The editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch urged Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to “bring Trump to justice” during the former president’s upcoming impeachment trial.
The op-ed, titled “Law-and-order Republicans like Hawley need to impose law and order on Trump,” tells the senators they need to focus on the “far-more blatant constitutional violations the world knows Trump committed” during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Although Hawley and Blunt tried to stop the impeachment trial from happening, the paper said “there’s still time for them to switch gears” and vote yes on impeachment.
“There is no way to credibly argue that Trump protected and defended the Constitution when video evidence shows him directing a mob to storm the Capitol and interrupt constitutionally mandated proceedings to certify the Electoral College result,” the board said.
The editorial board pointed to quotes from former President Trump when he spoke at a rally on Jan. 6, during which he said that lawmakers were “bad people” for going forward with the electoral vote certification and that “when you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules” to stop them.
“No wonder members of that crowd then marched to the Capitol, broke windows and entered yelling, ‘Hang Mike Pence!’ Their president directed them on this course, as several arrested protesters stated afterward,” the paper continued.
Many who were arrested after the Capitol riot have said they broke into the building because of Trump’s calls to action. Trump was peddling election fraud conspiracy theories for weeks and would not admit he lost the presidential election.
The paper pointed to Hawley’s words from an interview with Fox News when violence broke out at Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, when he said “We’re going to protect the American people. It’s the first job of the American government … Any elected official who has law enforcement responsibility and won’t do it needs to resign.”
The paper says the law and order theme Hawley took before must be used now.
“The sole responsibility left to Hawley and his colleagues is to enforce the law and bring Trump to justice,” the paper said. “Because any elected official who has law enforcement responsibility and won’t do it needs to resign.”
Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate will begin on Feb. 9. All the Democrats and 17 Republicans would have to vote yes on impeachment for Trump to be convicted and unable to run for office again.
The Hill has reached out to Hawley and Blunt for comment.