Josh Hawley isn’t serious about Biden and the 25th Amendment. There’s a word for that | Opinion

Josh Hawley can be a troll sometimes.

“Troll,” if you haven’t heard, is an online term for people who like to provoke for the mere sake of provocation. And Missouri’s senior senator often fits the bill.

Remember last year, when he celebrated Independence Day by posting a fake Patrick Henry quote that actually originated in a white nationalist magazine? Trolling. How do we know? Because he neither apologized nor corrected the record when his error was pointed out. Instead, he seemed to delight in the outrage he had caused.

That’s not something serious people do. Just U.S. senators from Missouri and too-online billionaires like Elon Musk, people who play at being serious while being glib and occasionally malevolent. It’s not really the greatest company.

Now Hawley is at it again.

Last week, he publicly demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland invoke the 25th Amendment — the one that allows a president to be replaced if they’re incapacitated — against President Joe Biden, or else prosecute Biden for mishandling classified documents during his time as a private citizen.

Biden “should either resign as unfit or face criminal prosecution,” Hawley wrote in a social media post later published as part of a press release. “Can’t have it both ways.” Monday night, on Sean Hannity’s show, he doubled down. “Biden isn’t fit to be president — everybody knows it — and if Democrats had any integrity, they’d admit it and invoke the 25th Amendment,” he wrote on X afterward.

Trolling.

Why? Some background: All of this comes out of special counsel Robert Hur’s Thursday report detailing the investigation into Biden’s handling of those aforementioned documents.

It was a big deal because Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, faces federal criminal charges in Florida for taking classified files from the White House and keeping them long after the National Archives asked for their return.

Fair’s fair, right?

Well, maybe not. Hur recommended against charges for Biden, even though the president “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” while out of office.

The next part is what made the biggest headlines, though. Hur wrote that if he did prosecute Biden, the president would probably just come across as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Ouch.

Anyway, the “elderly man with a poor memory” line gave Hawley room to attack. “Merrick Garland,” he wrote on social media, “has a duty to invoke the 25th Amendment to his fellow Cabinet members.” The angle was good enough to get him on Fox News.

So why do I doubt Hawley’s sincerity?

This appears to be the first time the senator has shown much public interest in the 25th Amendment. It’s not like there’s been a shortage of opportunities, unfortunately. There was a lot of talk during Donald Trump’s presidency — both before and (especially) after the Jan. 6 insurrection — that the man was too erratic, too dangerous to the country and its Constitution to continue in office.

Hawley, as far as I can tell, was silent during these debates. Convenient!

The senator was pretty vocal, though, when federal prosecutors charged Trump with crimes for mishandling the classified documents, including top-secret files about the U.S. nuclear program.

“This is not about Donald Trump ultimately. This is about the United States of America,” he said on Fox. “This is about whether the Constitution is still real in this country. This is about if any American can expect the due process of law.”

That was then. Now? Hawley believes Biden’s rather less egregious missteps warrant either prosecution or expulsion from office.

Funny, that.

What Hawley isn’t telling his audience is that Hur’s report didn’t hinge solely on Biden’s possible “elderly man” defense. The special prosecutor also acknowledged the president had allowed prosecutors to search his home and answered investigators’ questions — and had also offered “innocent explanations” that prosecutors “cannot refute.”

“Just as a person who destroys evidence and lies often proves his guilt,” Hur wrote, “a person who produces evidence and cooperates will be seen by many to be innocent.” The evidence, he added, “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Hur’s report was more complex and nuanced than you’ve heard from most media reports. It was serious. Hawley’s take on it? Trolling.

Joel Mathis is a regular Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle Opinion correspondent. He lives in Lawrence with his wife and son. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.