JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The House investigative committee will spend the majority of the week reading into the record hours of testimony of Gov. Eric Greitens’ former mistress including the defense’s cross-examination. Intermittent will be testimony by Scott Faughn and Al Watkins.
The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office has supplied the Special Investigative Committee on Oversight with roughly 730 pages of testimony of Witness 1, or KS — the unnamed woman who alleges Greitens took a photo of her without her consent while she was bound, blindfolded, and partially nude. The testimony is between 14-16 hours and will include Greitens’ defense team cross-examining her.
The committee plans to take turns reading it in a public hearing, though some information will be redacted. Reading the cross-examination will start Tuesday at 12:20 p.m. and continue Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. If they are not finished by then, they will continue Saturday.
Taking a break from the defense’s interview of KS, Scott Faughn, the publisher of The Missouri Times, will testify Wednesday at 1 p.m. Faughn was not issued a subpoena by the committee.
Faughn was inserted into the controversy over a cash payment to Al Watkins, the attorney for KS’ ex-husband, shortly before the story broke. Watkins is scheduled to testify at 9 a.m. on Thursday.
On Tuesday morning the committee adopted House Resolution 2 which lays out the rules and procedures moving forward.
The rules set forth require all witnesses to be sworn in and give Greitens’ defense team the ability to sit in on all hearings. It does not give the defense subpoena power nor the ability for them to cross-examine witnesses as they requested.
“There is a lot of good things to like in these rules. These rules are designed to create a process that is more open and more fair,” said Rep. Curtis Trent, one of the new members of the committee. “I do lament that cross-examination is not possible under these rules. I understand there are separation of power concerns and happen to agree with a lot of those concerns. But cross-examination, for the attorneys in the room we know that is one of the best ways to evaluate witness testimony and determine whether or not it is sound or accurate.”
Rep. Don Phillips, vice-chairman of the committee called the defenses request to cross-examination an “just an attempt to almost filibuster our committee.” He also stated he believes they have more than enough time to cross-examine any of the witnesses if they had chosen to.
The resolution was unanimously adopted with an 8-0 vote. Reps. Jeanie Lauer and Shawn Rhoads were not present at the meeting.
Alisha Shurr was a reporter for The Missouri Times and The Missouri Times Magazine. She joined The Missouri Times in January 2018 after working as a copy editor for her hometown newspaper in Southern Oregon. Alisha is a graduate of Kansas State University.
