A right-wing political activist and an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rally previously posted videos on social media claiming that Congressman Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, was involved in the planning of the Jan. 6 demonstration that led to a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
That activist, Ali Alexander — who, according to The Daily Beast, is now in hiding — posted a video days prior to the riot in which he named Brooks and Arizona U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs as in on the plan.
Alexander made similar statements implicating all three lawmakers in two other separate videos.
“So I want to let you guys know how we’re responding, because I was the person who came up with the January 6th idea, with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks and then Congressman Andy Biggs,” Alexander said in the live stream video, which was archived by Jason Paladino, an investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, prior to Alexander’s Twitter account being suspended Sunday.
“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress, while they were voting, so that who we couldn’t lobby, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside,” he said.
Brooks is facing the possibility of a House censure after New Jersey Congressman Tom Malinowski and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Monday filed a formal censure resolution for a speech Brooks made just before Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, ultimately leaving five dead.
“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks told the crowd before the riot began.
Clay Mills, Brooks’s spokesman, sent a statement to APR on Tuesday in response to questions about Alexander’s comments. In the statement, Mills said Brooks did not plan the Jan. 6 rally with Alexander.
“Congressman Brooks has no recollection of ever communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is. Congressman Brooks has not in any way, shape or form coordinated with Ali Alexander on the January 6th ‘Save America’ rally. Congressman Brooks spoke at the ‘Save America’ rally at the invitation of the White House (the invitation was extended the day before), not anyone else. Congressman Brooks never incited violence, as has been egregiously and falsely claimed by his political opponents and the Fake News Media who distort Congressman Brooks’ remarks, take them out of context, and thereby sully Congressman Brooks’ reputation for political advantage. As the words in the speech unambiguously reflect (see the very preceding sentence to the ‘take name’ sentence), Congressman Brooks gave his ‘take names’ remarks in the context of winning elections in 2022 and 2024, and sought to motivate despondent Republicans into seeking change at the ballot box in 2022 and 2024. The only action Congressman Brooks asked the rally attendees to undertake at the Capitol was to say the words ‘USA.’ Period.”
Alabama Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, on Monday, tweeted Paladino’s video of Alexander saying Brooks helped plan the rally.
“This guy talking about you @RepMoBrooks? You should do us all a favor and resign. #FailedCoup,” England tweeted. Attempts to reach England on Tuesday weren’t immediately successful.
The Office of Congressional Ethics is looking into some claims made by Alexander, according to The Intercept, which cited two sources familiar with the matter.
In a separate livestream on Dec. 29, also saved by Paladino, Alexander used similar language and again said Brooks was among the four who planned the event.
“I’m the guy who came up with the idea of January 6 when I was talking with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Andy Biggs, and Congressman Mo Brooks. So we’re the four guys who came up with a January 6 event — #DoNotCertify — and it was to build momentum and pressure, and then on the day change hearts and minds of congresspeoples who weren’t yet decided, or saw everyone outside and said, ‘I can’t be on the other side of that mob,’” Alexander said.
In a separate livestream on Periscope on Dec. 21, Alexander again says Brooks aided him and the other two representatives in planning the event.
“We’re working closely with Congressman Mo Brooks, we’re working closely with Congressman Andy Biggs, and closely with, obviously, Congressman Paul Gosar, my great friend,” Alexander said. “I believe that the president should do something brave, I think the vice president should do something brave. I believe that that’s how we maintain the White House. … It’s a moral imperative to maintain the White House.”
Alexander on Monday live-streamed to Periscope a plea for supporters to send him money for “security costs” through the Christian fundraising website GiveSendGo.com, but during the video noted: “It does look like PayPal killed GiveSendGo.com. I think you can use other methods but because of me being on the platform, which is sad because it’s a Christian site.”
In a separate live stream video Monday, Alexander said he had not been contacted by the FBI and that “somebody set this all up, and honestly they’re probably just going to shoot me because I know the right questions to ask.”
As protestors began storming the Capitol, Alexander posted a video of himself overlooking the scene and saying: “I don’t disavow this. I do not denounce this,” according to ABC News.
CNN reported Friday that in late December, speaking to his followers on the social media platform Periscope, Alexander said Gosar, Biggs and Brooks were planning something big, although the news outlet noted he did not call for violence.
“It was to build momentum and pressure and then on the day change hearts and minds of Congress peoples who weren’t yet decided or who saw everyone outside and said, ‘I can’t be on the other side of that mob,’” Ali said, according to CNN.
Gosar at 11:05 a.m. on the day of the Capitol attack tagged Alexander’s Twitter account, which was suspended Sunday, in a tweet of an image ostensibly of the crowd at the rally in which Gosar wrote “Biden should concede. I want his concession on my desk tomorrow morning. Don’t make me come over there. #StopTheSteal20201 @ali”
At 12:16 p.m. the day of the attack, Brooks tweeted that Gosar and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas had just objected to Arizona’s submission of Electoral College votes. “BATTLE JOINED! Now we will find who supports, and who fights, voter fraud & election theft! FIGHT FOR AMERICA’S REPUBLIC IS ON!” Brooks tweeted.
Speaking at a pro-Trump rally on Dec. 19 in Arizona along with Gosar, Alexander said “we will not go quietly. We’ll shut down this country if we have to.” Later in his speech, Alexander led the crowd in a chant of “1776,” referencing the American Revolution.
“One of our organizers in one state said, ‘You know, we’re nice patriots. We don’t throw bricks.’ I leaned over and I said, Not yet. Not yet,” Alexander told the crowd. “Haven’t you read about a little tar-and-feathering? Those were second-degree burns!”
“We’re going to convince them to not certify the vote on January 6 by marching hundreds of thousands, if not millions of patriots to sit their butts in D.C. and close that city down, right? And if we have to explore options after that…‘yet.’ Yet!” Alexander said, using the word “yet” as code for the violence he spoke of just before regarding throwing bricks and tar-and-feathering.
Alexander called Biggs a “friend” and “hero” in the Stop the Steal movement, before holding his phone to the mic and played an audio recording of Biggs saying he wished he could have been at the rally and expressing support for the fight to overturn the election results.
“When it comes to January 6, I will be right down there in the well of the house with my friend from Alabama, Representative Mo Brooks,” Biggs said on the recording.
CNN reported on Friday that the news outlet reached out to all three lawmakers but only Biggs responded, in a statement from a spokesperson saying: “Congressman Biggs is not aware of hearing of or meeting Mr. Alexander at any point — let alone working with him to organize some part of a planned protest.”
Asked by The Intercept why Biggs would record a video for someone he doesn’t know, Daniel Stefanski, Biggs’s spokesman, told The Intercept: “Rep. Gosar’s team asked for the video, and he provided it,” The Intercept reported on Monday.
Alexander on Friday posted a video to his now-suspended Twitter account in which he said “I didn’t incite anything. I didn’t do anything,” according to The Daily Beast. PayPal and Venmo have also since banned Alexander, according to Business Insider.
In a Periscope livestream on Sunday Alexander said: “I am a king amongst idiots, on the right and the left. Not fun, but it is what it is.”
“The Lord says vengeance is His, and I pray that I am the tool to stab these mother——-,” Alexander said in the video. “To all of the people who called patriots domestic terrorists. Y’all can go f— yourselves.”
