Josh Hawley's schooldays: ‘He made popcorn to watch the Iraq invasion’

Before he became known as a leader in the attempt to try to overturn the presidential election, the Republican senator spent a year teaching at St Paul's, the elite British school, in 2002

Before Josh Hawley became known as a leader of the attempt to overturn the 2020 election in the US Congress, he was remembered by former students and staff at St Paul's, the elite British school for boys where he spent a year teaching, as an aloof, rightwing political obsessive who had made himself popcorn to watch the US invasion of Iraq.

The Republican senator from Missouri has been the target of ire of millions of Americans after he became the first senator to say he would object to election results. Ultimately, 146 congressional Republicans joined the rightwing lawmaker in seeking to block votes from Pennsylvania and Arizona from being counted, an extraordinary move that was seen as stoking the flames of a pro-Trump mob who attacked the US Capitol.