7 of Ted Cruz’s Senate colleagues call for probe into his potential role in Capitol insurrection
- Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons
- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz
And the woes keep piling up for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Seven Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday, asking for the body’s Ethics Committee to investigate whether the Texas Republican and fellow GOP conspiracy theorist U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri contributed to inciting the deadly Capitol insurrection.
Cruz and Hawley led a high-profile objection to the counting of Electoral College votes, citing repeatedly debunked claims that widespread voter fraud enabled Joe Biden to win the presidency.
“The question the Senate must answer is not whether Senators Hawley and Cruz had the right to the object to the electors, but whether the senators failed to ‘[p]ut loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or Government department’ or engaged in ‘improper conduct reflecting on the Senate’ in connection with the violence on January 6,” the seven Democrats wrote.
The lawmakers asked the Ethics Committee to offer disciplinary recommendations that could include expulsion or censure. The signers include Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse, Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono and Virginia’s Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s former vice presidential running mate.
In a statement to CNN, a Cruz spokesperson accused Democrats of “playing political games by filing frivolous ethics complaints against their colleagues.”
The call for an investigation comes as Cruz’s hometown newspaper demanded he resign, former colleagues accused him of selling out his principles and nearly three in four Americans say they don’t trust him to protect democracy.
Just in case any of his constituents are keeping score.
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