The Republican senator Josh Hawley must stop using an infamous picture of him raising his fist to protesters at the US Capitol on January 6 on campaign merchandise, the news site Politico said.

The shot was taken on 6 January 2021 as Hawley, from Missouri, made his way into the Capitol for the certification of electoral college results in Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.

Supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” in defense of his lie about electoral fraud attacked the Capitol. The attempt to stop certification failed but Hawley was one of 147 Republicans to lodge objections regardless.

A bipartisan Senate report connected seven deaths to the riot. Trump was impeached.

In February, Hawley’s campaign started selling $20 mugs featuring the picture, with the caption “Show-Me Strong”, a play on Missouri’s “Show-Me State” nickname.

The picture was taken by E&E News, which Politico bought in December. On Monday, Politico said it had sent a cease and desist letter and said: “We do not authorize [the picture’s] use by the Hawley campaign for the purpose of political fundraising, which the campaign has been put on notice of by legal counsel.

“We are eagerly awaiting a response, but in the interim again respectfully ask that the campaign immediately cease and desist unauthorized use of the image.”

A spokesperson for Hawley said: “We haven’t received any correspondence from Politico or anyone else, but we are in full compliance with the law. Perhaps Politico can show us the correspondence they sent to the many liberal groups who also used the photo.”

Politico has allowed the Associated Press to use the photograph for editorial purposes.

On Tuesday morning, the mug featured on the front of Hawley’s website.

As reported by E&E News, a fundraising email in February said: “Liberals are so easily triggered, and this new mug is really whipping the left into a frenzy!”

It also said the mug was “the perfect way to enjoy coffee, tea, or liberal tears! Check it out below, and order one for yourself or any woke friend or family member that you want to trigger!”

Hawley told the Huffington Post: “It is not a pro-riot mug. This was not me encouraging rioters.”

He also said he was not condoning violence when he raised his fist.

“At the time that we were out there,” he said, “folks were gathered peacefully to protest, and they have a right to do that. They do not have a right to assault cops.”

Hawley was widely criticised for the gesture, and in the aftermath of the riot saw Simon & Schuster cancel plans to publish his book.

In the book, The Tyranny of Big Tech, Hawley said he had been “branded a ‘seditionist’ and worse. But like many others attacked by the corporations and the left, my real crime was to have challenged the reign of the woke capitalists”.

Responding to a Guardian report, he wrote: “Oh dear. I’ve offended the delicate sensibilities of the Guardian! I didn’t get their approval before I wrote my book. Order a copy today and own the libs.”

The book was released by a rightwing imprint distributed by Simon & Schuster.

As the Guardian reported, according to public financial disclosure records, Hawley turned out to have “invested potentially tens of thousands of dollars in the very companies he denounces”.