by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News February 23, 2023

Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey on Thursday fired St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.

Gardner was sent packing after refusing to accept Bailey’s ultimatum to resign by noon.

Gardner, a Democrat whose campaign was supported by contributions from leftist billionaire George Soros, “has a long history of failure to prosecute violent crime, with a backlog of at least 3,000 cases,” Bailey said.

Bailey issued his ultimatum on Wednesday after 16-year-old volleyball player Janae Edmonson was visiting St. Louis with her team over the weekend when she was hit by a speeding vehicle. Edmonson’s injuries were so severe that she lost both of her legs.

The driver in the weekend accident, Daniel Riley, “is a dangerous gunman who should have been in jail,” Bailey said. The suspect was charged in 2020 in connection to stealing a firearm at gunpoint, and since that time has violated his bond conditions more than 100 times and did not have a driver’s license, local outlet KMOV reported.

“Instead of protecting victims, Circuit Attorney Gardner is creating them,” the Missouri attorney general said. “This is the latest in a long pattern of brazen neglect.”

Bailey said there are three claims that constitute Gardner’s “neglect in office.”

One is that she failed to prosecute cases that are filed. “So a law enforcement referral comes in, she files a charge and then she doesn’t move the case at all, she fails to move those cases to disposition. So these cases languish on dockets and are eventually dismissed,” he explained.

“The circuit attorney failed to file a motion to revoke and now we have another victim in the city of St. Louis because she refused to do her job,” Bailey said of the Riley case.

Bailey also said Gardner has failed to inform and confer with victims. “Under the Missouri Constitution and state statute, she has the moral and legal obligation to keep victims of crime the city of St. Louis notified about where their cases are, where they’re going and what the dispositions will be. She’s failed to do that,” he said.

Third, Bailey said Gardner has failed “file new cases referred by law enforcement agencies.”

Last year, a grand jury accused Gardner of “disturbing and unethical” behavior after she admitted to prosecutorial misconduct in her case against former Missouri GOP Gov. Eric Greitens.

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  Missouri AG fires Soros-backed St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner, WorldTribune.com