In his first public remarks following a wave of criticism over surveillance footage that showed him fleeing the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 after raising his first in solidarity with the mob that would later break into the building, Josh Hawley says he “is not backing down”.
The Missouri Republican was the first US senator to announce his objection to the chamber’s certification of the Electoral College vote count, triggering debate in Congress and stoking a mob fuelled by Donald Trump’s baseless narrative that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him.
