“I just remember some of the teachers sitting around and saying, you know, that he was probably going to be president one day,” she said.

But her admiration of the young Hawley has soured into bafflement, anger and even disgust for the leading role he played in sowing doubt about the election’s integrity.

“That’s what ticks me off about Josh so bad. Going along with the ‘Big Lie’ and everything,” said Weibling, now retired and living in Oklahoma…

Hawley’s classmates at Yale Law School remember him as politically ambitious and a deeply religious conservative. But they say they witnessed a startling transformation when he railed against elites as a Senate candidate.

“Josh came across as decent and kind and thoughtful at Yale. Today he seems like a steaming mass of grievance,” said Ian Bassin, who attended Yale with Hawley before going on to work in the Obama White House and found the group Protect Democracy.