Conservatives Praise Josh Hawley Proposal to Dismiss Impeachment Trial

Conservative grassroots groups praised Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) legislation Friday to dismiss the Democrats’ impeachment trial.

Sen. Hawley said Thursday that he will introduce legislation Monday to dismiss House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. The Missouri senator contended that because Speaker Pelosi has yet to send the articles of impeachment to Congress’s upper chamber, the Senate should dismiss the trial.

“In real world, if prosecution doesn’t proceed with case, it gets dismissed. So on Monday, I will introduce measure to dismiss this bogus impeachment for lack of prosecution,” Sen. Hawley tweeted Thursday.

Sen. Hawley’s legislation has garnered praise from some of the conservative movement’s most influential groups, including the Club for Growth and the Tea Party Patriots.

The conservatives’ endorsement of the Hawley bill follows as a Harvard CAPS/Harris survey found that 58 percent of Americans say that Speaker Pelosi should send the articles of impeachment to the Senate, compared to 42 percent who say Pelosi should hold up the articles in the House of Representatives.

Scott Parkinson, the vice president of government affairs for the Club for Growth, wrote in a tweet Friday that the Hawley resolution could pressure Pelosi to stop withholding the articles of impeachment.

Parkinson wrote:

@HawleyMO‘s rules change proposal is a smart one – it increases pressure on Pelosi to quickly decide how to move fwd. Meanwhile, it’s a tough & revealing vote for Senators on the fence who want to consider precedent of previous impeachment trials.

Depending the process on how Hawley executes the motion/resolution – it could really be an effective maneuver that pressures action by Pelosi and/or McConnell.

Depending the process on how Hawley executes the motion/resolution – it could really be an effective maneuver that pressures action by Pelosi and/or McConnell.

— Scott T. Parkinson (@ScottTParkinson) January 3, 2020

Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, tweeted Friday that every moment Speaker Pelosi delays sending the articles of impeachment over to the Senate, it signals that impeachment was nothing more than a “political exercise.”

She wrote, “Kudos to @HawleyMO for pushing hard for what a majority of Americans want – for @SpeakerPelosi to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate, so we can have a trial.”

“Every day she waits, Speaker Pelosi undercuts her argument about urgency, & adds to the evidence this was never anything more than a political exercise,” Martin added.