Thursday, January 07, 2021

David Humphreys: Senate should censure Josh Hawley "for provoking yesterday's riots in our nation's capital"


By Rudi Keller

A Joplin businessman who helped bankroll Sen. Josh Hawley’s first campaign denounced him on Thursday as a “political opportunist” who used “irresponsible, inflammatory, and dangerous tactics” to incite the rioting that took over the U.S. Capitol Building.

In a statement late Thursday, David Humphreys, president and CEO of Tamko Building Products, added his voice to a growing chorus of Republicans angry at Hawley for leading a challenge to the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Humphreys called on the U.S. Senate to censure Hawley “for provoking yesterday’s riots in our nation’s capital.”








The statement to The Missouri Independent came a few hours after Hawley’s political mentor, former U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth, said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that supporting Hawley was “the worst mistake I ever made in my life.”

It also came on the same day that the publisher Simon & Schuster canceled a contract with Hawley for a book it had expected to release in June.

Prior to 2020, Humphreys was a major donor to Missouri Republicans. Along with his sister, Sarah Atkins, and his mother, Ethelmae Humphreys, his family provided $4.4 million of the $9.2 million Hawley raised for his 2016 campaign for attorney general.

David Humphreys personally donated $2.875 million.

In 2018, when Hawley used his office as a springboard for a Senate bid, the Humphreys provided an estimated $2 million to independent groups supporting Hawley.

Humphreys’ full statement, as provided to The Independent:

“In October 2016 I publicly voiced my opposition to Donald Trump in the NY Times saying ‘At some point, you have to look in the mirror and recognize that you cannot possibly justify support for Trump to your children…’

“I need to say the same about Missouri’s U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, who has shown his true colors as an anti-democracy populist by supporting Trump’s false claim of a ‘stolen election.’ Hawley’s irresponsible, inflammatory, and dangerous tactics have incited violence and further discord across America. And he has now revealed himself as a political opportunist willing to subvert the Constitution and the ideals of the nation he swore to uphold.








“Hawley should be censured by his Senate colleagues for his actions which have undermined a peaceful transition of power and for provoking yesterday’s riots in our nation’s capital. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to protect our country and its Constitutional underpinnings.”

Hawley’s Senate office did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Humphrey and his family donated about $16 million to Missouri Republicans for the 2016 election cycle, but he has broken with the party and its leaders in significant moments. In April 2018, he urged then-Gov. Eric Greitens to resign amid investigations of an alleged sexual attack in 2015 and improprieties in campaign financing. Greitens did not resign until late May 2018, when it became clear that the Missouri House would impeach him.

And in 2019, he urged Gov. Mike Parson to veto a restrictive abortion law that outlawed the procedure after six weeks and included no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Parson signed the bill and Humphreys bankrolled an unsuccessful petition drive to force a referendum on the law.

Hawley was the first U.S. Senator to announce he would join with House members to file written objections to the electoral votes of several states where Trump has claimed, without showing proof, that fraud had cost him the election.

The debate on those objections was just beginning Wednesday when a mob of Trump supporters, fresh from a rally where Trump asked them to march to the Capitol, forced their way into the building. Amid clashes with police, a woman from San Diego was killed by police gunfire and several officers were injured.

After the building was cleared and debate resumed, half the Senators who had planned to vote for the objections changed their minds. Hawley did not, and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who sits behind Hawley in the Senate, said this:

“Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate democratic election will forever be seen as complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.”

Simon & Schuster announced about 5 p.m. that it would not publish “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” which was expected in June.

“We did not come to this decision lightly” the company stated. “As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints; at the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.”

Hawley responded by calling the action a “direct assault on the First Amendment” and accusing the company of breaching its contract. He added that he would sue the publisher.

“This could not be more Orwellian” Hawley said in a statement posted on Twitter. “Simon & Schuster is canceling my contract because I was representing my constituents, leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity, which they have now decided to redefine as sedition.”

Rudi Keller covers the state budget, energy and the legislature. He’s spent 22 of his 30 years in journalism covering Missouri government and politics, most recently as the news editor of the Columbia Daily Tribune. Keller has won awards for spot news and investigative reporting.

12 comments:

Dorothy Fulks, Webb City, MO said...

Ah, yes. I remember when Mr Humphreys used his company as a sponsor for a banquet in Joplin, MO in October, 2017, for 400 area first responders. As part of the evening's festivities, which were described as the attendees being "treated like royalty," they got to listen to guest speaker, then Missouri Attorney General, Josh Hawley.

At the time it seemed to me to be a great campaign event for Josh Hawley. All on the Humphreys' dime. Money talks.

https://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/tamko-holds-banquet-honoring-first-responders/article_3bb0cced-d4ea-5232-85f1-1a069af0ccaa.html

I appreciate that Mr Humphreys has seen Josh Hawley for what and who he is, but Hawley campaigned for the Senate as a stanch supporter of Donald Trump. I knew him then.

Anonymous said...

Censure is not enough, should be recalled and thrown out. This is a waking moment when Missouri voters need to look at their choices and decide this is not who they are or should not be. The republicans now in office represent a fringe group of want-a-be's that do not care to honor our nation's history and only care about their own pocket books and what is in it for them. Wake up and look at their real intentions of control and keeping real workers(Americans) down in the bottomless pit.

the trumpsters really are deplorables said...

Josh Hawley gave his clenched fist salute to Trump's Poo Anon just before they desecrated the US Capitol.


WITH POOP


https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-trump-capitol-riot-poopers-20210107-prlsqytyabgdhnexushotl4nam-story.html


"

They took a dump on the seat of American democracy — literally.

Some of the unhinged pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday defecated inside the historic building and “tracked” their feces in several hallways, the Daily News has learned.

A source close to Sen. Chuck Schumer said staffers to the New York Democrat found out about the fecal fiasco on Thursday.

The vile attackers, whose violent invasion of the Capitol left five people dead, apparently went No. 2 in a bathroom and then smeared their extremist excrement around the building, leaving behind brownish “foot-prints,” the source said."






Anonymous said...

Haven't seen or heard much from rabid Trumpster Brother Ben Baker lately.

Anonymous said...

Here's yet another frightening thing about Hawley: He doesn't know how the U.S. Constitution works. He claims the cancellation of his book deal is a violation of his First Amendment rights. The First Amendment says *Congress* shall not limit free speech. It puts no such restriction on a publishing house. He should know that.

Anonymous said...

What about all the BLM riots across the nation in the last several months. All the leaders and those who provokes those riots where there were deaths, looting and destruction of business and property should be prosecuted and locked up.
How soon we forget the sins of the democratic party, left wing extremists.
Hypocrites.

Anonymous said...

What does Mr Humphreys intend to do to atone for his sins?

Apparently his money exceeds his brains by enough to make him dangerous if he keeps getting fooled into making and then funding allegedly seditious traitors like Ivy League Hawley.

Perhaps the country would be safer if Mr Humphreys donated 90% of his fortune to food banks across the nation and made a public promise to never again swing his overstuffed wallet in any political arena.

Anonymous said...

Tiny violins for all the butt hurt conservatives.

Hope you stayed away from the Washington DC mess Trump and you traitorous Republicans made, otherwise the FBI may be checking your social media and then knocking on your door for a social visit.


Keep your dentures in and at least one pair your overalls clean in case you get invited to go for a ride downtown!

Anonymous said...

Really makes you wonder how much money there is in awful quality shingles. Too much apparently.

Anonymous said...

Not buying it, Humphreys. You're smart enough to run a big company. You're smart enough to have seen through Hawley.

Anonymous said...

Mr Humphreys didn't plan to ride along with Josh Hawley on Hawley's Humphrey financed rocket ride to greatness and power?



All the way to the White House?


What did Mr Shingles think was in all this for Mr Shingles?

Or was Mr Shinglese just giving the nation Hawley in all his expected greatness for free?

Is this what libertarians are known to typically do?


Because I personally don't see too many truly libertarian traits in Mr Hawley's behavior.



Perhaps Mr Shingles has multiple shortcomings as a kingmaker?









Anonymous said...

Calm down Turner. Neither you nor the Joplin Globe have any credibility given that Jesus Christ whipped the temple thieves and run them off in his day. You might like election fraud but a lot of people don't. So some people rioted after being let in at the Capitol outhouse. What of it? None of them clowns represent me.

Gotta laugh at how some rich guy who bought politicians like Howdy-Doody Hawley is all blubbery at his defective sock-puppet. Should have told Hawley that he was supposed to keep lawsuits away from defective shingles and regulate the metal-roofing inductry rather than go to the District of Corruption and get a big head.

You bought a lemon when you paid for a sell-out like you got with Danforth. The Hawley warranty is as worthless as for a Tamko shingle. Tough luck. At least he didn't run a BDSM Navy SEAL Republican Family Values Rape-Dumgeon like Greitens.