OXON HILL, Md. — Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Friday was served a subpoena issued at the request of a Missouri Democrat, immediately after Hawley spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The move prompted Hawley’s office to dismiss the subpoena as a cheap stunt by a Democrat, Elad Gross, who is investigating former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and is also running for statewide office in 2020.
“This is another political stunt by a political candidate,” Hawley spokeswoman Kelli Ford told the Washington Examiner via email. “The reality is that Mr. Gross has been evading a court date to discuss the matter.”
Hawley was handed the subpoena, issued on Feb. 11 by Cole County Circuit Court in his home state, by a process server Gross hired. Gross is running as a Democrat to be Missouri’s next attorney general, the job Hawley held until January after being elected last year to the Senate. Hawley was at the Maryland gathering to speak about conservatives and social media.
Gross told the Washington Examiner he asked for the subpoena as part of an open records investigation into the former governor and other groups and individuals connected with so-called “dark money.” He said he had originally asked the new Missouri GOP Gov. Mike Parsons and current Attorney General Eric Schmidtt, also a Republican, for access to 13,000 Greitens-related documents, but said they wouldn’t turn over the information without him paying $3,600.
Hawley, who is not named in the lawsuit, has sought to quash the subpoena on several grounds, including his position as “a high-level public official,” that he wasn’t served properly, and that it was issued by a clerk rather than a judge.
Gross charges that Hawley was subpoenaed because he is not cooperating, and boasted on Twitter, “we got him.”
We got him.
After more than two weeks of evading service, Senator Josh Hawley was personally served with the subpoena at CPAC.
— Elad Gross (@BigElad) March 1, 2019
The matter will next be heard in court on March 15.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated who served Sen. Hawley. It was a process server not Gross himself.
