By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Monday, June 24, 2017, US Representative Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) was in in Pell City meeting with the St. Clair County Republican Executive Committee. Rep. Brooks said that when this campaign started he said that he would focus just on the issues unless he was attacked.
Since then Senator Luther Strange (R) and his allied PACs have spent a fortune on negative ads attacking Brooks. Brooks said, “I have come under attack from one of them so the gloves are off.”
Congressman Brooks said, “It is important that we elect people with the highest ethical standards to office especially to something like US Senate.”
Brooks who began his career as a Tuscaloosa County District Attorney, said, “We have ethical standards that are used in a prosecutor’s office.” One of those is that you do not, “Try to interact with a criminal defendant for personal gain.”
Brooks said that when Luther Strange interviewed with Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (R) seeking the Senate appointment that the ongoing criminal investigation was held over the governor’s head. “That was wrong. To make it worse there was a denial.”
Brooks said that we the public did not know that there was still an active Attorney General’s office investigation until Steve Marshall was appointed AG and then has to recuse himself and appoint Ellen brooks, which ultimately resulted in the Governor pleading guilty and being removed.
Brooks said that when he was a prosecutor the “Defense bar called me: Maximo because of the tough sentences I asked for.”
Brooks said that no ethical prosecutor would ever meet with the target of a prosecution seeking personal gain.
Brooks also said that Luther Strange acted unethically by accepting campaign contribution from the Drummond Company while he was using his office as Attorney General to fight the EPA expansion of a Superfund site in Birmingham. An expansion that would have cost Drummond money.
Former State Representative Oliver Robinson (D-Birmingham) has pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from Drummond and prominent Birmingham Law firm Balch and Bingham tp fight the controversial Superfund site expansion.
Brooks said that he as a DA, as a State Legislator, as a county commissioner, and as a member of Congress has never had an ethics complaint filed against him that he knows of.
Strange on the other hand has had an ethics complaint filed against him with the Alabama Ethics Commission by a group of citizens led by attorney Sam McLure (who is now a candidate for Alabama Attorney General. The complaint alleges that Strange acted improperly by seeking the appointment from embattled Governor Bentley and by asking that the House Judiciary Committee suspend its impeachment investigation of Gov. Bentley.
Strange has attacked Brooks for not supporting President Trump. Brooks said that as Senator Ted Cruz’s Alabama Chairman he had a duty to Senator Cruz to do everything he could to prevent Trump from winning the Republican nomination.
Brooks said however that once Trump had the nomination he wrote a $2,500 check so the Mighty Alabama Strike Force could travel to Florida to win the State for Trump and that since Trump has been inaugurated he has voted with the President 96.5 percent of the time.
The two are both running for the Senate seat vacated when Senator Jeff Sessions (R) was confirmed as US Attorney General.
The major party primaries are on August 15, 2017. If necessary, the major party runoff will on September 26. The Special General Election will be on December 12, 2017.
