Missouri church leaders call for Hawley’s resignation over election claims

A group of religious leaders in Missouri is calling for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to resign following his contesting of President Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

“If you are watching this from somewhere else other than Missouri, we ask you to contact your senator and ask them to have him expelled from the Senate immediately,” the Rev. Cassandra Gould of Missouri Faith Voices said during a press conference last week. “Missouri can’t afford this. Black people can’t afford this. My grandchildren can’t afford this.”

Hawley was the first senator to announce he would join House Republicans in contesting the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory. 

“Millions of voters concerned about election integrity deserve to be heard,” Hawley said at the time. “I will object on January 6 on their behalf.”

As a joint session of Congress met that day to certify the Electoral College results, throngs of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building, sending lawmakers into hiding and briefly halting the proceedings.

Following the riot, several Democratic lawmakers called for Hawley to be removed from office or censured.

“This is someone who even after surveying the wreckage and the body count — four dead, among those in the MAGA mob who believed the lie that the election had been stolen — did not change course at all,” the Kansas City Star wrote in an editorial calling for Hawley to resign. “Instead, he praised the police, meekly tut-tutted at the violence and delivered more false remarks about nonexistent election fraud just as planned.”

Rabbi Susan Talve, another member of the faith coalition, called Hawley an “opportunist,” who is willing to “sell his soul for his own self-serving interest.”

Last week, Hawley denied trying to overturn the election’s result.

“I never said that the goal was to overturn the election. That was never the point and it was never possible,” he said. “What we need to have are elections that are fair, free and open, and I think Congress needs to do its job and look into election irregularities.”