Fifth Avenue Forum

The office of Vice President Mike Pence used political pressure to get former Missouri governor Eric Greitens reinstated into the Navy despite those in command stating they wanted nothing to do with the scandal-plagued former SEAL, the Kansas City Star reported Saturday.

The Star obtained 850 pages of documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which showed top brass at the Navy were extremely concerned with Greitens’ history, which included a 2018 felony charge of sexual misconduct and another felony charge for computer tampering. Though both charges were eventually dropped, Greitens, who won Missouri’s gubernatorial race as an unlikely outsider candidate in 2016, was forced to resign from office.

Emails revealed from the FOIA request show Vice Adm. Robert Burke, then the Navy’s Chief of Personnel, saying that if Greitens was not a civilian at the time of the allegations, the Navy would have prosecuted him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. [...]

But according to the report, once Pence’s office placed a hand on the scale and began applying political pressure, the situation quickly shifted in Greitens’ favor.

In a Feb. 13, 2019 email which is believed to refer to Greitens, an executive assistant with the Naval Recruiting Command wrote, “Long story short, VPOTUS wants [redacted] to come work for him in D.C. but in a military capacity.” (The name of the email’s author was redacted along with the apparent reference to Greitens.) “The whole chain of command from SECDEF [the Secretary of Defense] on down are supportive of him coming in so we’re just trying to make this as painless and quick as possible.”

Trouble in the holy land of Maryland.

This is depressing

Bill Gates

I’m just glad the pandemic is over.

A large group of Pac-12 football players threatened to boycott fall practices and games if demands related to safety, racial justice and compensation are not met by the conference. The players announced the unprecedented push for college athlete rights with a unified statement Sunday morning, and numerous players tweeted their support of the group’s mission.