Sen. Josh Hawley is facing increasing calls to resign after he supported Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election — one of the few to continue supporting the effort after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Hawley has been a strong supporter of Trump and was the first member of the Senate to announce he would issue a challenge during the certification of the Electoral College. The Missouri Republican had said there were unresolved concerns over election fraud, echoing the unfounded allegations from Trump.
“At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act,” Hawley said in a statement late last month.
He continued to lodge the challenges in the early morning hours on Thursday, even after crowds of Trump supporters surrounded and invaded the Capitol, forcing lawmakers to go into hiding in a siege that would leave a police officer dead along with four others.
Hawley’s two biggest home state papers, the KC Star and the St Louis Post-Dispatch, are calling on him to resign. Remarkable.
— Erin McPike (@ErinMcPike) January 8, 2021
Hawley is facing growing calls to resign, with both the Kansas City Star and St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishing editorials calling for him to step down from his position.
Even the freshman senator’s political mentor is coming down sharply against him. Jack Danforth, a former senator and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, had supported Hawley’s initial bid for office and was considered his mentor, but said he now regrets ever having backed him.
“Supporting Josh and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life,” Danforth told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . “Yesterday was the physical culmination of the long attempt (by Hawley and others) to foment a lack of public confidence in our democratic system. It is very dangerous to America to continue pushing this idea that government doesn’t work and that voting was fraudulent.”
Others are facing similar calls, including Trump himself. A number of top Democrats have called for him to either be removed from office via the U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment or through what would be a second impeachment. Many have accused him of fomenting anger while speaking to the crowd of supporters, imploring them to fight for him and telling them he would march to the Capitol with them. Trump ultimately retreated to the White House, where he reportedly watched in enjoyment as crowds stormed the building.
