The senator from Missouri plants his flag for 2024 by swearing to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College count on January 6th.
December 30, 2020

In what most grown-ups would consider a humiliating display of fealty, Sen. Josh Hawley has declared that he will move to block certification of the Electoral College's vote count in Congress on January 6th. This move is also fruitless, as it's bound to do nothing but delay the inevitable certification of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' crushing defeat of Donald Trump at the ballot box, but that apparently doesn't seem to factor in to GOP analysis anymore.

It also runs counter to what Mitch McConnell had planned, and don't get me wrong, I do love anything that makes Moscow Mitch's sphincter itch, but this is truly embarrassing. As CNN's Biana Golodryga and David Chalian discuss, it allows Hawley to plant his flag for 2024's GOP nomination, so what's a little blowing up the Constitution if he can accomplish that little nugget, right?

GOLODRYGA: And despite the embarrassment for the democratic process here, it does raise a question of voter integrity. And Josh Hawley said at the very least Congress should adopt measures to secure the integrity of our election, but Congress has failed to act. In terms of what we have upcoming in Georgia, the two runoffs, the last thing these two senators need to have worry about is people questioning the integrity of their vote. So how does this square?

CHALIAN: The president of the United States is the person questioning the integrity of the Georgia vote. He's been doing so nonstop since November 3rd. Today he called for the resignation of the governor. This is -- let's just be clear, what is different about this time around with Josh Hawley is doing than what we saw in the past is remember in the past, [the 2004 election] John Kerry had already conceded the election. Donald Trump has not conceded the election. He had 50-something lawsuits.

To your point about voter integrity, every single challenge the Trump team brought containing voter fraud was thrown out of court, or dismissed, or ruled against. Just as Attorney General Barr has said, former Attorney General Barr, I guess now, but he said there's no widespread voter fraud here. It's not been found anywhere. So to stand up and make a point about something that's already gone through 50 court cases, and everyone looked at and said it didn't exist seems to me a pure political play to court favor with the base.

To your point, the runoff happens January 5th. This will happen January 6th. Let's see if we have all of the counts in Georgia. It took a while after the general election. We may not even have a result in Georgia.

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