Missouri's Sunshine Law Is About to Shine a Light on George Soros
On Friday, Missouri’s state Supreme Court ordered Democrat St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner to comply with a records request to reveal details about her failed prosecution of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.
In 2018, Gardner, who was one of the early county prosecutors bankrolled by anti-American billionaire George Soros, accused Greitens of taking a compromising photo of a woman with whom he had an affair. However, she eventually dropped the prosecution after admitting that she could not produce the alleged photo upon which she had based her case.
Gardner also hired a former FBI agent to investigate the purported felony privacy invasion charge against the governor because local police refused to join her on the case. Her investigator, ex-FBI agent William Tisaby, ended up pleading guilty to one misdemeanor count of evidence tampering in the case.
Were it not for his guilty plea, the corrupt ex-FBI agent was to be tried on six counts of perjury and one count of evidence tampering with an indictment that accused him of hiding evidence and lying during the investigation into Greitens, who is currently running for U.S. Senate.
Unlike what would happen for anyone else, the court quickly sentenced Tisaby to probation — and then immediately turned around and suspended the sentence and released him.
Greitens, who maintained from the start that he took no compromising photos of anyone, was so wounded politically that he resigned from the governor’s office.
After the incident ended, in July of 2019, Just the News’ John Solomon filed a public records request under Missouri’s Sunshine Law for several years of communications between Gardner and the Missouri Workforce Housing Association, state Reps. Stacy Newman and Jay Barnes, and several others.
After initially just ignoring the request, Gardner refused to comply, claiming that the documents requested were not subject to the Sunshine Law.
Solomon filed an appeal of Gardner’s refusal and won. But Gardner took her case to the state Supreme Court. Now, the state’s highest court has refused to hear Gardner’s final appeal and ordered her to hand over the documents.
The court also ruled that Gardner would have to pay Solomon’s attorney and court fees.
“I am grateful for the Missouri Supreme Court for ruling that the public interest should prevail here,” Solomon said in a statement. “The Missouri voters and the American public deserve to know what went on in this case, and we now have an opportunity to tell them the facts. A special thanks to Southeastern Legal Foundation for its incredible work on this. We look forward to making all the information we want in this case public as soon as it’s delivered by Ms. Gardner’s office.”
“Today is a great day for public transparency,” added Kimberly Hermann, general counsel for the Southeastern Legal Foundation. “We have been fighting alongside John Solomon for nearly three years to obtain public records showing Kimberly Gardner’s communications with liberal megadonor George Soros. Gardner has exhausted her appeals and our legal win is now final.
“We look forward to receiving all of the records and releasing them to the public,” Hermann said.
Gardner ultimately admitted to wrongdoing in the investigation into Greitens. The admission came during an April 11 disciplinary hearing during which Gardner arrived at a deal with the Missouri Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the organization that oversees attorney licensing in the state.
In the proceeding, both Gardner and the panel representing the counsel agreed to enter a reprimand on Gardner’s record, which is a formal acknowledgment that will go on Gardner’s license forever, according to KMOV-TV.
The final decision over punishment will go before the Missouri Supreme Court later this year.
For his part, Eric Greitens celebrated Gardner’s admission of wrongdoing.
“Today’s groundbreaking decision reaffirms what we have known all along — Soros-funded prosecutor Kim Gardner conducted a political witch hunt,” Greitens said in a tweet on Monday.
Today’s groundbreaking decision reaffirms what we have known all along—Soros-funded prosecutor Kim Gardner conducted a political witch hunt. pic.twitter.com/vvvKNMBiHh
— Eric Greitens (@EricGreitens) April 11, 2022
Gardner has been blasted by the courts before. In July, St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser accused her of job abandonment for refusing to send someone to court to represent the state in a murder case.
Sengheiser was forced to dismiss the case against the accused murderer.
“The Court does not take this action without significant consideration for the implications it may have for public safety. Although presumed innocent, defendant has been charged with the most serious of crimes,” Sengheiser said from the bench.
“In a case like this where the Circuit Attorney’s Office has essentially abandoned its duty to prosecute those it charges with crimes, the court must impartially enforce the law and any resultant threat to public safety is the responsibility of the Circuit Attorney’s Office,” the judge added.
There’s no telling what connection to Soros the response to Solomon’s records request will reveal.
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