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The publisher Simon & Schuster announced it would cancel the publication of an upcoming book by Senator Josh Hawley, one of several members of Congress who tried to overturn the results of the presidential election.
Hawley, a Missouri Republican and Trump ally, has been criticized for challenging the results and accused of helping incite the mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday.
Hawley’s book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech”, was scheduled to be published in June, but Simon & Schuster said in a statemebt: “We did not come to this decision lightly. It will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints: At the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat.”
In a counter statement on Twitter, Hawley said that the cancellation of his book was an affront to the First Amendment.
“This could not be more Orwellian. Simon & Schuster is canceling my contract because I was representing my constituents, leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity, which they have now decided to redefine as sedition,” he pointed out.
Hawley added: “We’ll see you in court” but to that, Simon & Schuster said in another statement it was confident it was acting within its contractual rights.
The subject of Hawley’s book, which was already available for preorder on Amazon and other retailers, is not about the election or Donald Trump, but about technology corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon. It also remains to be seen whether Hawley will seek another publisher or self-publish the book.
Simon & Schuster, one of the “Big Five” book publishers in the United States, which Penguin Random House agreed to buy in November, has released several major political books in recent years, including “Too Much and Never Enough”, by Mary L. Trump, a niece of the president; “Rage” by Bob Woodward; and “The Room Where It Happened”, by John Bolton, a former national security adviser in the Trump administration.
Source: New York Times
