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WASHINGTON, DC – Calls are mounting for U.S. senators who have enabled President Donald Trump over his term, and who have repeated and amplified his fraud claims about the 2020 election results, to be ousted.

Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, who introduced measures to try and overturn the election results, and 138 Republican members of the House of Representatives together with another nine U.S. senators objected to the election results, even after the riots on Capitol Hill, although three senators subsequently changed their minds. Regardless, roughly two-thirds of House Republicans continued to support Trump’s election claims after the riots, including the top two House Republicans, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Minority Whip Steve Scalise.

Many including some Republicans blame President Trump for Wednesday’s violent assault which resulted in the deaths of five people but have also fingered well-known enablers of the president, Cruz, Hawley, and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. “There’s no question the president formed the mob. The president incited the mob,” Wyoming Senator Liz Cheney, a Republican, said Thursday. “He lit the flame.”

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis said: “His use of the presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo-political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”

General H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, on Thursday, tweeted: “The reasons for yesterday’s criminal assault on our Congress and election process are many. But foremost among them is the sad reality that President Trump and other officials have repeatedly compromised our principles in pursuit of partisan advantage and personal gain.”

‘Those who engaged in disinformation and demagoguery in pursuit of self-interest abdicated their responsibility to the American people. It was, in every sense of the phrase, a dereliction of duty,” McMaster added.

New York Attorney General Letitia James posted on Twitter: “I’m calling on @TheJusticeDept to launch a full investigation into Wednesday’s attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol, instigated by President Trump, Trump family members, and members of Congress. All who fanned the flames that led to this failed coup must be held responsible.”

James called for the Justice Department to specifically investigate the legal culpability of the president, his family, and his advisors, as well as members of Congress, for directly inciting Wednesday’s attack. The New York attorney general’s office, in a statement released Thursday, said: “Immediately before the mob stormed the Capitol, President Trump made his wishes explicit, telling an angry crowd, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try [to] give our Republicans the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.” Similar statements were made by members of Trump’s family and others close to him – including Donald Trump Jr., who told the mob that “This gathering should send a message,” while simultaneously warning members of Congress who did not back the pro-Trump efforts that “We’re coming for you;” Eric Trump, who told the rioters, “And we need to march on the Capitol today. And we need to stand up for this country;” and Trump lawyer Rudy Guliani, among others, who called for insurrectionists to partake in “trial by combat.”

James also weighed in on reports President Trump may issue pardons for himself, his family, and his allies, saying: “that the president’s issuance of pardons under corrupt circumstances could render him vulnerable to prosecution when he leaves office on January 20. Additionally, any pardon President Trump could possibly issue would only pardon him from federal crimes. Any state or local investigations and potential charges would not be affected and would proceed.”

Two senators, in particular, have taken heat over Wednesday’s violence, Senators Cruz and Hawley.

“Sen. Cruz, you must accept responsibility for how your craven, self-serving actions contributed to the deaths of four people yesterday,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said in a tweet posted Thursday, prior to the death of a fifth person who subsequently died of their injuries. “And how you fundraised off this riot. Both you and Senator Hawley must resign. If you do not, the Senate should move for your expulsion.”

Cruz responded with a tweet: “Leading a debate in the Senate on ensuring election integrity is doing our jobs, and it’s in no way responsible for the despicable terrorists who attacked the Capitol yesterday.”

“And sorry, I ain’t going anywhere,” he added.

The embattled Texan senator later defended his actions further by back-flipping and pointing the finger at the president.

“I do think the president’s rhetoric and his language has been over the line,” Cruz said. “I think it was irresponsible. I think it was reckless. And I think he needs to recognize it.”

Cruz went on in defense of his actions in objecting to the election results: “Millions of Americans who have peacefully expressed their deep concerns regarding election integrity deserve to have their voices heard,” he said in a statement published Thursday. “I very much wish Congress had not set aside these concerns, but I respect the position each of my colleagues took. Debate in the two houses of Congress is the proper way to resolve our political differences, not through violent attacks.”

Cruz’s comments however did not go down well however with some fellow senators. There can be no normalizing or looking away from what played out before our eyes this week. The violent mob that attacked the Capitol was made up of people who don’t accept democracy and want to take this country by use of force. This is not how we keep our people and our country free,” Washington Senator Patty Murray said in a statement released on Friday.

As a Senator, I respect every member who disagrees with my ideas. I reserve my right to use my voice to fight for what I believe in. But at the end of the day, our job is to keep this country a democracy where voices win, not brute force. Any Senator who stands up and supports the power of force over the power of democracy has broken their oath of office. Senators Hawley and Cruz should resign, Murray said.

Asked about Cruz and Hawley’s role in Wednesday’s violent attack, President-elect Joe Biden inferred their fate should be left to voters in Texas and Missouri – at the next election.

“I think they should just be flat beaten the next time they run,” Biden said Friday.

“The American public has a real good clear look at who they are, they’re part of the big lie, the big lie.”

“The big lie” was a term used by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” Goebbels was once quoted as saying.

Cruz responded Friday night to Biden’s remarks with a tweet, saying: “Really sad. At a time of deep national division, President-elect Biden’s choice to call his political opponents literal Nazis does nothing to bring us together or promote healing. This kind of vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart.”

Senator Hawley also hit back. “President-elect Biden has just compared me and another Republican Senator to Nazis. You read that correctly. Think about that for a moment. Let it sink in. Because I raised questions in the format prescribed by the laws of the United States about the way elections were conducted in the state of Pennsylvania, just as Democrats did about other states in 2001, 2005, and 2017, he is calling me a Nazi. This is undignified, immature, and intemperate behavior from the President-elect. It is utterly shameful. He should act like a dignified adult and retract these sick comments. And every Democrat member of Congress should be asked to disavow these disgusting comments,” the senator said in a statement published on Friday.

(Photo credit: Andrew Harnik | AP).