Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, His Affair, and the Chaos that Followed.

First came a public admission from Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri that he had been unfaithful to his wife. What followed was a dizzying series of events: calls for his resignation, a criminal indictment, lawmakers conducting an investigation and, this week, release of a report filled with graphic and troubling details.

So, how did a governor’s affair lead to political chaos and a legal battle in Missouri and where does this end?

Here is a primer on what’s unfolding in Missouri.

Greitens, 44, is a first-term governor who swept into office just over a year ago as a political outsider with a background fellow Republicans gushed about. He was a decorated member of the Navy SEALs who served tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, a Bronze Star recipient and a Rhodes scholar. He is married, the father of two. He created The Mission Continues, a nonprofit group that aids veterans. National Review once described his résumé as “astonishing, almost too good to be true.”

But when Greitens turned up in Jefferson City, the state’s capital, his outsider status also hurt him. Some people viewed him as an ambitious hot shot who saw the governor’s office merely as a launchpad to somewhere better, maybe even the White House. His travel to other states fueled that speculation. He soon clashed with legislators, even those from his own party — something that has come back to haunt him at a time when he needs a base of support to lean on.

The governor’s troubles began in January when a St. Louis television station broadcast an audio recording that it had obtained from the ex-husband of a woman who had several sexual encounters with Greitens over a matter of months in 2015, before he became governor. The woman’s then-husband had secretly recorded her discussing the sexual encounters — and making an explosive accusation that Greitens had taken a nude or seminude photograph of her without her permission and had threatened to make the image public if she told anyone about him.

In February, prosecutors charged Greitens with invasion of privacy, a felony in Missouri, in connection with the photograph.

The woman, who worked as a hairdresser and had cut Greitens’ hair, has not been publicly identified and has told officials that she did not wish to share her story with law enforcement or the public; she has repeatedly turned down requests for interviews. Subpoenaed to testify under oath before a state legislative committee investigating the governor, the woman said that she went to Greitens’ home on his invitation one morning, where he suggested that they work out together; then he blindfolded her, taped her hands to pull-up rings and began kissing her. He then tore off her shirt, pulled down her pants and took a picture of her with his cellphone, she said.

Officially, Greitens is charged only with invasion of privacy, but elected officials calling for Greitens’ resignation have offered concerns that seem to reach further. Some legislators have questioned whether the woman gave consent to Greitens during their initial sexual encounter. At one point, the woman said, she broke down in tears; Greitens responded by consoling her, she said, and then, as she continued crying, he undid his pants and moved his penis near her face. Asked whether she consented to performing oral sex that morning, the woman testified, “It’s a hard question because I did — it felt like consent, but, no, I didn’t want to do it.” She went on: “Coerced, maybe. I felt as though that would allow me to leave.”

Other lawmakers have said the scandal is a distraction from his work as governor, his political future has crumbled and the process is causing anguish for his wife and children.

“I am very worried as a family man about the effects that this has on his family,” Mike Kehoe, the Senate majority leader and a Republican, said. “The governor’s political career might have 2 1/2 years on it at best, but he’s going to have a family for life.”

Greitens acknowledged having a consensual extramarital affair, issuing a statement — together with his wife, Sheena — shortly after delivering his State of the State address in January. He has portrayed the issue as a personal matter, not a legal violation, and his lawyers have pushed back vehemently against suggestions of criminal behavior or coercion of any kind. Greitens has dismissed the legislative committee’s report, which quoted extensively from the woman he had a relationship with, as “tabloid trash.” He called the investigation into his behavior a “political witch hunt.” He declined to answer questions before the same legislative committee she spoke to; his lawyers said he would be willing to answer their questions after the invasion of privacy charge against him was resolved in court.

On Thursday, he seemed to relish the prospect of having that case heard next month. “In 32 days,” he said in a statement, “a court of law and a jury of my peers will let every person in Missouri know the truth and prove my innocence.”

Pretty much everybody in Missouri politics. After the release of the 24-page report this week from the legislative committee, dozens of legislators and other elected officials — Republican and Democrat — reiterated calls for Greitens to step down. They include Josh Hawley, the attorney general of Missouri and a Republican; Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat; Kehoe, the Senate majority leader; and even financial backers like David Humphreys, a businessman whose family was one of Greitens’ top donors, giving him more than $2 million during his run for governor.

An inner circle of advisers to the governor, including several strategists and donors, were said to be urging Greitens to resist calls to resign. Some evangelical leaders, who supported him in 2016 along with an overwhelming number of the state’s white evangelical voters, said they had maintained their support for the governor.

Brandon Park, the lead pastor at Connection Point, an evangelical church in Raytown, Missouri, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, said he did not think Greitens should resign. He supports the governor’s anti-abortion positions, and he says evangelical Christians respect him for his policies. “I see a lot of these personal attacks both on Trump and Greitens as a way to take away attention from the ideals that matter most to evangelical Christians,” he said. “It does seem to be a little bit of a witch hunt.”

Others, though, were more critical. Phil Hopper, the pastor of Abundant Live Church near Kansas City, Missouri, said he would be “amazed” that anybody would be supporting Greitens, but said that due process must take its course.

On May 14, Greitens will go on trial in St. Louis on the invasion of privacy charge. He sought a bench trial but a judge denied that, so a jury will decide his fate. If convicted, Greitens could face up to four years in prison.

Then there is the threat of impeachment in a state Capitol where both chambers are dominated by Republicans. The legislative committee that investigated Greitens’ case — made up of five Republicans and two Democrats — will decide whether to file articles of impeachment against him. That decision could happen at any time. In Missouri, leaders are subject to impeachment for a broad array of failings: “crime, misconduct, habitual drunkenness, willful neglect of duty, corruption in office, incompetency, or any offense involving moral turpitude or oppression in office.” If articles of impeachment were to be filed, the full House would then vote on whether to impeach the governor; if a majority votes in favor of impeachment, the case would then go to the Senate, where seven judges would conduct a trial.

Five of the seven judges must vote in favor of impeachment for the governor to be removed from office — an action that has never before been taken in Missouri.

Whatever the outcome of the criminal trial and the legislative proceedings, political strategists and elected officials said there appeared few paths ahead in politics for Greitens.

“Do you go somewhere after this?” John Hancock, a political strategist and former chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, said. “I don’t know. I just can’t see it.”