Nearly 6,000 students and lawyers have signed an open letter calling for the disbarment of Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley over their alleged involvement in sabotaging the certification of the Electoral College vote validating president-elect Joe Biden's win in the 2020 U.S. election, HuffPost reported Tuesday.
In the petition, it says that in leading the efforts to subvert the peaceful transition of power following a free and fair election, "Senators Cruz and Hawley attacked the foundations of our democracy," HuffPost reported.
The opposition by the Republican bloc to Election College results were not successful. The two legislators, respectively representing Missouri and Texas, were prominent among 147 senators and congressmen who supported the late-night effort Wednesday, even after angry rioters incited by outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol.
Both Hawley and Cruz have denied the accusations.
The petition was launched by seven Yale law students and has rapidly grown to include influential public figures like former senator Russ Feingold and Harvard professor Laurence Tribe, according to The Washington Post. Just two days after being posted on social media, the open letter had generated over 5,000 signatures.
Cruz and Hawley are described as being "unfit for membership in the legal profession," and for having "flagrantly violated some of the most elementary ethics rules" governing it.
Cruz's longtime friend, Chad Sweet, on Monday said the senator "must be denounced" adding he could no longer support him.
Former chief White House ethics legal counsel Richard Painter and retired appeals court judge H Lee Sarokin also signed the petition to disbar Cruz and Hawley.
Meanwhile, the New York Bar Association is said to be also looking into moves to disbar Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor and attorney to Trump, for his involvement in inciting the crowd ahead of the Capitol siege.
