A senior investigative adviser to the select committee of the Parliament investigating the uprising of January 6, 2021 leaves the committee to to investigate his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat as an independent, according to four people familiar with his plans. John Wood, a former federal prosecutor who has worked closely with Vice President Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Began briefing committee staff this week on his plans. to explore a candidacy, according to these people. Wood led the committee’s “gold team” that looked into the possible involvement of former President Donald Trump in the US Capitol siege and appeared before lawmakers on a panel last week to question witnesses during a hearing focused on a campaign of pressure targeting then-Vice President Mike Pence. Investigators say Wood is stepping down as his teammate and has a good relationship with the staff. The news of his departure comes after former Missouri Gov. Eric Gretens published an ad for his campaign in the US Senate that shows him pretending to be chasing members of his own party. “Today we will go hunting for RINO,” Greitens said in the video, using the mocking phrase “Republicans in Name Only.” A campaign committee for Wood set up a website and began raising funds Monday, activating a 10-day window to be formally submitted to the Federal Election Commission, said councilor Steven Crim. The committee’s treasurer is Mark Egert, a former deputy vice chancellor at the University of Washington in St. Louis. The campaign decided to start on Monday because of Greitens’ “RINO hunting ad” ad, Crim said. He said he was waiting for a formal decision from Wood on whether he would be a candidate within a week. The campaign must submit 10,000 signatures by Aug. 1 to get Wood on the ballot as an independent candidate, Crim said. Wood would have the backing of former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), Who is raising money for a super PAC to support an independent candidate. Danforth said his team polled Missouri voters in February and found widespread dissatisfaction with both parties and political polarization. “If John Wood enters the race, he will be better qualified to become a U.S. senator than anyone else,” Danforth said in an interview. “What has happened now is that politics is so disgusting to many people that people would like to go to the polls and vote ‘none of the above’. But that does not count. “The way it counts is to vote for this independent.” The campaign website featured Wood as a sixth-generation from Missouri who served as federal attorney and Homeland Security official. Wood was a law enforcement officer to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and former appeals judge J. Michael Luttig, whom Wood is questioning when he appeared as a witness at a panel hearing Jan. 6 this month. Former Missouri Gov. Eric Gretens, who resigned in 2018 after facing charges of abuse and blackmail in connection with a former hairdresser, is running in the Republican primary for the Missouri Senate on August 2. Other GOP candidates include Missouri Attorney General Eric Smith and representatives Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long. Mark McCloskey, a St. Louis lawyer who was indicted and later pardoned for wielding a rifle at passing protesters in 2020, is also a candidate. On the Democratic side, the main candidates are beer heiress Trudy Busch Valentine and war veteran Lucas Kunce.
