U.S. Senator Josh (R-Mo.) is filing a counter-complaint today against seven Senate Democrats who called for an ethics investigation into his objection to certifying Pennsylvania’s electoral count. The Democrats admitted in their complaint that Hawley’s electoral college objection was lawful. In a letter to the seven Democrat Senators, Senator Hawley called out the senators for their historic partisan abuse of the Senate ethics process and potential coordination with dark money groups.
Senator Hawley wrote, “The idea that one Senator who disagrees with another Senator can therefore have that Senator punished, sanctioned, censured, or removed is utterly antithetical to our democracy and the very idea of open, lawful debate. This line of thinking is, however, sadly consistent with the new woke-mob mentality that you should cancel anyone who disagrees with your views. Your baseless allegations are in that sense unfortunately typical of today’s leftwing cancel culture, a culture that tramples on the democratic traditions that left and right once defended together.
“In light of the shameful abuse of the ethics process you have deliberately engaged in, I have considered whether I should call for you to resign or be expelled from the Senate. But I continue to believe in the First Amendment, which the US Supreme Court has repeatedly said protects even ‘offensive’ and malicious speech, such as yours.
“The First Amendment does not, however, give you carte blanche to abuse the Senate ethics process. I have today filed a complaint with the ethics committee that details your deliberate and partisan abuse of this process, including your apparent coordination with various dark money groups, and requests that you be appropriately disciplined.”
Read Senator Hawley’s letter to the seven Democratic senators here and his letter to the Senate Ethics Committee here or below.
January 25, 2021
The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse
The Honorable Tina Smith
The Honorable Mazie K. Hirono
The Honorable Sherrod Brown
The Honorable Ron Wyden
The Honorable Richard Blumenthal
The Honorable Tim Kaine
Dear Senators:
I was astounded to see the outrageous personal and partisan attack you labeled an “ethics complaint.” It is a startling abuse of the ethics process and a direct assault on democratic debate.
The idea that one Senator who disagrees with another Senator can therefore have that Senator punished, sanctioned, censured, or removed is utterly antithetical to our democracy and the very idea of open, lawful debate. This line of thinking is, however, sadly consistent with the new woke-mob mentality that you should cancel anyone who disagrees with your views. Your baseless allegations are in that sense unfortunately typical of today’s leftwing cancel culture, a culture that tramples on the democratic traditions that left and right once defended together.
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. And you know it to be so.
You well know that multiple members of your own party have raised objections to the Electoral College results in 3 elections over the past 25 years, which is to say, every single time a Republican President has been elected. You of course did not call for the expulsion of any of these members, and for one reason: they are in the same political party as you are.
In light of the shameful abuse of the ethics process you have deliberately engaged in, I have considered whether I should call for you to resign or be expelled from the Senate. But I continue to believe in the First Amendment, which the US Supreme Court has repeatedly said protects even “offensive” and malicious speech, such as yours.
The First Amendment does not, however, give you carte blanche to abuse the Senate ethics process. I have today filed a complaint with the ethics committee that details your deliberate and partisan abuse of this process, including your apparent coordination with various dark money groups, and requests that you be appropriately disciplined.
In closing, please understand this: I will not be intimidated by your efforts to silence me, the people of my state will not be intimidated by you, and you should be ashamed to have so grossly abused your office and the Senate.
Sincerely,
Josh Hawley
United States Senator
The Honorable James Lankford, Chairman
The Honorable Christopher Coons, Vice Chairman
Senate Committee on Ethics
220 Hart Building
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Lankford and Vice Chairman Coons:
On January 21, seven Democrat Members of the Senate filed an unprecedently frivolous and improper ethics complaint against me and Senator Cruz. [1] Without citing any relevant evidence or offering any good-faith argument, they attempted to link my objection lodged under 3 U.S.C. § 15 to the criminal riot at the Capitol that occurred on January 6. They submitted their meritless complaint in potential coordination with a campaign by partisan and dark-money groups that have peddled falsehoods about me and my objection. By knowingly submitting a frivolous complaint to accomplish impermissible partisan purposes, these Senators have engaged in improper conduct that may reflect upon the Senate. The Committee should discipline these Members to ensure that the Senate’s ethics process is not weaponized for rank partisan purposes.
The complaint against me does not suggest that my objection to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes was legally improper. No Senator could make such a suggestion with a straight face. Federal law expressly authorizes Senators to object that a State’s electoral votes were not “regularly given.” 3 U.S.C. § 15. Democrats have repeatedly invoked this provision. Indeed, in every presidential election since 2000 that a Republican has won, Democrats have sought to object to electoral votes on that ground, regardless of whether any good-faith basis existed for such objections. Thus, my objection invoked a lawful process that has been used multiple times under comparable circumstances.
Moreover, there is a strong legal basis to believe that Pennsylvania’s electoral votes were not regularly given. Indeed, it appears that Pennsylvania conducted the 2020 general election using a mail-voting scheme that violated the Commonwealth’s Constitution. That’s not just my opinion: while no judge has concluded that the mail-voting system was valid, multiple members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court expressed substantial doubt about the validity of the statute. See Kelly v. Commonwealth, No. 68 MAP 2020, 2020 WL 7018314 (Pa. Nov. 28, 2020), at *5 & 5 n.3 (Saylor, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). My Democrat colleagues may disagree with my reading of Pennsylvania law—and, apparently, the intuitions of some of Pennsylvania’s most esteemed jurists—but it is clear that my objection rested on far more solid ground than the electoral college objections submitted by Democrat Members of Congress after the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections. Yet Democrats did not hasten to censure or expel their objecting colleagues; instead, they offered paeans to them. The only difference is that I am a Republican. This manifestly partisan exercise demeans this Committee and the critical purposes that it serves.
Most astonishingly, the Democrats who filed the complaint against me insinuate—without any evidence whatsoever—that I or my staff may have conspired with the criminals who stormed the Capitol. In most jurisdictions, such statements would constitute defamation per se, and if offered during debate they would constitute a clear violation of Senate Rule XIX.2. Fabricating conspiracy theories to attack me for political purposes is bad enough. Offensively trying to tie me to Nazi antisemitism—as Senator Hirono did when she outrageously accused me of pushing “the Big Lie” [2]—is even worse. Using this Committee to promote them demeans this body and diminishes the public’s trust in the seriousness of the Senate.
In sum, 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. The Senate cannot function if its neutral administrative processes are hijacked for bad-faith ends, but that is precisely what is occurring here.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully request that the Committee investigate the conduct of Senators Whitehouse, Wyden, Smith, Blumenthal, Hirono, Kaine, and Brown in preparing and filing this baseless and destructive complaint. In particular, I urge the Committee to pursue the following questions:
- In preparing their complaint, what contacts did Senators Whitehouse, Wyden, Smith, Blumenthal, Hirono, Kaine, and Brown have with the Lincoln Project, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, MoveOn, Voto Latino, the Sierra Club, or any other outside organization?
- In preparing their complaint, what contacts did Senators Whitehouse, Wyden, Smith, Blumenthal, Hirono, Kaine, and Brown have with Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, White House officials, or other Democratic leadership?
- Have Senators Whitehouse, Wyden, Smith, Blumenthal, Hirono, Kaine, and Brown, or their affiliates, been contacting lobbyists for corporations urging the suspension of those corporations’ political contributions?
Following the conclusion of this investigation, I request that the Committee take all disciplinary action that it deems appropriate.
Sincerely,
Josh Hawley
United States Senator