Earlier this month, the select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol issued subpoenas for five Republican members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville).
Tuesday, Brooks was confronted about the subpoena by MSNBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard during an interview on “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”
Brooks, who is also a candidate for U.S. Senate, continues to deny that he has received any subpoena from the committee.
“I haven’t been subpoenaed yet,” Brooks protested. “I haven’t been served anything. They haven’t served me anything. The subpoenaing process does not conclude until you receive the subpoena.”
During the interview, Hillyard asked Brooks why he would not talk to the January 6 committee.
Brooks responded by saying some requirements would have to be met before he agreed to sit down with them.
“I have tried to go through the steps that would be required,” Brooks said, “most importantly, that it be done in public, that it not be secret and clandestine.”
Hillyard then interrupted Brooks saying, “[S]o, you would do a public hearing. You would sit down for one.”
Brooks expressed his frustration at being interrupted, saying, “There you go, you’ve interrupted me again. There are four parts to all of this, and I get past one, sometimes two, and you interrupt me before I can conclude.”
The Senate candidate argued that the goal of the committee was not about finding real answers but instead an attempt to make Republicans look bad before the midterm elections.
“In my judgment, along with the other Republican colleagues,” he explained, “it is a propaganda effort. It is not an effort to discern the truth. If they really wanted to discern the truth, then they would’ve done what we’ve done throughout the history of the House of Representatives. We would’ve had a bipartisan committee where the Democrats select their people, Republicans select their people, and they combine so that you get all the viewpoints from all the witnesses instead of it being a one-sided sham that is designed to impact the election in 2022. That’s all it’s about now.”
Hillyard also brought up Brooks’ comments during a rally on January 6 and asked why he was wearing body armor that day.
“Because of the threats that we had discerned related to what may transpire at the ellipse caused by Black Lives Matter or Antifa elements,” Brooks responded. “It had nothing to do with pro-Trump supporters. Not in any of the rallies that I’ve ever heard about with Donald Trump has there been any violence that later on ensued. So, to emphasize this point, when I got back to the Capitol where the actual violence occurred, I wasn’t wearing my bulletproof vest. I’d taken it off.”
At the end of the interview, Brooks made a quick point on why he had chosen to stand up to the committee.
“[I] hope this conversation confirms that we in Alabama, our state motto is, we dare to defend our rights,” he concluded.
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Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
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