Circus: Hawley Demands Ethics Investigation Into The Democrats Who Filed Ethics Complaint Against Him

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley is demanding an investigation into the Democrats who filed an ethics complaint against him.

“This complaint is none other than a transparent attempt by seven Senators to punish a political opponent for the entirely lawful representation of their constituents,” Hawley wrote in one of two letters sent Monday morning. “The Senate cannot function if its neutral administrative processes are hijacked for bad-faith ends, but that is precisely what is occurring here.”

The Missouri Republican called for the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate seven Democrats who called for an ethics investigation into both him and Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz  to probe and “fully understand their role” in the Capitol Riot on January 6, arguing that Hawley and Cruz’s actions “lend credence to the insurrectionists’ cause and set the stage for future violence.”

Cruz and Hawley have both condemned the violence that took place during the Capitol Riot, but Democrats linked the two senators’ efforts to vote against Biden’s certification to the riot. Hawley and Cruz were joined by 147 other Republicans in voting against the election certification.

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“Your insinuation that Senator Cruz and I, by representing our constituents in debate in a manner you acknowledge is lawful, following the precedent set by Democratic members of Congress over the last three decades, somehow bear responsibility for the criminal rioters at the Capitol is shamefully false,” Hawley wrote. “And you know it to be so.”

The seven Democrats are Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sen. Maize Hirono of Hawaii, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

The Missouri senator said that Democrats have repeatedly “sought to object to electoral votes on that ground, regardless of whether any good-faith basis existed for such objections” and defended his decision to object to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, saying that he had “strong legal basis.”

Hawley asked for an investigation into what contacts the Democratic senators had with the Lincoln Project, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, MoveOn, Voto Latino, the Sierra Club, and any other outside organizations, as well as what contacts these senators had with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, White House officials, and other Democratic leadership.

Hawley also asked whether the senators had “been contacting lobbyists for corporations urging the suspension of those corporations’ political contributions.”