Mo Brooks Reportedly Wore Body Armor to Trump’s January 6 Rally, Drawing Mockery From Eric Swalwell
Rep. Mo Brooks wore body armor while addressing the throngs of Trump supporters assembled at the Elispse on January 6th according to a stunning report from Slate’s Jim Newell. Rep. Eric Swalwell, who is suing Brooks and other Republican members of Congress for inciting the violence at the Capitol that occurred after that speech, found that detail all too delightful not to share with CNN’s Erin Burnett during a Wednesday night appearance on the show.
Newell interviewed Brooks recently, the details of which were published Wednesday, and included this passage:
Then, to prove his point about preparation, he revealed a new detail to me: that because of a tip he’d received about potential violence, he’d been wearing body armor at the very same Ellipse speech in which he encouraged rally attendees to “start taking down names and kicking ass.”
“I was warned on Monday that there might be risks associated with the next few days,” he said. “And as a consequence of those warnings, I did not go to my condo. Instead, I slept on the floor of my office. And when I gave my speech at the Ellipse, I was wearing body armor.
“That’s why I was wearing that nice little windbreaker,” he told me with a grin. “To cover up the body armor.”
He didn’t say who warned him, or what the “risk” was that he’d been warned about. There were probably a “half-dozen different motivations that affected people in varying degrees” to engage in insurrection. He named, for example, “financial losses suffered because of the government’s reaction to COVID-19,” “the belief that there was significant voter fraud and election theft activity,” or “a great love and respect for President Trump.”
Swalwell and Rep. Jimmy Gomez filed a suit in March against Brooks and former President Donald Trump for “emotional distress” caused by the attack on the capitol on Jan 6th. The suit, filed in the federal District Court for the District of Columbia, also named the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as well as Rudy Giuliani, who served as an attorney to the president, and Brooks. Each of the men spoke at the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C. that preceded unrest in the nation’s capital.
Swalwell was invited on Burnett’s CNN show to discuss Brooks’ failed legal maneuvers to have the case dismissed. He has claimed that the remarks made during the January 6th rally were within the scope of his duties as a House Member, but the DOJ rejected the request for legal protection, noting that his remarks at the Trump rally say they were almost entirely political.
Asked about the DOJ’s decision, Swalwell said “It’s the right call, Erin, and if you’re a taxpayer, I don’t think you expect that within your representative’s job duties that includes what you saw Mo brooks do right there.”
He then cited the Slate report that he was “wearing a windbreaker to conceal body armor” which to him, represented “foreknowledge he knew he was standing before a violent mob and chose those words anyway. That’s outside the bounds of any representative’s duties.”
“You could see in the speech he’s speaking from a prepared statement,” Swalwell continued. “That not only shows premeditation and the foreknowledge by wearing body armor, he’s standing before a mob assembled by Donald Trump that was incited by Mo brooks and Donald Trump and aimed at the capitol to stop the count and threaten the members inside.”
Burnett appeared to be learning of the report for the first time and called it “stunning.”
Watch above via CNN.
