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““He always brings up, ‘We’ve got to rescind the election. We’ve got to take Joe Biden out and put me in now.’””
That was Republican Rep. Mo Brooks telling his local Alabama TV station CBS 42 about how former President Donald Trump has asked him to rescind the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden.
Trump has repeatedly made false claims about widespread voter fraud in 2020, and it should be noted that Brooks once supported these debunked claims. But the Alabama Republican, who is running for his state’s open Senate seat, has recently been singing a different tune: claiming that he keeps telling Trump that there is no legal basis for removing Biden from office.
On Wednesday, Trump withdrew his endorsement of Brooks for the Senate, in part because of remarks that Brooks has made about moving on from the 2020 election, and looking toward future races in 2022 and 2024, instead.
“Very sad but, since he decided to go in another direction, so have I,” Trump wrote.
Brooks responded with his own statement, writing: “President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period.”
And Brooks wrote that he was prepared to lose Trump’s endorsement. “I’ve told President Trump the truth knowing full well that it might cause President Trump to rescind his endorsement,” he continued. “But I took a sworn oath to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution. I honor my oath. That is the way I am. I break my sworn oath for no man.”
This is a big reversal for Brooks. On Jan. 6, 2021, hours before the insurrection at the Capitol Building complex., Brooks told a large crowd that, “I’ve got a message that I need you to take to your heart, and take back home, and along the way stop at the Capitol!” He also went on to say that “today is the day that American patriots start taking down names, and kicking ass.”
But the split from Trump has raised speculation that Brooks might now cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
Former Vice President Mike Pence also recently stated that Trump was “wrong” to suggest that either he or Congress could decertify the legitimate 2020 election results in any way.
“I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election,’” Pence said at a Federalist Society event in Florida last month. “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.”
