Mo Brooks: Testimony before Jan. 6 panel should be public, occur after Senate primary runoff

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said on Sunday that he would refuse to testify before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol if it is in private or before his Senate primary runoff election next month.

Earlier this month, the Jan. 6 committee announced that it had subpoenaed Brooks along with four other lawmakers, but Brooks told “Fox News Sunday” guest host Sandra Smith that he has yet to be served with “any kind of documentation.”

“It’s got to be in public, it’s got to be congressman to congressman, it’s got to be limited to issues associated with Jan. 6, and it has to be after this Senate primary is over with,” Brooks said.

“I don’t want this witch hunt committee and [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] trying to interfere with a Republican primary election for the United States Senate in Alabama,” he added.

Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) has said that the committee was interested in hearing from Brooks after he made several comments in which he asserted that former President Trump asked him to dispute the results of the 2020 election. 

After the Alabama Republican declined to voluntarily cooperate with the panel, Thompson said in a letter to Brooks dated May 12 that the committee had issued a subpoena.

The committee is preparing for a series of eight public hearings beginning June 9, including ones scheduled for prime-time and daytime hours.

Brooks is headed to a runoff on June 21 in Alabama’s GOP Senate primary against Katie Britt, a former top aide to retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R), after no candidate clinched 50 percent support in the race Tuesday. 

Brooks, who also spoke at the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, started out as the front-runner in the race and won Trump’s endorsement. But Trump rescinded his endorsement in March over Brooks’s past argument that the GOP grassroots should move on from the 2020 election, which Trump and his allies have said without evidence was fraudulent. 

When asked on Sunday if Americans should expect his testimony if he is served, Brooks said he would discuss the decision with the four other House members to whom the committee has said it issued subpoenas: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).

“I have to get with my colleagues who have been purportedly subpoenaed — at least they say they have been served,” Brooks said. “I don’t know why I haven’t and some of them have.”