Paper finds taxpayers funded defense

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri taxpayers have spent $366,000 on private attorneys to defend former Gov. Eric Greitens’ use of a self-deleting text message app, according to a newspaper’s review of state records.

The bulk of the spending was by the governor’s office, and about $161,000 of it came after fellow Republican Mike Parson became governor after Greitens’ resignation in June 2018, The Kansas City Star reported.

A state audit in September showed that taxpayers had spent more than $200,000 before Greitens resigned to defend him in a 2017 lawsuit alleging that Greitens’ office used the app Confide to avoid being subjected to Missouri’s open records laws.

A judge dismissed most of the case in July, ruling the app doesn’t create government records that can be retained, but the litigation is ongoing. Greitens resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct and campaign violations.

The Star reported that its review of state records showed that the governor’s office has spent $340,000 to the Bryan Cave law firm in Kansas City, Mo., paying its attorneys $370 an hour. Another $26,000 came from a legal defense fund administered by the attorney general’s office.

Then-Attorney General Josh Hawley was conducting his own investigation into Greitens’ use of the app and gave Greitens permission to hire private attorneys to defend the governor’s office in the lawsuit.