“Brooks Brothers Rioters” – immigrationcourtside.com

GREAT MOMENTS IN U.S. HISTORY WITH HEATHER COX RICHARDSON & AL KAMEN: Reliving The “Brooks Brothers Riots” of ‘00! — “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,” Said Recently Convicted Trumpster Roger Stone!

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):

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

THEY’RE BACK: RETURN OF THE “BROOKS BROTHERS RIOTERS” — As Evidence Against “Supreme Leader” Mounts, Angry GOP White Guys Create Diversion By Attacking The Rule Of Law!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/23/banner-hours-gop-rule-law/

Aaron Blake writes in the WashPost:

It’s hardly breaking news that President Trump has an uneasy relationship with the rule of law. He campaigned on putting his unindicted opponent in jail. He has attacked judges individually and the judiciary as an institution. He allegedly asked his FBI director for loyalty and to lay off a top aide. He tried to get his first attorney general to launch politically expedient investigations. Robert S. Mueller III laid out five instances in which there was significant evidence that he obstructed justice. He’s declining to cooperate with his own impeachment inquiry. And he even criticized his Justice Department for indicting two Republican congressman.

What hasn’t been chewed over quite as thoroughly is how much this attitude has infected those around him — many of them in the Republican Party, which prides itself as the party of the rule of law.

And the past 24 hours have been full of activity on that front.

They began Tuesday night with Matthew G. Whitaker, Trump’s former acting attorney general, taking to the airwaves of Fox News to declare that a president abusing power not only isn’t a crime, but also isn’t even impeachable.

“Abuse of power is not a crime,” Whitaker said. “Let’s fundamentally boil it down. The Constitution’s very clear that this has to be some pretty egregious behavior.”

Even for a team of supporters accustomed to moving the goal posts for Trump, taking “abuse of power” and suggesting it would not clear the bar was something.

Then came Wednesday morning, when a throng of Republican congressmen, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), decided to storm the proceedings of the House impeachment inquiry to highlight concerns about its process. They effectively shut it down for five hours and caused the testimony of Defense Department aide Laura Cooper to be delayed.

The situation harked back to 2016, when House Democrats — who were then in the minority — staged a sit-in protest on the House floor over gun control. At the time, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) declared that Democrats had “replaced rule of law with the rules of the mob.” Another House Republican shouted, “Rule of law means order!” Another stickler for the rules at the time was then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who is now acting White House chief of staff. “When somebody violates all the rules that they, you know, said they would adhere to and sets bad precedent for the future,” Mulvaney said, “it simply shows that if you act badly, you can get what you want.”

Beyond the issue of the rules in this protest was the matter of security. The impeachment inquiry depositions are held in a secure room, but some Republicans brought in their cellphones, which is against the rules, raising concerns about whether the room had been compromised.

The last development on the rule-of-law front Wednesday was in an actual courtroom. While defending Trump from having to turn over his private financial records, his private attorney William S. Consovoy made an extremely broad assertion of presidential immunity. He said that basically no jurisdiction — whether local or federal — can investigate a sitting president.

And when a judge asked him whether that would also be the case if Trump, as he so famously intoned, shot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York City, Consovoy responded in the affirmative.

“Local authorities couldn’t investigate? They couldn’t do anything about it?” U.S. Appeals Court Judge Denny Chin asked. “Nothing could be done? That is your position?”

“That is correct,” Consovoy said, noting that any crimes could be handled once the president was out of office.

It is understood that a president can’t be indicted while in office; this is the policy of the Justice Department and has been dating to Richard Nixon. What is much more controversial is the idea that jurisdictions cannot even investigate Trump. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero recently called the Trump team’s assertion of immunity “virtually limitless” and deemed the claim “repugnant to the nation’s fundamental structure and constitutional values.”

The claim is merely the latest bold one from the Trump legal team and from Consovoy. Earlier this year, both the White House counsel and Consovoy maintained that Congress also had no right to investigate the president for the sake of oversight.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta asked Consovoy that if “a president was involved in some corrupt enterprise, you mean to tell me, because he is the president of the United States, Congress would not have power to investigate?” Consovoy answered that was his argument, because it would not be “pursuant to its legislative agenda.”

Congress has since launched impeachment proceedings, which is a power expressly granted in the Constitution and would seem to mitigate questions about whether its members have the authority to do what they are doing. But Republicans are making all kinds of other process arguments to attack the legitimacy of the investigation and decline to cooperate — even as there is little in the law to guide what impeachment proceedings must look like. They are complaining about the lack of a due process, even though this isn’t a trial (yet). They cry foul over the lack of a vote to launch the inquiry, which has been held in the past but is not required by law.

And as that situation and Trump’s standing as president become more embattled, it looks as though the “rule of law” party is going to continue making arguments about why Trump holds a unique place in relation to that law — and why perhaps it’s worth breaking the rules on his behalf.

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Remember, folks, an attempt to hold the Grifter-in-Chief and his White Nationalist regime accountable for abuses of authority is an attack on White privilege everywhere!

No wonder the so-called “Freedom” Caucus and its privileged White guys (used in a generic sense, as there appear to be a couple of GOP women members who glory in and feel empowered by their male companions’ chauvinism, particularly when it comes to putting down smart, powerful women of color) are so upset. Like their Grifter, they love the concept of America as it was in the “good old days,” before MLK, Jr., and the nasty “Civil Rights Era,” when the law was largely a tool to oppress African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Catholic Americans, Jewish Americans, immigrants, and a host of “others.” They are righteously upset that their overprivileged, unqualified, unscrupulous Supreme Leader, a living example of where “White privilege” will get you, could be held accountable for some of his myriad of misdeeds and outright mockeries of our Constitution and the rule of law.

The good news for the BBRs and their fellow GOP enablers (incidentally, the GOP has had full rights under Congressional rules to participate in the ongoing investigation — just not to control it from their minority position): the impeachment investigation will soon be “taken public” as they (disingenuously) claim to desire.

The bad news: they will have to come up with different forms of diversion and disruption, because on the publicly disclosed facts, there is no defense for either their continuing White privilege or the lawless actions and continuing abuses of authority by their “Supreme Leader.”

PWS

10-24-19

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