Over 7,000 Lawyers Sign Petition To Have Josh Hawley And Ted Cruz Disbarred

More petition problems for the senators.

(Photo by congress.gov via Getty Images)

After the events of last week, the political fates of Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz will forever be intertwined. The pair of senators have superficial similarities in their resumes — each attended an elite law school on their way to becoming Republican senators — but their personal quest for power and acclaim has cemented the duo.

You’ll recall, even before the coup attempt turned violent, they were busy trying to subvert the will of the people by leading the effort to object to the electoral college… a move that was scorned by fellow alums of Harvard and Yale Law. But that wasn’t the end of Hawley’s and Cruz’s petition problems — another one is make the rounds.

The latest legal industry petition was drafted by Yale Law School students and it’s seeking the disbarment of Hawley and Cruz. The petition went live on January 8th, and already some big names, including Senator Russ Feingold, former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter, Harvard Law Professors Laurence Tribe and Michael Klarman, retired U.S. Court of Appeals Judge H. Lee Sarokin, and prominent activist Valarie Kaur, have signed on. As Chandini Jha, a Yale Law student involved in drafting the petition, said, the senators actions run contrary to upholding the rule of law:

“During my legal ethics class, we learned that no lawyer should commit criminal actions that reflect adversely on their honesty or trustworthiness, or engage in dishonest, fraudulent, or deceptive actions. In attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by fanning false claims of voter fraud and inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, that’s precisely what Senators Hawley and Cruz have done. Nobody is above the ethical rules, even members of the United States Senate.”

The petition goes on to link Hawley’s and Cruz’s actions to the violence at the Capitol:

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. A violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. Five people have died. 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.

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It remains to be seen whether disbarment will be one of the consequences the senators face.


headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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