During my 2004 Congressional race, I became aware of an independent effort to produce two mailers to benefit my campaign. Federal campaign finance law prohibits specific coordination between a campaign and anyone preparing an independent expenditure.

When the independent operator requested funding, I authorized a close friend to raise money for the effort, and my press secretary provided public information about my opponent’s voting record. I withheld my knowledge of these facts during the Federal Election Commission’s 2004 investigation, misleading investigators and filing a false affidavit.

The FEC cleared our campaign of wrongdoing. But in 2009, the government received new information and reopened its investigation. When questioned, I stood by our 2004 account and encouraged my close friend to do so, misleading the authorities. Today I am taking full responsibility for my mistakes, and have pled guilty to obstructing justice.

This event has humbled me. I have done some significant introspection and that has been the hardest part: coming to terms with my own poor judgments and mistakes.

I apologize to my constituents, my staff, my Senate colleagues, my supporters, and to Congressman Carnahan. I am sorry to be leaving an institution I dearly love and the chance to represent a City with so much potential. Most importantly, I apologize to my family for not living up to what you expect of me, or what I expect of myself.

But I’m proud of my work in the Senate. With the help of my legislative staff, colleagues, and issue advocates, I believe I positively impacted several policy areas. I worked to create the Missouri Teaching Fellows Program to bring top-notch teachers to struggling school districts, expanded early childhood education for impoverished City children, and helped add $5M in bonuses to the salaries of City teachers whose students make exceptional academic progress.

My office spent many hours working with advocates for eco-friendly policies. I led the drive to pass a Green Sales Tax Holiday for energy-efficient appliances, a tax deduction for home energy audits, and a mandate that Missouri increase its energy efficiency standard for state buildings.

Working with the Fathers Support Center of St. Louis, I sponsored and passed two bills that will transform our child-support system. One will help fathers struggling to pay child support avoid felony convictions and jail time by creating “fathering courts” to help non-violent offenders find jobs and resume support payments, saving the state millions in incarceration costs. The second will reduce erroneous paternity judgments and ensure that men with DNA tests showing non-paternity will no longer have to pay for children who are not theirs.

Finally, I helped successfully defend Missouri’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit, which has done more than any other program to revitalize formerly dilapidated urban neighborhoods, creating jobs and putting abandoned buildings back onto the tax rolls.

I hope that my Senate tenure, albeit brief, is remembered as productive and beneficial to those I served. I thank my colleagues with whom I worked on the above as well as my trusted and loyal aides: Stacy Morse, Christine Brauner, Johnny Little, and Kailey Burger.

I am saddened by the thought that some may give up on politics because I let them down. I was blessed to have so many amazing volunteers who worked to support me with no political experience and developed a passion for activism through their work. Today I fear that some of them – some of you – may feel as if your efforts were in vain. But they were not.

If you helped in my election to office, my 3-on-3 basketball tournament and community fair, my MLK Jr. Blvd. cleanup, or other programs I promoted, please don’t let my mistakes sour you on active civic involvement. There are no perfect people and no perfect candidates, but I hope you’ll find a candidate or a cause in which you believe and fight for it with the same zeal you fought for me. Because the real tragedy of my lapses would be if they discouraged people like you from civic engagement.

Mary Pickford once said that failure is not falling down but staying down. I won’t run for office again, but I’ll stay active in the causes that animate me – from urban education to preserving historic neighborhoods to providing health care for all – to try and help the City I love continue its return to the glory of its past.

Thank you for being a part of my life the last few years. I deeply regret the mistakes that have forced my resignation, but I hope you will balance them against the totality of my service, and that we can work together again in the future.

Best,

Jeffstate

Former state Sen. Jeff Smith speaks with reporters outside the Thomas Eagleton Federal Courthouse on Tuesday after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice and resigning his state Senate seat. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

Click here for updated coverage of the Jeff Smith scandal

Jeff Smith, a Missouri state senator who frequently taught at Washington University, resigned his Senate seat and pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice, after weeks of speculation about a federal investigation into Smith and others who worked on his 2004 campaign.

The first count is for conspiring to obstruct a Federal Election Commission investigation into the St. Louis Democrat’s 2004 congressional run. The other count is for conspiring to obstruct a federal grand jury investigation this year revisiting the 2004 inquiry. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and/or fines of up $250,000.

Nicholas Adams, the campaign treasurer from 2004, also pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Another legislator connected to Smith’s case, state Rep. Steve Brown, D-Clayton, also appeared in court today and pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Brown also announced his resignation today.

Sentencing in all of the cases has been set for Nov. 10.

The FBI this past summer was revisiting the 2004 FEC investigation, which centered on anonymous literature allegedly distributed by Smith’s campaign. The literature, in the form of postcards, attacked Smith’s main opponent in 2004, now-U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis.

The charges state Smith, Brown and Adams tried to “corruptly attempt to obstruct, influence, and impede” the investigation.

In mid-2004, Carnahan’s campaign filed a complaint with the FEC about the postcards, saying Smith had violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and regulations concerning the printing, production and distribution of negative advertisements.

Smith in an affidavit, which he acknowledged today as being false, denied any involvement. In late 2007, the FEC found there was not enough evidence to prove wrongdoing on the part of Smith and his committee.

Court documents say an unnamed individual affiliated with the organization Voters for Truth approached Smith’s campaign committee in July 2004 to discuss the idea of making and distributing the postcards. Smith’s campaign committee introduced Brown, a “close and personal friend” of Smith and not yet a member of the state House of Representatives, to the unnamed individual.

At that time, Brown agreed to raise funds for making the ads. He raised “substantial” funds for Voters for Truth and personally gave the individual $5,000 in cash.

On July 23, 2004, the organization mailed 25,000 postcards to voters in Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District. Carnahan responded by filing the complaint against Friends of Jeff Smith.

Amid the proceeding and investigation, on Sept. 8, 2004, Smith submitted the falsely sworn affidavit to the FEC, stating that he had “no knowledge of who was responsible for the [postcard] referenced in the [FEC] complaint, nor who paid for the mailing.”

The FBI returned to the 2004 charges when new evidence emerged this year. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on how the new evidence was developed.

Court documents detail several conversations between Smith, Brown and Adams about their intention to mislead investigators in both the FEC investigation and the FBI investigation. Smith is quoted as saying to Brown last summer, “Don’t do anything stupid. Stupid would be telling them things that were happening in your brain.” Smith also told Brown that he himself would not be truthful to investigators, saying, “I’d be 90% honest.”

After the court hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith characterized the charges as a “classic case of corruption.” John Gillies, special agent for the St. Louis FBI, agreed with Goldsmith.

“At the end of the day, for those of you in the courtroom, this is pure stupidity,” Gillies said. “You’ve got a Ph.D., a J.D. from Washington University, another guy with a master’s, and all of this for what at the end of the day? Just so they could get a little more power and feel a little bit better about themselves that they’re big shots of the town. We will not tolerate this kind of corruption.”

During his court appearance, Smith said, “I am guilty as charged.” When Smith left the Thomas Eagleton Federal Courthouse with his lawyers, he was relaxed and smiling.

Click here to read State Sen. Smith’s letter of resignation

Gov. Jay Nixon released a statement today calling the resignations “necessary and appropriate” because both Smith and Brown had “violated the public’s trust.” Nixon also announced that both seats would be filled in a special election on Nov. 3.

After leaving the courthouse, Smith made several comments to reporters, including an apology to his constituents and family.

“This event has humbled me,” Smith said in a statement posted to his Web site. “I have done some significant introspection and that has been the hardest part: coming to terms with my own poor judgments and mistakes.”

In a press release, House Senate Majority Floor Leader Kevin Engler said: “Jeff has made some serious mistakes and will be held accountable for those mistakes, but that should not detract from his accomplishments in the Senate or his hard work on behalf of his community. Sen. Smith was always a very reasonable person in the capitol. He was someone quite frankly that encouraged more bipartisan behavior between our parties.”

Smith has previously taught courses on ethics in politics and campaigning at the University, but a spokeswoman announced last week that his scheduled class would be canceled.

The University released a statement on Tuesday afternoon saying it would not comment on personnel issues.

Associate Professor of Political Science Andrew Rehfeld said he doesn’t think that Smith’s plea will adversely affect the political science department as a whole.

“We are and remain interested in being engaged with people who are involved in politics and be engaged with a wide variety of people and that means were going to encounter the real life problems and turmoil of human beings. I think what happened is sad, but it goes along with being experienced,” Rehfeld said.

Still, he is concerned that Smith’s actions may diminish the messages of his lessons. He said students likely attribute “some moral perfection” to a professor.

“I think for better or worse this will cause some of the students to question what he taught, and some of that questioning is justified and other of it is probably not,” Rehfeld said. “The lessons that we teach our students are not about us; they’re about a subject matter and on that score. As far as I can tell, especially in the smaller classes that he taught, he was a gifted teacher.”

Click here for Student Life’s previous coverage of the scandal surrounding Jeff Smith

Check studlife.com regularly for more information about Jeff Smith’s resignation.

Kat Zhao and Michelle Merlin contributed to this report.