Schweich (R-MO) suicides after AP phonecall to expose anti-semitism

Missouri candidate for governor asks the AP for a press conference (to expose anti-Semitic comments from the Missouri Republican Party) and shoots himself immediately afterward... He'd already cancelled the conference once and was speaking to them to reschedule it.

I thought this was going to be some sick gossip rag article, but it's all over the place.

www.usnews.com...

Schweich's death stunned many of Missouri's top elected officials, who described him as a "brilliant" and "devoted" public servant with an "unblemished record" in office. Just 13 minutes before police got an emergency call from his home, Schweich had a phone conversation with The Associated Press about his plans to go public that afternoon with allegations that the head of the Missouri Republican Party had made anti-Semitic comments about him.

Schweich had Jewish ancestry but attended an Episcopal church. Spokesman Spence Jackson said his boss had recently appeared upset about the comments people were supposedly making about his religious faith and about a recent radio ad describing Schweich as "a weak candidate for governor" who "could be easily confused for the deputy sheriff of Mayberry" and could "be manipulated."

Schweich was 54. He had been in office since January 2011 and had easily won election in November to a second, four-year term. He announced a month ago that he was seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2016, and was gearing up for an expected primary fight against Catherine Hanaway, a former U.S. attorney and Missouri House speaker.

Naturally high-strung, Schweich seemed unusually agitated — his voice sometimes quivering and his legs and hands shaking — when he told an AP reporter on Monday that he wanted to hold a press conference to allege that Missouri Republican Party Chairman John Hancock had made anti-Semitic remarks about him.

If it's just like the articles laid down, this poor man was obviously feeling threatened and depressed enough that he took his own life... how will the government address it? Candidates can fight really dirty. We all know that campaigning is brutal. It turns into state sanctioned bullying in some races, with intense media mud-slinging. He made a statement with his death (although this smells fishy to me) and there was clearly something very very wrong in the show-me state.

I'll be doing my digging on this guy later tonight... I felt it was important enough to unleash on ATS in case the trail isn't fresh later. Do we have a state-sanctioned murder, a victim of harassment, a disturbed individual, is it exactly what the MSM says or something else here? Was he going to talk to the AP about anti-semitic abuse, or was there something even more important to expose? The mannerisms they describe seem very fearful rather than disgusted, angry, or any of the other emotions I'd expect to be associated with this kind of harassment, even for a high-strung individual.

I'm going to sleep on it. More later.

a reply to: FireflyStars

I found it odd as well. A bit early for speculation but.....hummmm?

I found this interesting as well....

President George W. Bush appointed Schweich to the State Department in 2005 as an international law enforcement official. Two years later, Bush picked Schweich to coordinate the anti-drug and justice reform efforts in Afghanistan.

In conversations with the AP, Schweich said he had heard that Hancock had been making phone calls last fall in which he mentioned in an off-handed way that Schweich was Jewish. Schweich said he felt the comments were anti-Semitic and wanted Hancock to resign the party chairmanship to which he had been elected last Saturday.

Hancock told the AP on Thursday that Schweich had talked to him about the alleged comments last November, but not since then. Hancock, who is a political consultant, said he held meetings last fall with prospective donors for a project to register Catholic voters. Hancock said that if he had mentioned that Schweich was Jewish, it would have been in the context that Hanaway was Catholic but that was no indication of how Catholics were likely to vote.

"I don't have a specific recollection of having said that, but it's plausible that I would have told somebody that Tom was Jewish because I thought he was, but I wouldn't have said it in a derogatory or demeaning fashion," Hancock said.

That last paragraph... "it's plausible that I would have told somebody that Tom was Jewish because I thought he was, but I wouldn't have said it in a derogatory or demeaning fashion..." smells like BS. Wonder why Hancock felt the need to point out Schweich's possible Jewish ancestry to his mostly Catholic constituency in the first place?

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: FireflyStars



I found it odd as well. A bit early for speculation but.....hummmm?

Obviously we don't have the whole story yet, but I say it is
never too early for speculation.

Whatever pushed this man to have a new conference must
have been the same issue that pushed him to end his life.

Of course, that is just speculation on my part =)

Too bad he couldn't just go to the HR department.
Maybe he thought going public was next best thing.
It is odd he had the courage to do that, but then
no courage to face the music. Something is amiss.

seems a bit suspect to me at the moment,lets wait for more details, for all we know he may have shot himself twice in his apparent suicide. It's not like it hasnt happened before hmm.

We've got a single gunshot wound to the head with no exit wound confirmed in an autopsy. No note so far (I doubt one will surface).

www.al.com...

He said his audits exposed more than 30 "corrupt government officials" who allegedly stole taxpayer money. But his promised gubernatorial campaign against corruption had barely begun.

Announcing his candidacy last month, Schweich had vowed to bring a never-before-seen "level of intensity, tenacity, transparency, and rigor" in a quest to root out "rampant corruption in Jefferson City."

As evidence of his grit, Schweich touted his work in the U.S. State Department coordinating an anti-drug initiative in Afghanistan.

"Negotiating with Afghan warlords prepared me well for Missouri politics," he said.

He took specific aim at the state's top political donor, retired investment mogul Rex Sinquefield, who largely bankrolled the campaign of his GOP gubernatorial rival Catherine Hanaway, a former state House speaker and federal prosecutor.

Schweich said the $900,000 Hanaway accepted from her "billionaire patron" made her "bought and paid for" by Sinquefield, who employs an "army of mercenaries" to exert his influence over elected officials.

"Nothing is too dishonest for them, and apparently nothing is too petty for them, either," Schweich said last month. "It's corrupt, and there's a lot more corruption going on in that camp that we'll be talking about in the days to come."

Hancock told the AP after Schweich's death that it's possible he may have told some people Schweich was Jewish, "but I wouldn't have said it in a derogatory or demeaning fashion," he said.

Schweich confronted Hancock in November about the alleged comments, but their tension was not resolved. As the date approached for the party chairman's election, Schweich reached out to other Republicans -- including U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt and some state party committee members -- to try to rally people against electing Hancock.

Some Republicans declined to get involved in what they viewed as personal spat.

The pieces just don't fit.

www.stltoday.com... 53d8-9393-595c9b40dcf5.html

Had I not ignored his phone call to me at 9:41 Thursday morning — I was doing a thing at my kids’ school district — I might have been the last person to talk to the man who wanted to be governor. It made for a chilling day in which I decided to do something I’ve never done before as a reporter: reveal the contents of off-the-record conversations with a source. That source is now dead. I believe it’s what he would have wanted.

I have no idea why Schweich killed himself. But for the past several days he had been confiding in me that he planned to accuse the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, John Hancock, with leading a “whisper campaign” among donors that he, Schweich, was Jewish.

You can listen to one of the voicemails he left here:
video.stltoday.com... stltoday

This just doesn't sound like a guy who's going to shoot himself in ten minutes.

kbia.org...

Schweich, 54, had been in office since 2011, after defeating Democratic incumbent Susan Montee. He easily won re-election last November to another four-year term. He did not have a Democratic opponent, a fact that Schweich and his allies emphasized as proof of his bipartisan appeal.

A lawyer with financial expertise, Schweich had garnered bipartisan praise for his conduct as state auditor. He was particularly close to former Sen. John C. Danforth, R-Mo., who was his mentor and former boss.

Schweich had a tense relationship with Nixon, stemming from the auditor’s lawsuit challenging some of the governor’s budgetary powers. Schweich lost the lawsuit but strongly supported the constitutional amendment approved by voters last fall that curbs the governor’s powers when it comes to the state budget.

Schweich also had been at odds lately with some in the GOP establishment. Although he had been outraising Hanaway, he had gone public with accusations that her top donor, financier Rex Sinquefield, was trying to buy a governor.

His outspoken concern about the corrosive nature of money in politics had prompted Schweich to launch his campaign for governor with self-imposed restrictions on how much money he would accept from a single donor.

Schweich postponed a planned press conference Tuesday. But he called the AP at 9:16 a.m. Thursday inviting an AP reporter to his home for a 2:30 p.m. interview and noting that a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also had been invited. An AP reporter spoke with Schweich by phone again at 9:35 a.m. to confirm the upcoming interview.

Police say the emergency call to Schweich's house was received at 9:48 a.m.

Why did he schedule an interview with two reporters and then shoot himself? The emergency call was made by another family member who was at home with him.

If his politics weren't so anti-establishment my level of doubt wouldn't be quite so high...

a reply to: FireflyStars

Though you wouldn't think it,Missouri has had some nasty politics in the past. I remember when Litton got killed in a plane crash,it had been a hotly debated office run,He won and on his way to the victory party his plane crashed. A lot of people were wondering just what kind of hanky panky was up then.

en.wikipedia.org...