Three People Outside Jefferson City, Missouri, Con't

Missouri Republicans have possessed every opportunity to scrap impeachment proceedings against GOP Gov. Eric Greitens in the wake of his felony charges involving sexual assault and campaign finance violations, but they continue to play it straight given the overwhelming depth of evidence mounting against the embattled state chief executive.

Even with a more than two-thirds supermajority in both the state House and Senate, Missouri Republicans are now calling a special session later this month to impeach and possibly remove Greitens from office.

The Missouri General Assembly has taken the historic step of calling itself back into special session to decide whether to impeach Gov. Eric Greitens.

According to the petition signed by 138 House members and 29 senators — both more than the three-fourths required in each cahmber to call a special session — lawmakers will consider the findings and recommendations of a House committee investigating Greitens, “including, but not limited to disciplinary actions against Gov. Eric R. Greitens.”

The special session would begin at 6:30 p.m. on May 18, immediately after the legislature adjourns its regular session for the year. It will mark the first time in Missouri history that lawmakers have called a special session themselves instead of relying on the governor to do so.

House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, first proposed a special session last month after a special House committee investigating Greitens released a report detailing allegations of abuse, blackmail and sexual coercion made by a woman with whom he had an affair in 2015.

"Today's actions ensure there will be a conclusion to this process," Richardson said, later adding: "This path is not the one I would have chosen for Missourians or for my colleagues. I've hoped from the beginning of this process that the committee would find no wrongdoing. ... Unfortunately, this is where the facts led. We will not avoid doing what is right, just because it's hard."

House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, D-Kansas City, agreed with Richardson.

"This is a necessary step," she said. "We have to make sure we do this right, and the best way to do that is to give the committee time to complete the investigation, and if they see fit, to file articles of impeachment."

She said some of her fellow Democrats refused to sign because they wanted impeachment to start immediately. Others thought impeachment should wait until after Greitens' criminal trial, which starts May 14.

Impeaching the governor would take 82 votes in the House. The Senate would then appoint seven judges to conduct a trial. If five agree he should be removed from office, Lt. Gov. Mike Parson would take over. Parson would serve until his term ends in early 2021.

This isn't like Bill Clinton's impeachment and trial 20 years ago, done by an opposition party to railroad a popular president.  This is Greitens's own party going to the unprecedented lengths of pledging to call a special session of the legislature to consider impeachment of a sitting governor.  They could have easily run out the clock on the investigation, they could have easily scrapped the investigation and waited for the courts to deal with it, they could have done precisely nothing and there wouldn't have been a thing Democrats in the state could have done in response.

That tell me that the evidence presented to the state legislature has been so overwhelmingly against Greitens that there's no question an impeachment vote is coming.  Remember, calling that special session without the governor requires meeting the ludicrously high bar of three-quarters of both chambers, and they are publicly proclaiming that they have that level of support.

Greitens should resign immediately.  In all seriousness, he should hang it up. 

He is done.  Not only will he be near certainly impeached, he will be more than likely removed from office in disgrace.

I don't know if the guy can take a hint, but it's over.