New Jersey Congressman Tom Malinowski and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Monday filed a formal censure resolution of Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, for a speech Brooks made just before Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, ultimately leaving five dead.
Brooks in his speech to the crowd near the Capitol on Wednesday called for further action. Moments later, parts of the crowd left for the nearby Capitol, broke into the building and attacked Capitol police officers.
“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks yelled into his microphone.
At least five people, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, have been killed related to the siege. Ashli Babbit, 35, was shot by a Capitol Police officer when she tried to crawl through a broken window inside the Capitol during the siege. Another Capitol Police officer, Howard Liebengood, who responded to the attack, died Saturday off duty, marking the second Capitol Police officer death since Wednesday. Police did not release his cause of death.
The resolution censuring Brooks states that Brooks’ speech “encouraged and incited violence against his fellow members of Congress” as part of an assault that intended to prevent the counting of electoral college votes.
The resolution goes on to say that after the insurrection Brooks “has shown no remorse or regrets for his comments, instead stating ‘I make no apology for doing my absolute best to inspire patriotic Americans.’”
The day after the attack, Brooks told an Alabama conservative talk radio host that he had no regrets over his speech prior to the violence, according to The Intercept, telling the host that there was “mounting evidence of fascist antifa’s involvement in all of this.”
The FBI said on Friday that there was no evidence of antifa aiding pro-Trump supporters in the deadly attack.
“Representative Brooks knew perfectly well what he was doing — and whom he was inciting — when he encouraged the mob set on storming the Capitol to commit violence on Wednesday,” Malinowski said in a statement. “His actions endangered the lives of his fellow members of Congress, the Vice President, and the police officers who bravely tried to defend the Capitol, and he deserves at the very least the formal condemnation of the House.”
“Congressman Mo Brooks aided President Trump in inciting an angry mob of rioters to attack our cradle of democracy by urging a fuming crowd galvanized on lies to ‘stop by the Capitol’ and start ‘kicking ass,’” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. “Not only did Congressman Brooks’ fuel an insurrection against the body he serves in, his words helped spark chaos, destruction, injuries and death. Censure seems too trifling a punishment in this horrific case, but it’s the minimal level of accountability Congressman Brooks should face from the same Congress he goaded rioters to assault.”
