“If there’s a dubious spotlight, you can bet Josh Hawley will do anything to be standing in the middle of it.”
— Missouri state Rep. Emily Weber (D), the first Asian American elected to the Missouri General Assembly, quoted by the Kansas City Star, on Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) being the lone Senator to vote against anti-Asian hate crimes legislation.
“Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who raised a fist in support of the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, sent an email to supporters Monday in which he sought to fundraise off Trump’s coming Senate impeachment trial,” the Washington Post reports.
From the email: “Even chasing President Trump out of office isn’t enough for them. They have to impeach him AGAIN. They are going after Trump, and they are still coming after me — both of us for the same sin: instead of protecting the elites, I stood up for the people and now I am being threatened every day by Democrats calling for me to be expelled from the Senate, and Joe Biden has echoed that I should be ‘flat beaten.’”
The Atlantic: “The elite conservative world saw the Missouri senator as America’s next great statesman. Instead, he’s revealed uncomfortable truths about the movement.”
“Loews Hotels on Saturday canceled a planned fundraiser at its Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando for U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, who spearheaded the objections to President-elect Biden’s win in Congress on Jan. 6,” the Orlando Sentinel reports.
Said a statement: “We are horrified and opposed to the events at the Capitol and all who supported and incited the actions.”
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) offered no defense of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) when asked Monday whether the senator should resign after he tried to block certification of presidential election results in two states following a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Kansas City Star reports.
Said Parson: “You know, everybody has to be responsible for the decisions they make, good or bad, indifferent. That’s what I’ll say.”
“It took Sen. Josh Hawley just two years to make the jump from state attorney general to U.S. senator. After only one year in Washington, there are signs that the Missouri Republican is preparing for another promotion,” the Kansas City Star reports.
“Hawley has established himself as a national brand within the GOP in ways that could serve as a prelude to a presidential run. He’s carved out a niche issue with his push to crack down on the tech industry and begun to articulate a foreign policy vision, which would shift the nation’s focus from the Middle East to China.”
“He’s become a fixture of cable news, a sought-after speaker for events hosted by high-profile conservative groups and has repeatedly generated national media attention with legislation that plays to the conservative base.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said on Twitter he will introduce a motion to dismiss the impeachment charges against President Trump.
Playbook: “Our sources tell us that moving legislation to dump the charges is not a realistic strategy at the moment — but it does show the potential perils of the hold-the-articles strategy. This wouldn’t pass at this point — it might not even make it to the floor — but in a few weeks if the articles don’t end up in the Senate, this could gain steam, our sources tell us.”
“Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) capped a tumultuous week Friday with his debut appearance at the American Conservative Union’s CPAC conference — and receiving a subpoena as he left the stage,” the Kansas City Star reports.
“Elad Gross, a Democratic candidate for attorney general who is suing Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s office, said on Twitter that the Missouri senator was served moments after he completed his appearance.”
“An employee of the Missouri attorney general’s office occasionally drove Josh Hawley to campaign-related events in a state-owned car, an arrangement that raises new questions about Hawley’s use of taxpayer-funded resources in the run up to his successful bid for U.S. Senate,” McClatchy reports.
“Hawley’s use of a state-owned car stands in contrast to how Missouri’s other statewide elected officials say they utilize such vehicles.”
“Not long after Josh Hawley announced in 2017 that he was exploring a U.S. Senate run, Democrats requested records of any emails between his attorney general’s office and the consultants running his campaign. Hawley’s office told them they didn’t have any emails to turn over,” the Kansas City Star reports.
“But the emails did exist.”
“The revelation that Democrats made a records request and that Hawley’s office denied it — uncovered in documents newly obtained by The Star — is now leading advocates for government transparency to question whether Hawley and his staff failed to comply with the state’s Sunshine Laws.”
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) has launched an investigation into the way Attorney General Josh Hawley (R) ran his office, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Ashcroft is looking into accusations that Hawley may have “used public funds as Attorney General to support his candidacy for U.S. Senate.”
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley (R) announce that his office has uncovered potential criminal wrongdoing by Gov. Eric Greitens (R) and he has turned that evidence over to the St. Louis prosecutor, the Kansas City Star reports.
Hawley said that during the course of an investigation into a charity founded by Greitens, his office “uncovered evidence of wrongdoing that goes beyond Missouri’s charity laws” and indicates “potentially criminal acts were committed by Gov. Eric Greitens.”
Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley (R) appears to be distancing himself from embattled Gov. Eric Greitens (R) as he prepares to kick into full gear his campaign to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), the Missourian reports.
Hawley consultant Brad Todd told reporters that Greitens “has plenty of things on his plate” and said not to expect him on the campaign trail.
Said Todd: “The election is going to be a whole lot more about what happens on the floor of the Senate than in the basement of the Greitens’ house.”
Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley (R) linked the problem of sex trafficking to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, according to leaked audio obtained by the Kansas City Star.
Said Hawley: “We have a human trafficking crisis in our state and in this city and in our country because people are willing to purchase women, young women, and treat them like commodities. There is a market for it. Why is there? Because our culture has completely lost its way. The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined, never have imagined.”
Josh Hawley (R), the Republican party’s top pick to challenge Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) — widely regarded as the most vulnerable Senate incumbent in the nation — raised just shy of $1 million in final three months of last year, McClatchy reports.
“Hawley, the Missouri attorney general, is fundraising well ahead of other Republicans in the field. But he’s far short of the $2.9 million McCaskill collected during the fourth quarter of 2017.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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