Who is Josh Hawley, the other great instigator of the insurrection at the Capitol?

Arriving at the Capitol on Wednesday, Hawley encouraged the gathered protesters in front of the building, raising his finger and fist. His plan, however, came to nothing in a short time, when the trumpet mob burst into the building and forced the suspension of the Congress session. By the time the session resumed, after a woman shot dead by police and parts of the Senate were destroyed, support for Trump’s claims had faded.

Dozens of courts, election officials and even former Trump Secretary of Justice William Barr himself have said there is no evidence of widespread electoral fraud. Anyway, Hawley asked his Senate colleagues to “consider the concerns of so many millions of Americans” and investigate the vote.

His stance was immediately rejected from his own party. Very close to him, Sen. Mitt Romney harshly criticized those who resisted validating the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.

Romney accused Trump of encouraging an insurgency and said that “those who decide to continue to support this dangerous bet by objecting to the results of a legitimate democratic election will be seen forever as complicit in an unprecedented attack on our democracy. “.

“This will be his legacy,” he delineated.

In a very divided Republican party, this may not be the dominant position. In Missouri, a state Trump won by nearly 16 points, some say Hawley’s attitude has nothing to blame.

“To hold Senator Hawley accountable for the people who came to the Capitol to break glass, who wore helmets and tried to enter by force, is absurd,” said Republican State Representative Justin Hill, who give up participating in their own opening ceremony to go to the Washington protest.

Hill said Hawley was “defending the constitution.”

Like Danforth, another Republican senator, Shamed Dogan of BALLWIN, a St. Louis suburb, said he regretted supporting Hawley.

“I never regretted such a vote, and so quickly, as my vote for @HawleyMO in 2018,” he expressed in a tweet. “His refusal to accept the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election, even after today’s violence, is shameful.”

The walk continued. The law school association of the University of Missouri, where Hawley taught, issued a statement calling for his resignation.

The Kansas City Star reported that Hawley was the second most important person responsible for the Capitol capture, just behind Trump., And stressed that the senator had asked for contributions to this cause when the mob was harassing Congress.

“This doesn’t revolve around me! It has to do with the people I serve, I try to ensure confidence in our election,” Hawley said in an email as thousands of people marched down Pennsylvania Avenue after participating. in a Trump act in front of the White House. “That’s why I’m here, on behalf of the people I serve, to convey their concerns … By conviction. By principles. By our country. By YOUR VOTE.”

The publishing house Simon & Schuster, meanwhile, suspended the publication of a book by Hawley, “The Tyranny of the Big Tech,” about big tech companies.

Danforth, who served three terms in the Senate, said he remembered how much Hawley had impressed him the first time he saw him at a dinner party, when Hawley was a law student. He explained that he reminded him of an old friend, Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

“I thought he had a great intellectual capacity and that he could contribute a lot to the Senate,” he said.

Now Danforth wonders if Hawley has a future in Congress.

“How are you going to handle the Senate with the Republicans? When (majority leader) Mitch McConnell asks them not to do something and he does, with those consequences …,” he said. “How are you going to get along with your colleagues? Are you going to be able to do something? What is your political future?”