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Josh Hawley

American lawyer and politician (born 1979)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ23020745
Source-derived summary

Joshua David Hawley (born December 31, 1979) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Missouri, a seat he has held since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Hawley served as the 42nd attorney general of Missouri from 2017 to 2019, before defeating two-term incumbent Democratic senator Claire McCaskill in the 2018 election. He was reelected in 2024.

Born in Springdale, Arkansas, to a banker and a teacher, Hawley graduated from Stanford University in 2002 and Yale Law School in 2006. After being a law clerk to Judge Michael W. McConnell and Chief Justice John Roberts, he worked as a lawyer, first in private practice from 2008 to 2011 and then for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty from 2011 to 2015. Before being elected Missouri attorney general, he was also an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, and a faculty member of the conservative Blackstone Legal Fellowship.

As Missouri attorney general, Hawley initiated several high-profile lawsuits and investigations, including a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, an investigation into Missouri governor Eric Greitens, and a lawsuit and investigation into companies associated with the opioid epidemic. His political beliefs have been described as populist and socially conservative.

In December 2020, Hawley became the first senator to announce plans to object to the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 United States presidential election. He led efforts in the Senate to do so.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Josh Hawley” as american lawyer and politician (born 1979). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1979, 2019, 2017, 2018—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1979-12-31, 1979-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where Josh, Hawley and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american lawyer and politician (born 1979). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23020745. VIAF identifies the subject as 66800040. The Library of Congress control number is no2021047254. 3 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 5 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 2019, 2017 and 2018.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Josh Hawley”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Josh Hawley primary sources, Josh Hawley archive and Josh research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Josh Hawley”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Josh Hawley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.