Historian
Professor, Boston College
American Historian Heather Cox Richardson writes in her daily e-mail for today:
A friend read the proofs for me, and asked why I had not mentioned the Brooks Brothers Riot. I had no good answer, so today I went back to the sources.
For those of you who don’t remember everything that happened in those crazy days when we were all trying to figure out what the heck had happened in the 2000 election, the Brooks Brothers Riot was made up of a bunch of Republican operatives, many of whom had flown in from other states, who gathered on November 22, 2000 at the Miami-Dade polling station where Florida officials were attempting to recount the confusing ballots, to insist that the Democrats were trying to steal the election. Their noise and outrage helped to get the recount called off. As I was reading through the articles about the riot, the name Roger Stone jumped out at me. That name meant nothing to me in 2000, but it sure does today.
This is the same Roger Stone who advised the Trump campaign and who has just been convicted for lying to Congress about his connections to Wikileaks before the 2016 election. Wikileaks worked to hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and promote Donald Trump by dumping emails that Russia had hacked from the Democratic National Committee. Stone is a no-holds-barred political operative who got his start on the 1972 reelection campaign of Richard Nixon, whose face is tattooed on Stone’s back (no, I’m not kidding) and who, after Nixon’s fall, went on to start a political consulting firm with Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman from June to August 2016 (who is also now a convicted felon), and Lee Atwater, the man behind the viciously racist Willie Horton ad that sank Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988 (Atwater apologized for his actions as he was dying).
At the time of the Brooks Brother’s Riot, Stone claimed he was there “as a volunteer,” and “knew nothing about the protesters other than the fact I approve of Republicans expressing their First Amendment rights.”
This was a lie. In reality, Stone was a key operative, eavesdropping on the Democratic recount team with a walkie-talkie and determined to undermine the recount to get Bush in office, regardless of the popular vote or the real outcome in Florida. “What I admire about Nixon was his resilience,” he later told a reporter, “It’s attack, attack, attack. Al Gore thought the recount was a high-minded policy debate. He didn’t understand that it was an extension of a war, of a political campaign.”
That comment jumped out to me, just as Stone’s name had. That’s it, isn’t it? While the rest of us believe in the rules of democracy, people like Stone and Manafort see political engagement as a war in which winning is everything. It is worth lying, cheating, and stealing, because the goal is not better government, the goal is to win, and then to use that victory to reward your friends and hurt your enemies. After working for Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, Stone and Manafort advised dictators. Then they turned their hands to the Trump campaign. Their approach to politics appears by now to be embedded in today’s Republican Party. Jennifer Rubin, a conservative writer at the Washington Post, had a story today entitled “The Party of Lying Liars,” in which she laid out a litany of Republican whoppers, designed solely to appeal their base and thus stay in office.”
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Heather’s write-up inspired me to dig a little deeper “into the archives.” Here’s what I found:
A picture of “The Rioters” (note the diversity):
2000
And a 2005 article by Al Kamen, then with the Washington Post, with a “numbered key” to “to Rioters of note:”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31074-2005Jan23.html
Miami ‘Riot’ Squad: Where Are They Now?
By Al Kamen
Monday, January 24, 2005; Page A13
As we begin the second Bush administration, let’s take a moment to reflect upon one of the most historic episodes of the 2000 battle for the White House — the now-legendary “Brooks Brothers Riot” at the Miami-Dade County polling headquarters.
This was when dozens of “local protesters,” actually mostly Republican House aides from Washington, chanted “Stop the fraud!” and “Let us in!” when the local election board tried to move the re-counting from an open conference room to a smaller space.
With help from their GOP colleagues and others, we identified some of these Republican heroes of yore in a photo of the event.
Some of those pictured have gone on to other things, including stints at the White House. For example, Matt Schlapp, No. 6, a former House aide and then a Bush campaign aide, has risen to be White House political director. Garry Malphrus, No. 2 in the photo, a former staff director of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice, is now deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. And Rory Cooper, No. 3, who was at the National Republican Congressional Committee, later worked at the White House Homeland Security Council and was seen last week working for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Here’s what some of the others went on to do:
No. 1. Tom Pyle, who had worked for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), went private sector a few months later, getting a job as director of federal affairs for Koch Industries.
No. 7. Roger Morse, another House aide, moved on to the law and lobbying firm Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds. “I was also privileged to lead a team of Republicans to Florida to help in the recount fight,” he told a legal trade magazine in a 2003 interview.
No. 8. Duane Gibson, an aide on the House Resources Committee, was a solo lobbyist and formerly with the Greenberg Traurig lobby operation. He is now with the Livingston Group as a consultant.
No. 9. Chuck Royal was and still is a legislative assistant to Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a former House member.
No. 10. Layna McConkey Peltier, who had been a Senate and House aide and was at Steelman Health Strategies during the effort, is now at Capital Health Group.
(We couldn’t find No. 4, Kevin Smith, a former GOP House aide who later worked with Voter.com, or No. 5, Steven Brophy, a former GOP Senate aide and then at consulting firm KPMG. If you know what they are doing these days, please e-mail shackelford@washpost.comso we can update our records.)
Sources say the “rioters” proudly note their participation on résumés and in interviews. But while the original hardy band of demonstrators numbered barely a couple of dozen, the numbers apparently have grown with the legend.
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How to build a great GOP resume!
Interestingly, “Rioter # 2,” Garry D. Malphrus (face partially obscured in the photo) went on to become a U.S. Immigration Judge and later an Appellate Immigration Judge on the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), supposedly the highest administrative tribunal in immigration (although it now functions within the Department of Justice more or less as an extension of DHS Enforcement and Stephen Miller’s White Nationalist, anti-immigrant agenda).
Judge Malphrus was recently named the Acting Chair of the BIA by Billy Barr. Although Barr is a notorious “law enforcement hard liner,” I guess his strong commitment to “law and order” only goes so far.
Got to focus on the “real threats” to our democracy: the Dreamers and other hard working, law abiding, tax paying long-time American residents who are propping up our society and our economy so that Barr, Stone, Trump, and the former rioters can “live the good life.” And certainly, insuring the death or abuse of as many asylum applicants and kids as possible should be high on the list of worthy expenditures of our taxpayer dollars and moral capital.
The moral: Liberals get in trouble for rioting; conservatives get promoted!
Meanwhile, who knows? Could the Supremes be the next stop for Judge Malphrus?
PWS
11-18-19