The Southern Poverty Law Center is turning up the heat on would-be donors to U.S. Senate candidate Mo Brooks.
Monday night, the SPLC’s Action Fund organized a protest in California at several major companies that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting Brooks in the past. Those companies — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon — all have locations in Huntsville and haul in billions of dollars annually through various government contracts.
SPLC will hold a press conference Tuesday to announce its new “accountability campaign” and provide additional details on its efforts to highlight and stop corporate support for lawmakers who helped bring about the Jan. 6 insurrection.
All four companies also indicated that they would no longer provide political donations to the lawmakers who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt on the nation’s capitol, or that they would at least temporarily stop all political donations. The SPLC is demanding that the companies stick to that promise and they are demanding that Brooks return their contributions from the past two years.
There’s no doubt that Brooks played a major role in that insurrection. One of the organizers of the protest and rally has previously stated that Brooks aided in the planning of the event. Additionally, Brooks spoke at the Trump rally on the morning of Jan. 6, helping to rile up the crowd by repeating the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump and urging the crowd to “kick ass.”
Less than two hours later, the mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, leading to the deaths of five people and the vicious attacks on several police officers.
As part of SPLC’s “accountability campaign,” it has projected onto the side of the various corporate headquarters photos and quotes from Brooks. Those quotes include his rally speech, him joking about shooting immigrants and Brooks quoting Adolf Hitler on the House floor.
Brooks has, of course, denied bearing any responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, and he has used a variety of tactics to shift the blame. In the days immediately following the attack, he attempted to blame “left-wing” groups, such as Antifa, for the insurrection.
He also attempted to recast his speech from the rally, saying that an “ass” is a donkey, which is the mascot of the Democratic Party. So, he said, he was really saying to figuratively beat the Democrats.
When those two explanations failed to gain traction even among Republicans, Brooks issued a 3,000-word manifesto defending himself and claiming he couldn’t have helped incite the riot because the riot was pre-planned and well organized.
All of the attention has aided Brooks in the early polling. With name recognition through the roof, he has clearly been the frontrunner in the Republican primary race against former Richard Shelby chief of staff Katie Britt and former Trump ambassador Lynda Blanchard.
