Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama on Wednesday said Donald Trump had asked him to “rescind” the 2020 presidential election, “remove” President Joe Biden from his office, “immediately put” Trump back in the White House and hold a new special presidential election.
The congressman later told NBC News that Trump proposed the series of events to restore him to the presidency after Sept. 1, more than seven months after Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.
ISTM that this, if true (and it is coming in the immediate wake of Trump withdrawing his endorsement of Brooks’ senate campaign), is qualitatively different than Trump’s many other transgressions. Because this is the first - best as I recall it - where Trump was attempting to act outside of any legal or political framework. Asking some congressman to just unilaterally depose the president seems like straight-up overthrowing the government to me, and I can’t see why this should be treated any different than some random revolutionary who attempts to overthrow the government.
Is there any conceivable justification for the DOJ to not get in contact with Brooks about this immediately?
You run into the “was he lying then, or is he lying now?” problem. Brooks earlier denied that there were any efforts to overturn the elections, just popular outrage and fiery speeches.
Exactly what did he expect Brooks to do? How was one Senator going to toss out the election results? I don’t think 100 Senators could rescind the results, even with 435 House members going along for the ride. Donnie seems to believe in magic.
This is my question. Who is Brooks that this request had any chance at actually happening?
There’s no single person who has the legal authority to do what Trump asked, so it can’t be that Brooks’ office is the important bit. So it has to be something either entirely imaginary, or illegal. And who is Brooks, to be the one to stage an actual coup? What legions of minions does he command?
There’s just so much here that doesn’t make sense, which convinces me that Trump really did ask Brooks to “rescind the election”.
Brooks’ earlier denials were about the January 6 rally. (Brooks himself gave a “fiery speech” at that rally.) He’s now saying that Trump asked him to do depose Biden “after Sept. 1, more than seven months after Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021”.
We don’t know that the only one he requested this of is Brooks. He might have been hoping a lot of Republican officeholders would go along.
Again, Trump just withdrew his endorsement of Brooks’ Senate campaign, which is what inspired Brooks to announce this, months after he alleges that Trump made his request. Trump could have make similar requests of any number of other allies, who have chosen not to mention it.
I feel like Brooks is also a pretty awful actor in this as well. He was willing to keep Trumps treason (or whatever crime you want to tag it with, something serious) secret in order to keep that criminal’s endorsement.
As to criminal charges, unless Trump sent him an e-mail with the request, this seems like the definition of hearsay.
Hearsay is when you have evidence of a crime that you only know from what someone else told you. E.g. “Joe told me he saw Mike rob the bank”. In this case, Trump’s speech would be the crime itself, and Brooks would be a direct witness to that.
In any event, I don’t know if you could convict Trump based on Brooks’ word alone. But if you talk to Brooks and get more details, and ask who else Trump might have spoken to about it etc., you might get a case.
It’s also a statement against Brooks’ own interests. He’s essentially confessed to keeping Trump’s crime a secret for months now, in order to protect his own interests, which is itself, if not actually a crime, at least crime-adjacent.
IANAL, but can asking for something impossible even be a crime? If I ask my neighbor to steal a 747 by sucking it out of the sky with a magnet, would he be obliged to report that request to authorities?
That’s only slightly more impossible than a single US senator rescinding a presidential election nine months after the winner’s inauguration.
Meaning, my opinion of Brooks - a strong Trump supporter and “Stop the Steal” inciter - was pretty low already. How much lower it would go based on this would depend on whether he was keeping quiet about a serious possible coup attempt, or just something that even he recognized as just a Trumpian lunatic coup attempt.
