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.

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.

[17] While in high school, Hawley regularly wrote columns for his hometown newspaper, The Lexington News, about such topics as the American militia movement following the Oklahoma City bombing, media coverage of Los Angeles Police Department detective Mark Fuhrman, and affirmative action, which he opposed.

[36] In June 2017, Hawley announced that Missouri had filed suit in state court against three major drug companies, Endo Health Solutions, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Purdue Pharma, for allegedly hiding the danger of prescription painkillers and contributing to the opioid epidemic.

[44] In August 2018, One Nation, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit connected to Republican campaign strategist Karl Rove, ran commercials giving Hawley credit for identifying the problem, a claim The St. Louis Post-Dispatch labeled misleading, because he had been responding to issues raised by law enforcement, survivors and advocates, rather than originating an investigation.

[43] In September 2020, his successor, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, announced that of the 16 rape kit tests that were consequently uploaded to the national DNA database, 11 revealed the names of known criminals, and were referred for possible prosecution.

[48] In December 2017, The Kansas City Star reported that Missouri's Republican Governor Eric Greitens and senior members of his staff used Confide, a messaging app that erases texts after they have been read, on their personal phones.

[64] Hawley later published an op-ed in the Springfield News-Leader, explaining that he supported protecting those with preexisting conditions by creating a taxpayer subsidy to reimburse insurance companies for covering these high-cost patients.

[69] On November 14, 2022, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem ruled that Hawley violated Missouri's open records law during his 2018 U.S. Senate campaign by withholding emails between his out-of-state political consultants and his taxpayer-funded staff.

[87] His campaign spokesperson asked, "Will Senator McCaskill ignore her liberal donors and support Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State, or will she stick with Chuck Schumer and continue to obstruct the president?

"[92] A 2021 New York Post investigation of questionable campaign expenditures revealed that Hawley had apparently illegally spent such funds, for instance charging $80.04 at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville to "travel", on a lobbyist-funded junket to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.

[97][98] At a campaign event at First Baptist Church in Ozark, Missouri, Hawley falsely claimed that the proposed Amendment 3, an abortion rights initiative, was related to transgender health care.

[111] Hawley joined President Donald Trump in his calls for an increase of the initial $600 coronavirus relief checks provided by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 to $2,000, which put him on the same side as "unlikely ally" Bernie Sanders.

David Humphreys, who with his mother and sister donated more than $6 million to Hawley's campaigns, called for him to be censured, having "revealed himself as a political opportunist willing to subvert the Constitution and the ideals of the nation he swore to uphold".

[166] After the storming of the Capitol, several people sent disparaging messages intended for Hawley to Representative Josh Harder, a California Democrat, as they had confused the two due to their names' similarity.

[168] On July 21, 2022, the House Select Committee broadcast video footage of Hawley running through the halls of Congress to escape the mob on January 6, contrasting it with his earlier fist-raised encouragement of the crowd.

[188] In December 2020, Hawley teamed up with Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, to demand that any new stimulus deal include direct payments of at least $1,200 to American workers.

[191] In 2023, Hawley introduced the Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act, a bill that would reverse aspects of Citizens United v. FEC, specifically banning publicly traded companies from making independent expenditures, political advertisements for campaigns, and Super PAC contributions.

[192] As Missouri attorney general, Hawley pushed for the deregulation of environmental protections put in place by President Barack Obama, and filed four lawsuits against the Trump administration in an attempt to expedite that process.

[197][198][199] He has criticized the ideas of perpetual war[197] and cosmopolitanism,[200][201] for which he has blamed both the left and right wings,[200] saying that "the quest to turn the world into a liberal order of democracies was always misguided," as it "depended on unsustainable American sacrifice and force of arms.

[209] On July 10, 2020, Hawley sent a letter to NBA commissioner Adam Silver criticizing the league for allowing players to put messages on their jerseys supporting the Black Lives Matter movement but not the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests or law enforcement officers.

"[210] During his 2018 Senate campaign, Hawley's press office sent out an email criticizing Claire McCaskill for supporting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, writing, "We should be standing with President Trump and Israel today.

[218][219] In July 2019, Hawley traveled to McAllen, Texas, along the Mexico–United States border, saying, "the nonstop flow of drugs and human trafficking coming into this country is a crisis, plain and simple.

"[231][232] On April 3, 2019, Hawley was part of a group of eight Republicans and seven Democrats to sponsor the Venezuelan Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance and Development (VERDAD) Act, which was aimed at recognizing Juan Guaidó as the president of Venezuela rather than Nicolás Maduro.

[64] He later published an op-ed in the Springfield News-Leader saying that he supports protecting those with preexisting conditions by creating a taxpayer subsidy to reimburse insurance companies for covering these high cost patients.

[257] In June 2020, after the Supreme Court ruled that federal law prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, Hawley criticized the decision, saying it "represents the end of the conservative legal movement".

[261][262] Hawley was accused of transphobia after an exchange in a Senate hearing on Roe v. Wade,[263][264] negative comments about transgender people in reelection campaign fundraising emails, and a speech at the National Conservatism Conference.

"[279] On May 5, 2020, Hawley wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the abolition of the World Trade Organization, arguing it did not serve American interests and "enabled the rise of China.

[282] The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an editorial blasting Hawley and Senator Roy Blunt for not distancing themselves from the January 6, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol and their continued support for Trump.

[182] Hawley was sharply critical of Ketanji Brown Jackson's 2022 nomination to the Supreme Court, saying her tenure as a judge and member of the United States Sentencing Commission showed a "pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes".