Recently, there’s been a bit of a stir in Missouri regarding the residency of our Attorney General. Bear in mind, this is a statewide office. However, per Missouri law, the Attorney General “shall reside at the seat of government.” Our current Attorney General, Josh Hawley, resides about 20 minutes outside of Jefferson City, in Boone County, but maintains an apartment in Jefferson City.

While attending an event in Warrensburg, MO, yesterday, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) added her two cents:

“The law’s pretty clear. There’s never been an attorney general in the history of our state that hasn’t lived in Jefferson City because the law says ‘shall.’ Listen, I’m a Mizzou-educated lawyer, but I can keep up and I know what the word ‘shall’ means in the law,” said McCaskill, a former Jackson County prosecutor.

 “And I know he went to Yale, I think, or Harvard — one of those, one of those fancy ones — I think they taught him the same thing that shall means shall,” McCaskill said of Hawley, who obtained his law degree from Yale University.

“So if it’s shall then you must live in Jefferson City … so there’s a problem here,” McCaskill said. “Either he’s violating the law by not living in Jefferson City or he’s violating the law by voting in some place he doesn’t live. One of the two.”

Now, here’s where it gets extra interesting: Hawley is exploring a run for U.S. Senate in 2018. Who holds that seat currently and is running for re-election? Why, Claire McCaskill, of course!

Missouri Rising Action, a group dedicated to defeating McCaskill’s re-election bid, wasted no time in issuing a biting response:

If McCaskill Wants To Talk Residency, Let’s Talk Residency…

In an ironic twist, Claire McCaskill is criticizing her potential opponent over a residency issue. How she managed to launch an attack on this issue with a straight face is anyone’s guess.

Remember, this is the same Claire McCaskill that claims to represent the people of Missouri, but spends the bulk of her time in a $2.7 million dollar condo at “one of Washington’s poshest addresses’.”

Hypocrisy, thy name is “Claire.” It is rather interesting, with everything going on in the world and in our state, that Claire “I never met with Sergey Kislyak, except for that time I tweeted about it” McCaskill is zeroing in on this nitpick of an issue. Hawley’s prospective candidacy must have her a bit nervous.

Not that she’ll be interested in this Missouri lawyer’s advice, but…she also might want to rethink her angle: “I’m a Mizzou-educated lawyer, but I can keep up,” isn’t going to sit all that well with Missouri voters. Hawley may have earned his law degree from Yale, but he’s living and working in the heart of Missouri now. And did I mention he was an Associate Professor…at Mizzou’s law school?