they’d ever used Confide in violation of the governor’s own policy to discuss public policy matters that would have to be preserved, they denied it,” Moore said. “And my assessment, based on my years of experience, they were telling the truth. I detected no signs of evasion, no shiftiness of eyes, no hesitation, nothing that would indicate they were lying.”

They did not interview four other staff members who had Confide accounts associated with their personal cell phones: Deputy Legislative Director Brad Green, Deputy Legislative Director Jeff Earl, Legislative and Policy Adviser Todd Scott, and Press Secretary Parker Briden.

They also didn’t interview Greitens.

The attorney general’s report said the governor’s office asserted executive privilege. Moore said Friday that executive privilege was never formally asserted, but it was indicated it would be asserted if they requested an interview.

Staff were also never directly asked if they communicated with the governor on Confide…

[…]

From the Springfield News-Leader:

Attorney General Josh Hawley’s office didn’t push to speak with Gov. Eric Greitens while investigating how the governor and his staff office used Confide, a texting application that sends self-destructing messages.

Deputy Attorney General Darrell Moore told reporters Friday afternoon that Greitens was never interviewed during the Confide investigation, which intended to ascertain whether the governor’s office broke state laws on open records and records retention. Hawley’s investigators did not identify “any basis for concluding” that Greitens’ office broke state law by using Confide, the final report said.

Moore, a former Greene County prosecutor, said that, after reaching out to the governor’s general counsel, Lucinda Luetkemeyer, to schedule interviews, investigators were under the impression that Greitens didn’t want to talk to them about using Confide.

…The governor’s office was more direct in asserting executive privilege when it came to interviewing senior staff about communications, Moore said. He acknowledged that investigators didn’t specifically ask about communications with Greitens himself on Confide but did ask the staffers whether they communicated public policies via Confide.

…”The decision was made — I take responsibility for it — not to push it,” Moore later told the News-Leader…

There were no state laws or Missouri cases pertaining to executive privilege referenced in Hawley’s report.

…Greitens’ office was provided a copy of the investigative report and released it March 1 to the public without authorization from Hawley’s office.

…The investigation was hindered by the nature of the app, which leaves no evidence by design. So, Hawley’s office had to take the statements of Greitens’ staffers at face value when they said they didn’t conduct any significant public business.

[…]

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

…In December, Attorney General Josh Hawley, who like Greitens is a Republican, launched an investigation into Greitens and his staff’s use of Confide.

…While the attorney general’s office found no evidence of wrongdoing, the investigators did not retrieve any of the text messages that were deleted using the app. Instead, investigators relied heavily on staff interviews.

“When directly asked about whether or not they had ever used Confide in violation of the governor’s own policies to discuss public policy matters that would have to be preserved, they denied it,” Moore said. “And my assessment, based on my years of experience, is that they were telling the truth. I detected no signs of evasion, no shiftiness of eyes, no hesitation, nothing that would indicate that they were lying.”

…Critics have also panned Hawley’s office allowing staff members to assert “executive privilege” in order to not answer questions about their communications with Greitens while using Confide.

The five-page report states that the governor’s office “asserted a blanket objection to all questions regarding communications between interviewees and the Governor based on the doctrine of executive privilege.”

Critics contend the concept of executive privilege in Missouri is dubious. The attorney general’s report cites out-of-state case law as the basis for allowing the assertion.

Moore said that Greitens himself never formally asserted executive privilege, but that his general counsel, Lucinda Luetkemeyer, indicated he likely would if Hawley’s office pressed to interview him.

“As we were trying to outline how we wanted to approach this … it was indicated to us that there was a probability — they never formally asserted executive privilege, but there was discussion about the possibility of that,” Moore said.

…He added that compliance with the investigation was “voluntary,” and signaled that challenging Greitens’ assertion might have jeopardized that cooperation…