The Democrats' absurd ethics complaint against Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley

 Houston Chronicle:

Sen. John Cornyn is defending his fellow Texan senator Ted Cruz against an ethics investigation of Cruz that Democratic senators requested.

Seven Democratic senators asked the chamber's ethics panel to determine whether Cruz and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley failed to put “loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or government department” when they objected to certifying Arizona's electoral votes for President Joe Biden, the Houston Chronicle's Benjamin Wermund reports.

Cruz and Hawley's objections have been accused of encouraging a mob of former President Donald Trump's supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, which resulted in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol police officer.

Cornyn called the ethics complaint the “politics of personal destruction” in an interview with Fox News, the Dallas Morning News' Elizabeth Thompson reports.

“I don’t think Senator Hawley or Senator Cruz should be penalized in any way for making an argument," Cornyn said. "Maybe it didn’t carry the day, but I think they have every right to make the argument."

Cruz and Hawley voted to object to certifying Arizona and Pennsylvania's election results on Jan. 6, hours after a mob breached the Capitol and delayed the certification process. Both senators have faced widespread calls to resign.

The complaint filed against Cruz and Hawley alleges that their objections gave credibility to Trump's baseless claims of election fraud.

“By proceeding with their objections to the electors after the violent attack, Senators Cruz and Hawley lent legitimacy to the mob’s cause and made future violence more likely,” the senators wrote in the ethics complaint filed Thursday. “The Senate has the exclusive power to determine whether these actions violated its ethics rules, to investigate further conduct of which we may not be aware that may have violated these rules, and to consider appropriate discipline.”
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The media's routine allegations that Trump's claims of vote fraud are baseless are in fact baseless.  Anyone with normal comprehension knows that Pennsylvania and Georgia unconstitutionally changed their voting requirement without the approval of the legislature as is set out in the Consitution.  There were also questionable events in other states where Trump was unable to get a trial on the merits of his complaints.  Until there is a real investigation of the irregularities and vote fraud, it is grossly misleading to say his claims are baseless.

The allegations against Cruz and Hawley are another example of the Democrats' politics of fraud.  They know that the objections were part of the constitutional process of approving the electoral vote.  The attacks are in bad faith.  Note that the Democrats did not have a problem with the process when objections were filed to Trump's vote.