Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley slammed President Joe Biden’s “unbelievable” use of the Justice Department against his chief competitor, former President Donald Trump, claiming the move is “unprecedented in American history.”
Appearing on Pete Mundo’s KCMO morning talk show on Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) described the timing of the most recent indictment of Trump as “no coincidence.”
“You see this pattern going back even to the ridiculous New York indictment, the Manhattan prosecutor, which also came after revelations about the Bidens,” he stated.
“So I think they made it very clear this justice department is going to everything and anything it can to try and prevent Trump from running against Biden because Biden knows this is a guy who is leading in the polls, is his strongest competitor and he is going to try and sideline him,” he added.
Is it really a coincidence that Biden’s corrupt DOJ indicted Trump on the heels of Devon Archer’s damning testimony of Hunter and Joe’s foreign-influence peddling? pic.twitter.com/ko9kv1jfBR
— Senator Hawley Press Office (@SenHawleyPress) August 2, 2023
According to Hawley, the move is unprecedented in American history.
“We are in truly uncharted waters here,” he warned. “The fact that Joe Biden is using his DOJ to try and kneecap his chief competitor is just unbelievable.”
The Missouri senator charged that the real aim of the indictment is to harm Trump “however they can” and “prevent him from running.”
“Let’s not forget, this is a party — the Democrats and the Democrat leadership — that has been obsessed with proving Trump to be a spy, a criminal, [and] a Russian colluder, from before he was elected the first time,” he stated.
“So this has become, I think, a true obsession, and they would like to see him prevented from running at all,” he added.
Calling their number one goal to get Trump “tried” and “convicted,” Hawley suggested they would then argue that the constitution prevents him from running, which he claimed is “wrong.”
“But I’m sure we’ll hear that from the left really soon,” he stated, adding, “if they can’t succeed in that, goal number two is [to] try to harm him.”
The senator also explained that the whole ordeal is really about “everybody and anybody” who voted for or supported Trump.
“They want to delegitimize anybody who has supported Donald Trump, who has supported conservatives in the last two elections, and that’s where it really, really gets dangerous,” he stated.
“That’s why you see all the intimidation … of parents at school board meetings; that’s why you see the intimidation of Catholic pro-life protesters,” he added. “This justice department has gone all in on treating anybody who disagrees with them politically as a threat to our country, as terrorists. And again, that is just unprecedented in American history.”
President Joe Biden following a bilateral meeting with Britain’s Prime Minister on July 10, 2023, in London, England. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Hawley claimed that the attempt to “delegitimize” any and everybody who has ever voted for Trump has been “well underway” for years:
In 2016, they were trying it, and they’re certainly trying it again now, and I think that’s not gonna succeed. Will they succeed in their efforts to take him down? I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what I think is absolutely true: they’re burning bridges here. They crossed the Rubicon, as the old expression goes; and they are burning the bridges behind them, and it is extremely dangerous because what is going to happen [is] future presidents are going to look back on this and they’re going to say: “Hey, I’ll pressure my DOJ to indicate my opponents; I’ll ask my DOJ to open up investigations into my opponents; I’ll try to get the FBI to get wiretaps on my opponents. I’ll [do] this stuff the Democrats have done for eight years” — [which is] extremely dangerous.
Asked how he would advise Republicans who are going to be on the ballot next year in light of the recent indictment, Hawley called on Republicans to “focus on what people care about and getting this country back on track: getting jobs back to this country; getting the cost of healthcare down; getting the cost of prescription drug prices down; [and] taking on China to stop their cheating [and] destroying our industries.”
“These are the things the Biden administration is failing at, so they want to talk about Trump,” he claimed. “They want to talk about these sham indictments. That’s what they want, and I would just say that I, for one, am not going to be distracted from what they are trying to do.”
Hawley vowed to call out the current administration’s “lawlessness” because they have made the indictments a central campaign issue.
“With their lawlessness now and their attack on the rule of law, we have got to point that out for what it is,” he stated.
“But if they think that that means Joe Biden is going to get a free pass and that we’re not going to prosecute the case against Joe Biden and everyone who has enabled him and agrees with him on what they have done to this country; what they have done to our jobs; what they have done to enable China — their making China rich, their making America poor; that’s what Joe Biden has done,” he added. “That has got to be front and center and we can’t allow the democrats to change the subject to something else.”
Hawley expressed his belief that the 2024 presidential nominee will undoubtedly be Donald Trump, having repeated it “for the better part of a year now.”
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women Lilac Luncheon, June 27, 2023, in Concord, NH. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
“I think it’s going to be Trump vs. Biden, and I sure as heck know who I’m going to support in that match-up,” he stated. “I just think it’s a done deal.”
“Listen, voters get to vote, but I think Trump is the nominee,” he concluded.
Following Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Tuesday announcement that a grand jury in Washington, DC, had indicted former President Donald Trump on charges relating to the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Republican officials slammed Smith’s “political witch hunt” targeting “every one of his supporters,” while expressing support for Trump in the face of “serial election interference.”
Trump was indicted on four counts: conspiracy to defraud the U.S.; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
The announcement was made the day after President Biden had been implicated in a long-running influence peddling scheme by his son Hunter’s former business partner, Devon Archer, in testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
The former president has now been indicted three times: in Manhattan, in April, on state charges relating to payments to porn star Stormy Daniels; in Miami, in June, on federal charges relating to White House documents; and in Washington, on Jan. 6.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
