Ex-Missouri gov who resigned amid scandal cleared to return to Navy: Report

Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R), who resigned last June amid controversy, plans to return to active Navy service as a general unrestricted line officer, according to the Kansas City Star.

Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, applied for a transfer to selected reserves in April. The Navy confirmed to the newspaper he had been approved to return to a command posting as a SEAL.

{mosads}In 2017, the year he assumed office, Greitens, was put on inactive status with the Standby Reserve, under which he retained his commission without pay or accruing time served toward retirement, according to the newspaper.

Earlier in May however, he told friends and supporters at a gathering in Franklin County that he planned to publish a fourth book and deploy to the Middle East in the fall, according to the Star.

Greitens resigned months after he was arrested on felony invasion of privacy charges and computer tampering in February 2018. The charges were later dropped.

The first felony charge stemmed from allegations by a woman with whom Greitens had an extramarital affair in 2015. The woman told prosecutors and a legislative committee considering impeachment that Greitens bound her hands and took pictures of her without her consent and threatened to make them public if she spoke of the encounter. 

Greitens has consistently denied that he did anything illegal, although he has admitted to having an affair with the woman.

Greitens was also charged with illegally using a donor list from a veterans charity he founded for political purposes.

He resigned shortly after the state legislature collected enough signatures to call a special session to consider impeachment. The charges relating to his donor list were dropped in exchange for his resignation as part of a plea deal.