Thousands Petition For Disbarment of Senators Hawley and Cruz

Thousands of law school alumni and students, including from Yale Law and Harvard Law, are calling for the disbarment of Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) over their efforts to halt the counting of electoral votes.

The petition has more than 7,500 law school alumni and students, including over 1,800 members of the Missouri, Texas, and District of Columbia Bars.

“In leading the efforts to undermine the peaceful transition of power after a free and fair election, Senators Hawley and Cruz attacked the foundations of our democracy,” the petition reads.

Nearly 160 million Americans voted in the November 2020 election. And while President Trump claimed voter fraud, dozens of courts rejected those claims with the Electoral College formally certifying that President-elect Biden had won.

“Despite these clear expressions of the will of the people—and with full knowledge of the implications of their actions—Senators Hawley and Cruz publicly announced their intentions to object to Congress’s certification of the Electoral College’s votes set for January 6, 2021,” the petition reads.

CALL FOR DISBARMENT

Alumni and students of Harvard Law and Yale Law are urging for the immediate disbarment of Hawley and Cruz, The Washington Post reports. Cruz is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Hawley graduated from Yale Law School.

“The senators’ actions to undermine democracy by spreading false claims of voter fraud and inciting insurrection violated the ethical and professional obligations of all members of the bar, and as aspiring lawyers, we thought it was important to speak up,” Daniel Ki, a Yale Law student who helped start the petition, tells The Washington Post.

On January 6, a mob of Trump supporters stormed and rampaged the Capitol. Five people died. Many are criticizing President Trump for encouraging the riot.

But the petition’s signees also point the involvement of Senators Hawley and Cruz in inciting the violent insurrection.

“Senators Hawley and Cruz directly incited the January 6th insurrection, repeating dangerous and unsubstantiated statements regarding the election and abetting the lawless behavior of President Trump,” the petition reads. “The nation and the world watched as rioters took over the very halls and chambers that embody our democracy. Yet after the violence and terror of the day’s events, Senators Hawley and Cruz still chose to stand in the chamber of the U.S. Senate and persist in their baseless objections to the will of the people.”

Read the full petition here.

Sources: Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian