The Republican establishment is angry at Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley after he announced on Wednesday that he will be joining House Republicans to challenge the Electoral College votes in Congress next week.
A Republican official told New York Magazine’s Washington Correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that establishment Republicans are angry with Sen. Hawley because they think he knows better and he’s “not some moron like Louie Gohmert”
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This tracks with reporting from Politico on Thursday about a Senate GOP conference call in which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pressed Sen. Hawley to explain his rationale for challenging the certification of Electoral College vote in Congress next week. But Hawley was not on the call.
Hawley said in a statement on Wednesday that he will not vote to certify Biden’s victory because some states did not follow their own election laws and that Big Tech interfered on behalf of Biden.
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The next day, fellow Republican Sen. Ben Sasse ripped “ambitious politicians” in the Republican Party engaging in a “dangerous ploy” to challenge Electoral College votes.
“Let’s be clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage,” Sasse wrote. “But they’re wrong – and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government,” he added.
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Meanwhile, Rep. Louie Gohmert is wasting no time responding to Vice-President Mike Pence who on New Year’s Eve asked a federal judge to toss Gohmert’s suit, which argues that Pence has the sole authority to determine which state’s electoral votes gets counted.
Justice Department lawyers wrote in a 14 page filing that Pence was the wrong person to sue.
“A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” the filing says.
But, in a 55-page response on New Year’s Day, Gohmert and the 11 Arizona electors argue that the vice president is not just “the glorified envelope-opener in chief” and is the right person to sue in their quest to overturn the election, The Washington Post reports.
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Gohmert is one of several House Republicans who plans to object to the certification of Electoral College votes. Since they will be joined in the Senate by Hawley, Congress will be force to debate and take individual votes on the election results for the third time since 1887.
Senate leadership was hoping to avoid this because it places Republicans up for re-election in 2022 in a tight spot. Agree with Trump’s claim about widespread voter fraud even though they were thrown out in court or go against him and risk ending up in a nasty primary fight.
