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Soros-backed St. Louis prosecutor resigns before ousting; one famous couple celebrates with a toast

May 5, 2023 | | Print Article

Just days after declaring, “I’m not leaving,” St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner has announced she is leaving her office.

Gardner, who was backed by billionaire “Spooky Dude,” George Soros, resigned on Thursday before Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey could succeed in his attempt to fire her.

In a letter addressed to “My Fellow St. Louisians” and posted to Twitter, Gardner played the race card.

“Unfortunately, since the time I took office, as the first Black, female prosecutor in the State, people outside of the city have targeted me and, to advance their goals, have also targeted the fundamental rights of the city’s voters.”

The soft-on-crime progressive cited a bill before the Missouri State Legislature that would, she claimed, “permanently remove the right of every St. Louis voter to elect their Circuit Attorney, the only remaining elected position in our city’s criminal justice system.”

“Instead, that bill gives the Governor the power to appoint our city’s chief prosecutor,” she added. “It is hard to think of a more direct or brutal assault on our democracy, one that mirrors the attacks in Jackson, Mississippi, and throughout Florida.”

“This most recent bill is a part of a coordinated, long-standing strategy to undermine me and my efforts to make the City of St. Louis safer and fairer. Since day one of my tenure as Circuit Attorney, I have experienced attacks on my reforms, on my judgment, on my integrity, on my prosecutorial discretion, on my responsibility to direct the limited resources of this office and more,” she wrote. “Some of these attacks seem designed to stop the office from functioning, at the expense of public safety.”

It’s a bold statement, considering it is her lack of regard for the public’s safety that put her in Bailey’s crosshairs.

As BizPac Review previously reported, the attorney general called for Gardner to resign after a repeat offender who was out on bond for an armed robbery case crashed his car into 17-year-old volleyball player Janae Edmondson, leaving her in critical condition with both her legs amputated.

Riley had already violated the terms of his bond “several dozen times,” Fox News Digital reports.

Gardner argued that she had urged the court to revoke 21-year-old Daniel Riley’s bond, but, when no official correspondence could confirm her claim,  she later said she made the request “orally.”

“So when the circuit attorney is saying she did things, we have evidence that those statements are false, and misleading, and flat untrue,” Bailey said at the time. “We are hopeful that a judge will remove her immediately…and then she can have her day in court after that. Because at the end of the day for us, the circuit attorney has to go the rule of law, and justice has to be restored to the city of St. Louis.”

Bailey filed a 29-page memo of Suggestions in Support of his petition that detailed the case of Riley as well as others where Gardner allegedly “willfully neglected her duties or knowingly or willfully failed or refused to carry out her duties.”

According to Bailey, Gardner’s failures led to the dismissal of nearly 12,000 criminal cases.

“He also says more than 9,000 cases have been thrown out as they had been about to go to trial, forcing judges to dismiss more than 2,000 cases due to what Bailey described as a failure to provide defendants with evidence and speedy trials,” Fox News Digital reports.

In a statement on Twitter regarding Gardner’s resignation, Bailey urged the prosecutor to leave office immediately rather than wait until the end of the month.

“There is absolutely no reason for the Circuit Attorney to remain in office until June 1,” he wrote. “We remain undeterred with our legal quest to forcibly remove her from office.”

“Every day she remains puts the city of St. Louis in more danger,” Bailey stated. “How many victims will there be between now and June 1? How many defendants will have their constitutional rights violated? How many cases will continue to go unprosecuted?”

News of Gardner’s resignation prompted varied reactions with many celebrating the development. Among them, Mark McCloskey who, along with his wife, was charged by Gardner after the St. Louis couple waved guns at racial injustice protesters who invaded their neighborhood in 2020.

“Here’s to the resignation of Kim Gardner,” McCloskey said in a video he posted to Twitter, raising a glass to toast the news.

“The city of St. Louis will be much safer,” he added. “There is justice. There is a God. And justice and God have prevailed.”

Melissa Fine
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