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Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who famously fired up Donald Trump’s January 6 mob before fleeing from it, on Tuesday came antagonizingly close to having an epiphany about the lawlessness that is currently occurring in the White House. 

Hawley, a part-time populist who harbors poorly concealed presidential ambitions, likes to turn his committee appearances into performances that, after some careful editing, become viral video clips featuring himself as the hero and whoever the witness is as a villain.

Just google “Hawley grills” and you’ll find a selection of the telegenic senator taking to task everybody from insurance or airline executives (like we said, he is a part-time populist) to Biden administration figures. 

On Tuesday, however, things didn’t quite go his way during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the supposed excesses of district court judges using nationwide injunctions to halt some of the Trump administration’s actions. 

To be fair, Hawley (or at least the person who puts those video clips together and runs his social media account) seems to feel that he scored some points in a confrontation with University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Kate Shaw, which is why you can find a couple of them on his Twitter feed.

In reality, however, he just comes across as rude and, when he allowed Shaw to get a word in, it demonstrated why the hearing was a massive self-own for Republicans.

What they wanted to show is that liberal district court judges hate Trump so much that they are issuing injunctions against him at a clip that is much higher than during other presidencies. 

This is a frequent complaint of the president that has not only led to him firing off some late-night social media rants but also a spike in threats against these judges.

And yet, Republicans are trying to make them the bad guys.

The part that they don’t mention is that Trump uses executive orders more than any other president, and that he is far more lawless than all of his predecessors. 

Shaw pointed this out when Hawley produced a chart showing that far more injunctions were issued against Trump during his first term than his contemporaries. 

“A very plausible explanation, Senator, you have to consider is that he [Trump] is engaged in much more lawless activity than other presidents,” she said. “You must concede that as a possibility.”

Shaw also pointed out that it is not just “liberal judges” ruling against Trump but also those appointed by Republicans… including by the president himself. 

In addition, while conservative groups engaged in “judge shopping” under previous Democratic administrations, i.e., they filed their suits in jurisdictions with the most conservative judges, courts from all over the country have ruled against Trump. 

This isn’t to say that this is not going on at all right now. However, this is also born out of necessity since many of these cases are being filed in Washington, DC, which is a good venue for Democrats but also the appropriate jurisdiction for cases brought against the administration. 

Ultimately, all that Hawley (and other Republicans during the hearing) are accomplishing is that they are putting judges in greater danger by painting them all as anti-Trump partisans… even if the facts do not back up that assertion at all.

The ultimate goal, of course, is to weaken one of the last institutions that remains standing between Trump and authoritarian rule… and once again, Hawley is encouraging those who pose a real threat to democracy and the rule of law.

In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.