Hawley to Archivist Nominee Colleen Shogan: 'You Lied to Us Under Oath' (February 28, 2023)

On February 28, 2023, Colleen Shogan, President Biden’s nominee to run the National Archives, sat for her second confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The committee’s chairman, Sen. Gary Peters, noted that the hearing was being held “at the request of our minority colleagues” [1][2]. Five months earlier, every Republican on the committee had voted against her [3]. This video shows her exchange with Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who read Shogan’s old Twitter posts back to her and accused her of lying under oath; she answered nearly every question with the same sentence. All quotes below are from the official hearing record, Senate Hearing 118-24 [1].

Key Moments

”My mystery novels … and my dog”

Hawley began with Shogan’s Twitter account, which he said she had locked before her first appearance before the committee in 2022. Senators had asked her in written questions for the record (QFRs) to provide her past public posts. Hawley read her written answer aloud: “My personal Twitter account is comprised of posts about my mystery novels, events at the White House Historical Association, Pittsburgh sports teams, travels, and my dog.” He asked whether that was accurate. “Yes, Senator,” she said, and she repeated it after he reminded her she was under oath.

The posts Hawley read

Hawley then described a series of posts from her account, asking each time whether it was about her dog, sports teams or mystery novels. In his descriptions, they included:

February 18, 2022: a post “bemoaning” the end of mask requirements for children, including those under 5.
May 26, 2022: a retweet of “Ban assault weapons now,” agreeing that buyers of so-called assault weapons should have to be a certain age.
January 5, 2021: a post saying Sen. Ted Cruz “ought to stay in his own lane and not worry about what is going on in Pittsburgh,” which Hawley said he took as a reference to Cruz’s questions about certifying the 2020 election.
December 10, 2020: hoping President Trump’s vetoes would be overridden, and agreeing with a post that called him “a weak policy President.”
January 5, 2021: speculating that Trump “would pardon himself next.”
December 3, 2021: advising a user on how to complain about religious flags placed on the grounds of the Library of Congress and have them removed.

To the first, Shogan said she did not remember the post and that “those tweets were in my personal capacity.” After that, to every question about her posts, she gave the same answer: “My social media is in my personal capacity.” She said it 11 times [1].

”You lied to us under oath”

“I have been for four years in the Senate. I have never seen a witness stonewall like this before, never,” Hawley said. Then: “This is unbelievable, and you want to be the Archivist of the United States. You lied to us under oath. You lied to us in your questions for the record (QFRs). You just lied to me a second ago under oath, and now you are sitting here stonewalling, not answering questions about public posts that you made.”

The Shurtleff case

Hawley asked whether she was a lawyer (“No, Senator”) and whether she knew the Supreme Court’s decision in Shurtleff v. Boston (“No, Senator, I am not”). In that case, he said, the Court held “that it constitutes viewpoint discrimination for a government entity to remove religious flags from its property when it has opened up the property for other people to put flags on it.” He told her she had given “legal advice, which you are not qualified to give, directly contrary to the United States Supreme Court."

"Anti-intellectualism”

Finally, Hawley raised an academic article she had written, “Anti-Intellectualism in the Modern Presidency: A Republican Populism,” and her argument that the rise of the religious right was connected to anti-intellectualism in American politics. Shogan said the article “was about how Republican Presidents use common-sense terminology to effectively communicate with Americans.” Hawley closed: “I have never seen a witness blatantly lie under oath like Dr. Shogan has just done to this Committee,” and said he would oppose her nomination.

Background: Why the Archives Job Was So Contested

The National Archives and Records Administration preserves federal and presidential records, and it had been a key player in the classified-records case against former President Trump, which special counsel Jack Smith dropped against him after he won the 2024 election, citing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president [9]. Shogan, a political scientist and mystery novelist who then worked at the White House Historical Association, was not part of that case, but Republicans questioned whether she could run the agency impartially [1][4]. Two weeks after this hearing, Hawley also sought to postpone the committee’s vote, citing a whistleblower, a former employee, who alleged partisan conduct and abusive behavior by Shogan at the Congressional Research Service. Shogan categorically denied the accusations [6].

Her first hearing went the same way. At a confirmation hearing on Sept. 21, 2022, Hawley grilled Shogan over a 2007 paper, “Anti-Intellectualism in the Modern Presidency: A Republican Populism,” The Post Millennial reported. “So is the point that Republicans are stupid and Democrats are intellectual?” Hawley asked. “Absolutely not,” Shogan replied, saying she had been trying to highlight a “rhetorical connection” Republicans have with the American people. Hawley also cited her as saying Ronald Reagan had “less than favorable intellectual capacities” [11].

The Record

“You lied to us under oath.” Shogan’s written answer to the committee described her account as “posts about my mystery novels, events at the White House Historical Association, Pittsburgh sports teams, travels, and my dog” [1]. It said nothing of the political posts Hawley read, on mask rules, guns, Sen. Ted Cruz and President Trump, and she did not deny writing them [1]. Fox News reported that Hawley accused her of “stonewalling” his questions [3].
Shurtleff v. Boston. Hawley’s summary tracked the ruling. On May 2, 2022, the Supreme Court held that Boston’s refusal to let a group fly a Christian flag on a City Hall flagpole “violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment,” because “When the government does not speak for itself, it may not exclude private speech based on ‘religious viewpoint.’” All nine justices agreed with the judgment [5].

What Happened Next

The committee: On March 15, 2023, the committee voted 8 to 4 to send her nomination to the full Senate [6].
Confirmation: On May 10, 2023, the Senate confirmed Shogan 52–45, with three Republicans, Shelley Moore Capito, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, voting yes [8]. She was sworn in on May 17 as the 11th Archivist of the United States [10], the first woman to hold the position permanently [7].
Dismissal: On February 7, 2025, less than three weeks into his second term, President Trump fired Shogan. The White House personnel director, Sergio Gor, announced it on X without giving a reason: “At the direction of @realDonaldTrump the Archivist of the United States has been dismissed tonight” [9].