Mo Brooks and the Art of the Deal
or never anger a co-conspirator
Conventional wisdom has held that Donald Trump throwing his former attorney Michael Cohen under the bus over the Stormy Daniels debacle was his biggest mistake. Actually, it wasn’t throwing Cohen under the bus per se that was the mistake, it was threatening Michael Cohen’s family that was the mistake.
In response to that threat, Trump’s fixer (really his pitbull) came after Trump with a vengeance providing critical information about Trump’s taxes, business interests, and assorted other legal malfeasances. Without Cohen’s cooperation, most of Trump’s legal problems over his taxes et al. would be mere conjecture and well-reasoned hypotheses.
Michael Cohen has just become the second biggest mistake made by Donald Trump. It turns out that unendorsing Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) for the U.S. Senate is now Number One.
Trump’s political endorsements at the primary level run the gamut of meaningless to ineffective, and his selection of Mo Brooks, the most loyal and ardent of Trump supporters in Congress, as his prefence to replace the retiring Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) was hardly surprising. But the moment Mo Brooks sidestepped away from the 2020 “Big Lie”, Trump questioned Brooks’ loyalty
Why? Probably because Mo Brooks wrote this in a campaign statement.:
“The only legal way America can prevent 2020’s election debacle is for patriotic Americans to focus on and win the 2022 and 2024 elections so that we have the power to enact laws that give us honest and accurate elections. 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 Jan. 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period.”
Certainly a pragmatic statement as well as an ethical opinion from a licensed attorney. The problem is Trump sees the truth as a mirror to what he wants, ethics as weakness, and loyalty as a one-way street. People must be loyal to Trump — there is no quid pro quo in that modus operandi.
So, Donald Trump unendorsed Brooks who has been running a distant third behind Mike Evans and Katie Britt in the Alabama Senate primary field. Brooks has been Trump’s most ardent loyalist on the 2020 Election1, and Brooks in full body amour spoke to the January 6th rally that it was time for “American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass!”
The decision to dump Brooks from Team Trump was summed up best by conservative political commentaor Charlie Sykes:
“As God is my witness, these are words I never thought I would write: Too crazy for Mo Brooks. But what Trump was asking was too unconstitutional, too illegal, too undemocratic, too coup-like, and too insane… even for Mo Brooks.2”
Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin summed up the situation Trump has created for himself vis a vis with Brooks thusly:
“If Trump asked Brooks to rescind the election, as Brooks alleged, and if Trump understood from Brooks that there was no legitimate way to overturn the election, Trump’s risk of being charged with obstruction of an official proceeding (i.e., the electoral-vote-counting session), attempting to defraud the United States or seditious conspiracy increases dramatically.”3
Mo Brooks has not precluded testifying4 before the January 6th Committee nor has he walked backed his campaign statement. Perhaps Brooks took a page from Art of the Deal:
"[W]hen people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me, my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard. The risk is you'll make a bad situation worse, and I certainly don't recommend this approach to everyone. But my experience is that if you're fighting for something you believe in — even if it means alienating some people along the way — things usually work out for the best in the end."5
The open question is best for whom: Trump or Brooks?
Brooks continuously argued that Trump won the 2020 Election well into late 2021 if only “legal votes” were counted.
The Bulwark, March 24, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/mo-brooks-turns-on-donald-trump-endorsement-jan-6-committee/
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/jan-6-panel-mo-brooks-00021484
Art of the Deal, Donald Trump and Tony Schwartz, 1987.