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      in Elections

      Abandoned by Trump, Mo Brooks Is Now Open to Testifying About Jan. 6

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      Stinging from his resounding defeat in Alabama’s Republican runoff for the Senate on Tuesday and a snub from former President Donald J. Trump, Representative Mo Brooks now appears to be willing to testify as part of the Jan. 6 investigation.Mr. Brooks signaled on Wednesday that he would comply with an impending subpoena from the bipartisan House committee that is leading the inquiry into the attack on the Capitol — but only under certain conditions.His comments to the media, reported by CNN on Wednesday, came one day after he lost a bitter primary runoff to Katie Britt. Mr. Trump withdrew his endorsement of Mr. Brooks in March when he began slipping in the polls, and gave his support to Ms. Britt in the final weeks of the campaign.Mr. Brooks bemoaned his loss, telling a Politico reporter that the “bad guys won.”He hinged his willingness to testify before the House committee on being able to do so “in public so the public can see it — so they don’t get bits and pieces dribbled out,” Mr. Brooks said, according to CNN.The congressman added that he would only testify about matters related to Jan. 6, 2021, and that he wanted to see copies of documents that he might be asked about beforehand, the network reported.Mr. Brooks was not available for an interview on Thursday, and his office declined to elaborate on his comments.Mr. Brooks, a hard-right Republican and a once-fierce ally of Mr. Trump’s whom the former president has accused of becoming “woke,” has drawn intense scrutiny for his actions preceding the violence on Jan. 6.Outfitted in body armor at a rally before the siege, Mr. Brooks exhorted Mr. Trump’s election-denying supporters to start “kicking ass.”Investigators have also sought to question Mr. Brooks about his interactions with Mr. Trump in the aftermath of the attack. They zeroed in on Mr. Brooks’s comments in March, when he said that Mr. Trump had, since leaving office, repeatedly asked him to illegally “rescind” the 2020 election, remove President Biden and force a new special election.But as of Wednesday, Representative Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the head of the Jan. 6 committee, acknowledged that Mr. Brooks still had not been served with a subpoena. Mr. Thompson said that process servers in Washington had been unable to track down Mr. Brooks because he had been campaigning in Alabama.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 6Making a case against Trump. More

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      in Elections

      How Katie Britt Used Political Savvy to Trounce Mo Brooks in Alabama

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      At a gathering of Alabama Republicans last year, Katie Britt and her husband strategically positioned themselves at the end of a receiving line to shake hands with former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Britt, a lawyer and former chief of staff for Senator Richard Shelby, had recently announced her campaign to fill the seat being vacated by her former boss, who is retiring. Mr. Trump had already endorsed her opponent, Representative Mo Brooks — but the couple hoped to sow some doubt in Mr. Trump’s mind, according to four people familiar with the encounter.As the couple greeted Mr. Trump, Ms. Britt’s husband, Wesley Britt — a burly retired N.F.L. lineman — mentioned to the former president that he had once played for the New England Patriots. “The only time you’ve met me, I think I was wrapped in a towel in the Patriots locker room,” Mr. Britt was said to have told Mr. Trump, who found it hilarious and replied that Robert K. Kraft, the team’s billionaire owner, “likes me very much.”From then on, Ms. Britt positioned herself as a formidable competitor with savvy political skills who persistently tried to convince Mr. Trump that she deserved his endorsement instead.In March, Mr. Trump gave Ms. Britt half of what she wanted, withdrawing his endorsement of Mr. Brooks — at that point far behind in the polls — because, he said, the far-right congressman had gone “woke.” Then, this month, with Ms. Britt clearly on track to prevail, the former president backed her, seemingly in an attempt to pad his endorsement record.Ten months after her brief exchange with Mr. Trump last August, Ms. Britt claimed victory in the Republican primary runoff for Alabama’s open Senate seat on Tuesday, capping a hard-fought campaign for her party’s nomination against Mr. Brooks. In a state with a deep-seated conservative bent, she is all but assured of winning in the general election in November.Ms. Britt is also one step closer to making history as the first woman in Alabama to be elected to the Senate. Her Democratic opponent is a pastor, Will Boyd, who has made unsuccessful runs for Senate, House and lieutenant governor.Shortly after the polls closed Tuesday, Mr. Shelby, who has known Ms. Britt since the days when she was an intern in his office, said he was overjoyed for her.“She is an outstanding person — she has got the brains, the drive and the compassion,” he said.Ms. Britt, 40, is seen as part of a younger generation of pro-Trump Republicans, and her husband’s banter with Mr. Trump was viewed by those familiar with the encounter as an astute move that proved essential to her nomination.Ms. Britt entered the primary with little name recognition and long odds against Mr. Brooks, who boasted more than a decade of experience in the House and gained Mr. Trump’s backing after he riled up the crowd at the former president’s rally before the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.But Mr. Trump rescinded his support for Mr. Brooks in March as Mr. Brooks struggled to gain traction under an avalanche of attack ads and criticism of his decision to urge an audience at a Trump rally to leave the 2020 election behind. “Katie Britt, on the other hand, is a fearless America First Warrior,” Mr. Trump said in a statement this month as he endorsed Ms. Britt.That move did not completely wipe out Mr. Brooks, who still managed to clinch a second-place finish in Alabama’s May 24 primary, garnering 29 percent of the vote. Ms. Britt pulled in 45 percent, short of the majority that would have avoided a runoff between the two top vote-getters.Ms. Britt fashioned herself as an “Alabama First” candidate, playing off Mr. Trump’s “America First” presidential campaign slogan, and centered her run on her Christian faith, hard-line border enforcement policies and ties to the business community.As an aide for Mr. Shelby, one of the Senate’s most senior members, she worked on some of his signature issues, including a sweeping Republican package of tax cuts in 2017, confirmation of conservative judges and a push for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.She most recently served as the head of the Business Council of Alabama, a powerful lobbying group, and led a “Keep Alabama Open” campaign in November 2020 against coronavirus pandemic restrictions that required nonessential businesses to close or limit services. She also opened the council’s resources, typically reserved to paying members, to all small businesses amid the health crisis.On policy, Ms. Britt and Mr. Brooks had ideological differences: He represented a more aggressive brand of arch conservatism as a founding member of the Freedom Caucus while Ms. Britt, like Mr. Shelby, was seen as more focused on economic development. But in oratorical style, she echoed the hard-right talking points that have become commonplace messaging in the Republican Party.“When I look at what’s happening in Washington, I don’t recognize our country,” Ms. Britt said in a video introducing herself to voters. “The leftists are attacking our religious freedoms and advancing a socialist agenda. In Joe Biden’s America, people can collect more money staying at home than they can earn on the job.”The campaigns and supporters of Ms. Britt, Mr. Brooks and a third top competitor in the race, Mike Durant, a former Army pilot, spent millions of dollars on negative ads.Mr. Brooks and his supporters tried to paint Ms. Britt as a lobbyist and a RINO — a favored insult used by Trump supporters for politicians they believe are Republicans in name only.She shot back with attacks portraying Mr. Brooks as a career politician. It also helped that Mr. Brooks had a poor showing at Mr. Trump’s Alabama rally last August, just after Ms. Britt began her quiet campaign to sway the former president to her cause. What started as an enthusiastic response for Mr. Brooks that night turned to boos when he urged those in the audience to put the 2020 presidential election behind them and focus on 2022 and 2024.Mr. Trump called him back onstage for a second appearance, calling him “a fearless warrior for your sacred right to vote.”Later, when the former president took back his endorsement of Mr. Brooks, he said the congressman had made a “horrible mistake” with his comments at that fateful rally. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘It gives us great hope’: mom of missing US serviceman says video is authentic

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      ‘It gives us great hope’: mom of missing US serviceman says video is authenticA video of Alexander Drueke expressing his love for his mother has not yet been validated by the state department The mother of an American military veteran who volunteered to defend Ukraine from Russian invaders and was reportedly captured recently said a video of him expressing his love for her gave her “great hope”.Lois Drueke told the Guardian on Friday that she believes the video of her son Alexander Drueke – distributed by Russian state media – is authentic because of a phrase he uttered in the clip with his distinctively deep voice.Lois Drueke declined to specify what that phrase was, but in the video, her 39-year-old son is seen saying: “Mom, I just want to let you know that I’m alive, and I hope to be back home as soon as I can. So love diesel for me. Love you.”Third American volunteer fighter reported missing in UkraineRead moreShe added that the US state department, which is investigating the capture of Drueke and at least one other American volunteer in Ukraine, had still not officially confirmed the video’s authenticity. But, she acknowledged, “We think it’s Alex – it looks like him, [and] it sounds like him.“Just seeing him move, just hearing his voice, gives us great hope. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but it does seem to be him.”The brief video clip in question began circulating after US president Joe Biden told reporters that he had been briefed on the disappearances in Ukraine of Drueke, his fellow military veteran and Alabama resident Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, and Grady Kurpasi, who apparently went missing in April.“We don’t know where they are,” Biden said to reporters. “But I want to reiterate: Americans should not be going to Ukraine now.”Biden’s remarks came a day after a photograph surfaced that appeared to show both Drueke and Huynh in the back of a military truck with their hands tied behind their back, the clearest piece of evidence that they were no longer missing but had been arrested by Russian forces invading Ukraine.That photo was followed on Friday with the video apparently depicting Drueke addressing his mother, along with another clip in which he said in English, “I am against war.”Videos of Huynh also surfaced, including one with Russian state media branding in which he calmly recounts a purported version of events on the day he and Drueke were captured.Huynh, 27, said he and Drueke were part of a unit with a large number of French nationals that became locked in a gunfight with Russian troops.“The Ukrainians were retreating, and we were asked to cover their retreat,” Huynh says in the clip. “When we were covering them, the Russian forces overran our position.”Huynh said he and a colleague waited for three hours “in a fighting hole just to make sure the coast is clear”. After emerging, the pair walked five more hours through the woods and on to a road where they “surrendered” to Russian forces, Huynh said on the video.The Telegraph, which was first to report that Drueke and Huynh had gone missing, cited an account from an unnamed fellow fighter who said the pair were taken prisoner after a battle with Russian forces north-east of Kharkiv on 9 June.Lois Drueke cautioned against taking everything in the videos at face value. She said her son – before going to Ukraine – had warned her that he could be taken prisoner and, if that happened, might be made to say inauthentic things on video by his captors.Many have called on people to not share videos of those taken captive during the Ukraine-Russia war, arguing that they violate the Geneva conventions’ prohibition against making a spectacle of imprisoned combatants. But media organizations can report on such images without breaching the conventions, which apply only to nation states or other so-called detaining powers.Drueke, Huynh and Kurpasi are believed to be among hundreds of Americans – and possibly more – who went to Ukraine in hopes of helping the country repel the Russian invasion that began in February.Drueke served two combat tours in Iraq and was teaching Ukraine’s troops how to use American-made weapons. Huynh and Kurpasi each previously spent time with the US Marines.Captured American-born defenders of Ukraine create a diplomatically tricky situation for the US. The US is pumping billions of dollars into supporting Ukraine’s defense but is avoiding a direct clash with Russia.Drueke’s aunt, Dianna Shaw, on Friday pleaded with the captors of her nephew and Huynh to treat them “humanely”.She also said that a bipartisan congressional delegation from Alabama was working hard to keep his and Huynh’s loved ones informed about their apparent capture. Shaw singled out the aides of both Democratic House representative Terri Sewell, of Huntsville, and Republican senator Richard Shelby, of Birmingham, as being particularly open about where things stood.“We are very encouraged by the way all … have communicated consistently with us and with each other,” Shaw said.TopicsUS militaryUkraineRussiaAlabamaUS politicsReuse this content More