Danforth: Don’t focus on Hawley running, focus on his call with Giuliani

Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth has seen the video of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley running out of the Senate on Jan. 6, 2021. He understands why people are sharing it. But he thinks they’re missing the bigger picture.

In the second half of the hearing, the U.S. House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol revealed that Rudy Giuliani, who was leading Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, called Hawley, along with six other members of Congress, shortly before they resumed the vote to certify the election.

“I mean that was certainly a scene, but I thought what was more important than any of that was the disclosure that Giuliani had called him that afternoon,” said Danforth, who represented Missouri from 1976 to 1995.

The content of the conversation between Hawley and Giuliani was not disclosed. The committee played a voicemail Giuliani left for Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, asking him to slow down the process of certifying the election.

Hawley’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Danforth led the public effort to recruit Hawley to run for Senate in 2018. In aftermath of the insurrection, Danforth has publicly flagellated himself for his role in Hawley’s rise. He said the phone call raised questions about Hawley’s involvement in the effort to overturn the presidential election. It had been previously reported that Hawley missed a call from then-President Donald Trump on the morning of the Jan. 6 attack.

Hawley’s name had not come up in previous hearings, raising questions about how closely he was involved in the attempt to convince state legislatures to overturn the election results. Hawley’s objection focused on a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that dismissed a lawsuit against the state’s mail in ballots on procedural grounds.

He said last month he focused on the legal argument and not Trump’s unsubstantiated theories about voter fraud because his area of expertise is in the law, not fraud.

“The reason I didn’t base my objection on fraud is that I just don’t know about that,” Hawley said. “I can’t adjudicate that. I don’t have all the information and that’s why I’ve never hung my hat on that. But I could look at the legal stuff. I’m a lawyer.”

Still, while Danforth urged people to focus on the call with Giuliani, some Missourians continued to criticize Hawley for the contrast between the fist he raised to protesters the morning of the insurrection and the fact that he ran from the Senate chamber once they had breached the Capitol.

State Rep. Keri Ingle, a Lee’s Summit Democrat, said the video of Hawley was embarrassing for the state of Missouri. She called on members of the Missouri Republican Party to hold the junior senator accountable for his actions on Jan. 6.

“He likes to tout himself as being a really strong man and overtly masculine, and this was the epitome of cowardice,” Ingle said. “That he wanted to look like a strong man when he was being protected, and then immediately ran away from all of the action that he helped make happen. He needs to be held accountable by the folks from his own party.”