An old friend called out Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) as a hypocrite and liar, and urged him to return to the Christian principles he'd once respected.
Thom Lambert, a corporate law professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, reacted to a column Hawley wrote for First Things on the GameStop stock market blowup and resulting suspension on trading by the Robinhood platform, which the senator claimed was an attack by elites on "the little guy."
"[Josh Hawley] is lying," Lambert tweeted. "I hate to say that of a friend, but it's true. He's saying things he knows are false. As many have explained, Robinhood halted certain trading to deal with a liquidity crisis. He knows there was no conspiracy to protect hedge funds."
Lambert bashed the Missouri Republican — who graduated from Stanford University and then Yale Law School — for railing against "coastal elites" in an effort to "endear" himself "to regular folks," all the while lying about demonstrable facts on any number of important issues.
"He's said stuff he knows isn't true," Lambert wrote. "Just like he's done when discussing Section 230. And the First Amendment. And the antitrust laws. And the validity of election challenges."
"I know [Josh Hawley] to be a good man," Lambert wrote. "We've discussed matters of faith, and I truly believe he desires to glorify God by doing the right thing. So why does he say things that he knows are not true and that so harmfully divide people?"
Lambert, who tried to recruit Hawley to attend Mizzou Law, said he believes the senator thinks those stances will help him win elections, which will then empower him to make the policy changes he believes necessary — and which his old friend often agrees with — but the law professor shamed his reasoning.
"It's an 'end justifies the means' thing," Lambert wrote. "The problem is that the end doesn't justify the means, at least not for Christians. Jesus clearly taught that his followers are to *be* certain sorts of people, not to achieve certain ends. And a smart person who misleads others to gain power isn't who we're to be."
The law professor pointed out the moral flaw in the Christian nationalism that Hawley and many other Republicans have embraced.
"Christian virtue — truthfulness, kindness, humility, peacemaking — must come first," Lambert wrote. "'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.'"
"This new breed of Christian nationalist may retort, 'Yeah, that's a recipe for continued electoral defeat and ultimately anti-Christian policies,'" he added. "To which Jesus responds, 'What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul?'"
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