Senate Democrats Expressed Prejudice Ahead of Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz Investigation

Senate Ethics Committee Democrats have already expressed judgments about Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) regarding their move to object to the 2020 presidential election ahead of the committee’s investigation.

The Senate Ethics Committee will investigate Hawley and Cruz’s objection to the certification of the election results. The investigation resulted from seven Senate Democrats who filed a complaint against the Senate conservatives, contending they “lent legitimacy” to the riots against the Capitol.

Hawley subsequently filed a counter complaint against the Democrats, alleging “improper conduct” for the Democrats’ gain.

Hawley said he hopes the committee took his complaint “seriously and will work in a bipartisan manner.”

A Cruz spokesperson said that the investigation “sets a dangerous precedent when ethics complaints are used as a political tool to try to intimidate and punish.”

Now, the secretive Senate Ethics Committee will investigate whether Hawley and Cruz violated Senate ethics rules in their effort to object to the election results.

However, it appears the three Senate Democrats on the committee, including chairman Chris Coons (D-DE), have expressed prejudgments about Hawley and Cruz’s case.

Coons told reporters one day after the January 6 riots that Hawley and Cruz “should resign.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) said in December that Hawley’s plan is “outrageous.” She added it “borders on sedition or treason.”

Schatz retweeted Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, on January 9. Elias wrote:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.” –14th Amendment, US Constitution

Shaheen and Coons’ comments about Hawley and Cruz’s actions call into question their objectivity ahead of the Senate Ethics Committee investigation.

Leftist groups such as the Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility (CREW) have called for Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the vice chairman of the committee, to recuse himself because he planned to object to the election results as well.

“Senator Lankford must not be allowed to weigh in on any investigation of his colleagues’ conduct when his own behavior may have contributed to the issue at hand,” CREW wrote in a press release in January.