4A • Thursday, March 8, 2018
com
As Greitens navigates legal minefield, former employees stay silent
By Jack Suntrup
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
JEFFERSON CITY —
Faith Miller says she en-
joyed her time on Eric Greit-
ens’ 2016 campaign for gov-
ernor. But that’s about all she
will say.
“I had a good experience,”
she said, “and I was told I re-
ally can’t say much more be-
yond that.”
Over the last several weeks,
the Post-Dispatch and the Co-
lumbia Missourian attempt-
ed to contact about 60 people
who worked on Greitens’ 2016
campaign. Of the handful who
agreed to speak with reporters,
five people said they signed
nondisclosure agreements.
Two others, including Mill-
er, who is now 19, would not
say whether they signed one.
The newspapers were told
that the use of nondisclosure
agreements, or NDAs, on
the Greitens campaign was
widespread — and workers
as low-ranking as volunteers
may have been asked to sign
them. Now, Missouri’s gover-
nor is fending off scandals on
multiple fronts, and some say
the agreements may slow the
release of information about
how Greitens operated during
the campaign.
One former campaign as-
sociate, who spoke on the con-
dition of anonymity for fear
of retribution, said the agree-
ments — and implicit threats
from Greitens’ current allies
— have created a “chilling ef-
fect” for those who may have
information to share publicly.
He said former campaign
staffers “almost feel like this
could be a muzzle preventing
them from talking about their
experience working for Eric,”
the person said. “To go on the
record, talking about their ex-
perience, even though it [may
have been] positive, they could
Miesner retires
Submitted photo
Longtime TG Missou-
ri team member Russ
Miesner officially retired
lon Feb. Miesner and his
co-workers celebrated his
retirement with a cake in
the Building 3 breakroom.
TGMO President Dean
Link, Senior General Man-
age Michelle Patrick and
Senior General Manager
Lora Roth spoke at the
event. Miesner was hired in
June 1987 and worked his
way up from production to
Assistant General Manager
in the company’s Interior/
Exterior Division.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch/CHRISTIAN GOODEN
Eric Greitens gives his victory speech after defeating
Democrat Chris Koster for the Missouri Governor’s
seat on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. Greitens was at his elec-
tion watch party at the Double Tree Hotel in Chester-
field.
run the risk of being in breach
of this contract.”
Robert Carr, a professor of
ethics and Congress at George
Washington University, said
in an email that nondisclo-
sure agreements are generally
not enforceable if the person is
being asked to conceal illegal
activity.
“Yet, the threat of being
sued and the expense of de-
fending such a suit, even if the
plaintiff is unsuccessful, might
extract a price too high so as to
be disincentive to disclose,” he
said.
Such confidentiality agree-
ments are not uncommon in
politics, especially if the staffer
is entrusted to handle informa-
tion that could be used against
the candidate for whom they
work.
An official who worked
on former Democratic Mis-
souri Attorney General Chris
Koster’s 2016 gubernatorial
bid said that NDAs were used
on that campaign as well.
Austin Chambers, Greit-
ens’ former campaign manag-
er who now leads the Greit-
ens-allied group A New Mis-
souri, said former Greitens
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NEWS
volunteers or staffers could
speak publicly if the campaign
gives prior approval.
“This is standard operating
procedure for campaigns,” he
said in an email.
But it has not always been
this way, said Mark McKin-
non, a Democrat-turned-Re-
publican political consultant
who has worked for U.S. Sen.
John McCain, R-Ariz., and
former President George W.
Bush.
“NDAs are a relatively new
phenomenon,” he said in an
email, “which is just more evi-
dence of the madness of mod-
ern campaigns, culture and
media.
“They suggest a certain
level of insecurity and fear.”
A second former Greitens
associate, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity, said
the NDAs have proven to be
a useful tool for Greitens, who
is focused on preserving his
brand as a conservative outsid-
er and family man.
“You’re dealing with a guy
who was obviously extreme-
ly protective of his image,”
the former staffer said. “It goes
into the narrative that this guy,
that more rapidly identifies
sepsis through blood cul-
tures. The new instrument
incubates and continuous-
ly monitors patient’s blood
samples to detect infection in
the blood.
When an infection is de-
tected, the laboratory then
tests the same blood sample
using a Blood Culture Iden-
tification Panel (BCID). The
BCID panel can identify 24
of the most common organ-
isms that cause sepsis.
“In years past, this sort
of technology was not avail-
able to laboratories in small
rural hospitals,” stated Julie
Wengert, PCMH Laborato-
ry Director. “Blood cultures
had to be sent to a large ref-
erence laboratory for testing.
you know, is always looking
for the next thing, and he’s
proven that he’s doing that in a
very secretive manner.”
SECRECY
This is not the first time
nondisclosure agreements in
Greitens’ world have made
news.
In October 2016, former
campaign worker Michael
Hafner declined to speak with
an Associated Press reporter
about the campaign’s use of a
donor list from The Mission
Continues, the veterans charity
Greitens founded in 2007, cit-
ing a nondisclosure agreement
he had signed.
After the 2016 election,
the Post-Dispatch reported the
governor-elect required mem-
bers of his transition team to
sign a confidentiality agree-
ment.
The two-page document
said that failing to comply with
its 17 requirements “may re-
sult in dismissal from the tran-
sition team and that other sanc-
tions may be imposed as ap-
propriate.”
The Post-Dispatch in De-
cember asked the governor’s
office whether any current or
prospective employees had
been asked to sign nondisclo-
sure agreements. Sarah Mad-
den, special counsel for the
governor, said no one has been
asked to sign an agreement
since Greitens took office.
Still, the Greitens team has
at times operated opaquely.
Parker Briden, the governor’s
taxpayer-paid spokesman, rou-
tinely does not return requests
for comment from reporters.
The office has slow-walked
the release of information such
as Greitens’ daily schedule.
Other state officeholders
have taken note. In December,
Attorney General Josh Haw-
ley, a Republican, launched
an investigation into the gov-
ernor’s use of the text mes-
Typically, it would take 24 to
48 hours before receiving a
positive blood culture report
from the reference lab and
another 24 hours before the
organism causing the infec-
tion was identified.”
Since the addition of
the blood culture testing in-
struments, the laboratory at
PCMH has been able to per-
form the same testing in typ-
ically 14 hours or less. The
reduction in time for these
blood cultures to test positive
and the subsequent organism
identification has significant-
ly impacted patient care.
“The new equipment has
been beneficial on many lev-
els, stated Dr. Rao, PCMH
Hospitalist. “The patient’s
treatment can be optimized
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sage-deleting cellphone appli-
cation Confide.
In a report issued last week,
Hawley said he was not able
to determine any wrongdoing.
Greitens staffers told investi-
gators they did not use the app
for substantive public busi-
ness, and because the app de-
leted the messages, there was
no way to determine how ac-
curate those statements were,
Hawley said.
Auditor Nicole Galloway,
a Democrat, said Greitens’ ad-
ministration obstructed her re-
cent audit of the Department of
Revenue’s processing of state
tax returns. Her spokeswom-
an said that the office does not
currently believe Greitens vi-
olated a law barring agencies
from preventing employees
from speaking with the audi-
tor.
The auditor “has seen un-
precedented obstruction in-
volving state agencies,” Steph
Deidrick said. “However, at
this time, we are not aware of
any directive that would vio-
late the statute.”
THE STAFFERS
John B. Simpson, a Char-
lottesville, Va., attorney who
specializes in employment
matters, said the decision to vi-
olate a confidentiality agree-
ment comes down to how
much someone wants to risk
being taken to court — and
the likelihood that an employ-
er would sue.
“Without talking, they’re
concealing the truth, which
somebody has the right to
that,” he said in an interview.
“It’s kind of a moral question.
It’s an individual thing — how
much do I take on? There’d
be all kinds of factors at play
there.”
Campaign worker Shane
Loewenstein, 20, said signing
an NDA was no big deal.
“Working in the actual
headquarters early on as an in-
much more quickly, thus im-
proving overall patient out-
comes, reducing healthcare
costs, and decreasing length
of hospital stays.”
In addition, the United
States is facing an increas-
ingly serious problem of
drug resistant bacteria due
to inappropriate use of an-
tibiotics. The laboratory at
PCMH is responding to the
challenge of antibiotic stew-
ardship by using instruments
that provide accurate and
comprehensive test results
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tern, I mean I had no problem
doing it,” he said.
Audrey Dunn, who now
lives in California and still
works on campaigns, agreed.
“It’s procedure, so every
campaign that you’re going to
be on does it,” she said. “The
campaign is like a job, and
anything you go into you’re
going to sign something.”
Another worker, Gage
Teel, a senior at the University
of Missouri-Columbia study-
ing political science, said his
nondisclosure agreement lasts
until 2024. He said he started
on the campaign as an intern
but eventually rose to regional
field director in the campaign’s
Columbia office.
“I could have sworn when
we first started, everyone had
to sign it no matter if you were
a volunteer or a full-blown
staffer,” he said. “Later I think
we shifted our policy to where
only people who were actual-
ly working and getting paid on
the campaign had to sign one.”
He said having volunteers
sign one was “unnecessary.”
“They’re not going to
know anything about general
campaign strategy so they’re
probably clueless to that as-
pect,” he said.
He said the agreement he
signed allows the campaign to
sue him if he says too much.
“But the truth is, I don’t
think I know anything that
would really be even damning
to the campaign,” Teel said. “I
was the low man on the totem
pole.”
This article was produced
in collaboration with the Co-
lumbia Missourian. Missouri-
an reporters Kathryn Hardi-
son, Kaitlin Washburn, Steph-
anie Sandoval, Ellen Cagle,
Brendan Crowley, Katie Par-
kins, Daphne Psaledakis and
Tyler Wornell contributed,
along with Missourian editor
Mark Horvit.
in one hour.
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