More than 700 Yale and Harvard law school graduates accused fellow alums Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz of an “assault on democracy” and a “grave abuse of power” in separate signed statements over the weekend.
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Hawley, a Missouri Republican and a 2006 Yale Law graduate, and Cruz, a Texas Republican and a 1995 Harvard Law graduate, recently announced their intentions to object to the electoral vote count when Congress convenes in a joint session to confirm the tally on Jan. 6. Some fellow Republicans have refused to join the effort, and now alums of Harvard and Yale law are speaking out.
“Despite his public populist persona and his frequent disparaging of so-called ‘coastal elites,’ [Hawley’s] résumé makes clear that he himself is a product of Stanford University, Yale Law School, the United States Supreme Court, and the prestigious, Washington, DC corporate law firm Hogan and Hartson—that is, a background that indicates that he knows both reality and the law and that what he is pushing is based on neither,” the statement from the Yale law graduates said.
Hawley clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. during the 2007-2008 term, and Cruz was a clerk to the late Justice William Rehnquist during the 1996 term. Hawley’s co-clerks were Anton Metlitsky, now a partner at O’Melveny & Myers, and now Jones Day partner Jason Burnette. Hawley would marry co-clerk Erin Hawley, now of counsel at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington.
The signatories on the two letters included many lawyers from academia, civil rights background and Big Law. One or more attorneys from firms including Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; K&L Gates; Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner; Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Covington & Burling; Munger, Tolles & Olson; Vinson & Elkins; and Cohen Sellers Milstein & Toll signed the Yale or Harvard letter.
The Yale statement said law students are taught “by sheer virtue of belonging to Yale Law School’s community” that they have an obligation to serve the profession with the “utmost integrity.” Hawley, the statement said, “by virtue of his stated intentions, so blatantly fails to meet this standard and disregards everything for which this nation, our legal system, and Yale Law School stand.”
“While Senator Hawley’s effort is obviously doomed to failure, it is still a bare-faced assault on our democracy and a contemptible gesture toward a coup d’etat by President Donald J. Trump and his supporters,” the Yale alums said. “Whether meant to advance the Senator’s own personal ambitions, or to further erode and ultimately destroy the now fragile underpinnings of our two-century old republic, the filing of outlandish objections to lawful Biden-Harris slates would be a grave abuse of power.”
The Harvard statement begins with the oath that elected officials take to defend the Constitution. “Inventing false claims of voter fraud that lawyers are too afraid to present in courts where there are actual consequences for lying, and trying to use the ensuing controversy to challenge a Constitutionally proper proceeding to ratify the decision of the Electoral College is by all fair measures utterly inconsistent with this oath,” it stated.
Cruz and his supporters, the Harvard signatories asserted, are attempting to “undermine democracy and our Constitution by improperly challenging the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice-President of the United States.”
Late Saturday, Hawley, in a lengthy email to his colleagues, responded to widespread criticism of his intent to object. Hawley said his constituents have been “loud and clear” that they believe Biden’s victory was unfair. “It is my responsibility as a senator to raise their concerns,” Hawley said.
Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general who was a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius before election to the Senate, defended his intentions during an appearance Sunday on Fox News.
“We went into this election with the country deeply divided, deeply polarized,” Cruz said, “and we’ve seen in the last two months unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, and that’s produced a deep, deep distrust of our democratic process across the country. I think we in Congress have an obligation to do something about that. We have an obligation to protect the integrity of the democratic system.”
Cruz said he wished the U.S.Supreme Court had stepped into election challenges. “There were two opportunities to take this case. One out of Pennsylvania, one out of Texas, and in both instances, the lawyers asked me to argue those cases.” He added: “I wish the court had taken one or both of those cases. I think the Supreme Court would be a better forum for resolving those issues.”
Several Trump-related petitions are pending at the Supreme Court, and the justices have shown no public interest in expediting them. Dozens of state and federal courts have ruled against Trump or his allies in election-related lawsuits.
Culled from The law
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