J6 investigator makes MO Senate ballot — and this retired GOP senator just placed a $5 million bet he can win: report

As Missouri Republicans battle in the state's tumultuous Senate primary, an elder statesman is looking ahead to the general election and spending big to ensure the GOP nominee loses in November.

In 1968, Ambassador John Danforth was elected attorney general of Missouri, where his staff would include Kit Bond, John Ashcroft, and Clarence Thomas. In 1976, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and was re-elected twice before retiring. He went on the serve as George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations.

But he soon grew weary of the Republican Party.

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"By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians," he wrote in a 2005 New York Timesop-ed. "The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in Petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.

Now Danforth is urging Missourians to vote for attorney John Wood, who left his role as a Jan. 6 select committee investigator to return home and run for U.S. Senate as an independent.

"Our first, critical goal in this campaign has been to collect 10,000 petition signatures from Missouri voters required to get on the ballot by August 1st. I'm happy to share that our team has achieved that goal," Wood tweeted on Saturday.

"While we are thrilled with our progress, we are not done with our petition drive just yet. Our goal is to double the minimum requirement to ensure that Missouri voters will have the common sense, independent choice on their ballot that they deserve on Election Day," he added.

And Danforth's backing could be critical.

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Danforth controls the Missouri Stands United Super PAC that told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch it intends to spend $20 million to bolster Wood's bid.

On Friday, the super PAC filed its first Federal Election Commission report showing its activity in June.

The filing shows two contributions, one was for $2,500 from a Californian retiree.

But the second contribution was a whopping $5 million donation from former Sen. Danforth.

The group's first video features Danforth, sitting on a porch in a rocking chair and looking at an illustrated book of Missouri history.

Watch below or at this link.