Shutdown bill over Jan. 6 probe could make Josh Hawley $500K richer | Opinion

Editor’s note: Following publication, Sen. Josh Hawley’s office provided a statement. It is included below.

Good news for Sen. Josh Hawley is terrible news for taxpayers and the truth.

Congress this week passed a bill to end the record-breaking federal government shutdown. That is good.

But the bill includes a provision that lets Hawley and a few other MAGA-fied senators sue the Justice Department for looking at their phone records during the investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

The senators — Hawley among them — can now sue the government for $500,000 for every “violation” of a law that didn’t exist when the records were originally sought.

That’s bad. But it makes sense.

Almost from the beginning, Josh Hawley has profited from his involvement in the events of Jan. 6, 2021. (You’ll remember that he led efforts to block Electoral College certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.)

Following the insurrection, the Missouri senator lost a book contract. But his campaign also quickly raised $3 million from supporters of Donald Trump — a huge jump from the $43,000 he took in during a similar election a few years earlier.

What’s more, Hawley’s campaign website still sells merch emblazoned with the image of his infamous fist-bump salute to Trump’s supporters the day of the riots. For $20 you can purchase a “Show Me Strong White Coffee Mug” to celebrate the senator’s enabling of a notorious assault on American democracy.

A disgraceful law

While the senator has made it clear he thinks the investigation that swept up his phone records is outrageous, his office stated in an email Thursday that he is against the provision:

“I think the Senate provision is a bad idea. There needs to be accountability for the Biden DOJ’s outrageous abuse of the separation of powers, but the right way to do that is through public hearings, tough oversight, including of the complicit telecomm companies, and prosecution where warranted.”

Sounds like he’s saying he’ll have the good sense — or good grace — not to take taxpayer dollars.

Still, he has accused prosecutors of tapping his phones. (Collecting call log data after the fact — what investigators did — is not the same as listening to phone conversations, which most people consider “tapping.”)

Anyone involved in collecting his phone data “needs to be PROSECUTED,” Hawley said last month on X.

Let’s be clear: That new law is actually a disgrace.

It’s a disgrace because the investigation was righteous. As I’ve said before, “The insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, was a crime. The investigation of it was not.” Prosecutors trying to make sense of that day were always going to try to connect the dots. Hawley was one of the dots.

It’s a disgrace, because it tilts the playing field. As the New York Times reported, the law “sharply limits” the Justice Department’s defenses against the lawsuits — “taking away any government claims of qualified or sovereign immunity.” Regular folks who end up the victims of government overreach don’t often get that deal. Powerful senators do, because they make the rules. Lucky them.

And it’s a disgrace because it is the latest effort to rewrite the history of Jan. 6.

Trump, Hawley haven’t moved on

After Donald Trump and Josh Hawley were re-elected last year, I was going to try to move on from bringing up the insurrection again and again. The voters had spoken, it seemed.

The problem: Trump, Hawley and their friends haven’t moved on.

Trump ordered clemency for the insurrectionists on his first day back in office, saying his act ended a “grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people.” His administration has fired a slew of agents who investigated the events of Jan. 6, punishing them for doing their jobs.

Allies like Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri are vowing investigations into the investigation. Now Hawley and a few of his Trumpist colleagues are eligible for “damages” for getting swept up, if peripherally, in the inquiry.

It’s all part of a movement to transform Trump into the victim of Jan. 6 instead of its author. Which is a violation of the warning from the book of Isaiah: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.”

A half-million here and a half-million there are mere drops in the bucket compared to the federal budget. Not a big deal.

But the new law — whether or not the senator takes advantage — can’t and won’t alter the truth: Josh Hawley’s actions on Jan. 6 were dishonorable. They deserved scrutiny. All the taxpayer money in the world can’t change that.

This story was originally published November 13, 2025 at 1:25 PM.