Brooks Brothers riot

In the 2000 United States presidential election between candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore, in the state of Florida, George W. Bush achieved an election night majority by 1,784 votes, a very close margin. Due to the closeness of the race, and irregularities such as hanging chads, the Gore campaign successfully advocated for a recount of certain ballots. Miami-Dade County was one of the counties where ballots were recounted. The Miami-Dade County Democratic Party chairman suspected that thousands of ballots in this county might have been affected by a voting machine glitch. He suspected that these ballots, after re-tallying, would help candidate Al Gore. Miami-Dade County official canvassers, in order to meet a court-ordered deadline, decided to limit the county's recount to the 10,750 ballots that their tabulation machines had been unable to tally. They moved the counting process to a smaller room, closer to the ballot-scanning equipment, to speed up the process, at a distance from the media. Republican officials objected to this change. == Demonstration ==

Hundreds of people, including many Republican staffers, The demonstration was organized by these operatives, sometimes referred to as the "Brooks Brothers Brigade", to oppose the recount of ballots during the Florida election recount. The official canvassers, to speed up the process and meet their deadline, moved the counting process into a new room, and members of the media were restricted to a distance of 25 feet away. Republicans objected to this change of plans. John E. Sweeney of New York, nicknamed "Congressman Kick-Ass" by President Bush for his work in Florida, set the incident in motion by telling an aide to 'stop them' Within two hours after the event, the canvassing board unanimously voted to shut down the count, in part due to perceptions that the process was not open or fair, and in part because the court-mandated deadline had become impossible to meet, due to the interference. Sweeney defended his actions, arguing that his aim was not to stop the hand recount, but to restore the process to public view. In a radio interview in Albany on November 28, Sweeney said, "What I essentially told my people is, 'You've got to stop them'." "Whether I said, 'You've got to shut it down' or 'stop them,' I frankly don't quite recall." Several of the protestors were identified as Republican congressional staffers. A number of the demonstrators later took jobs in the incoming Bush administration. == Participants ==

A partial list: • Brad Blakeman, Republican strategist. • Duane Gibson, a Don Young aide on the House Resources Committee who worked for Ted Stevens, then became a lobbyist associated with Jack Abramoff • Garry Malphrus, who became deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council during the Bush administration • Kevin Smith, a former GOP House aide • Marjorie Strayer, an aide to New Mexico's Republican congresswoman, Heather Wilson. • Roger Morse, a former House aide who became a lobbyist a self-described "GOP Hitman" and former member of Nixon's Committee for the Re-Election of the President • Rory Cooper, a former staffer for the National Republican Congressional Committee and later the White House Homeland Security Council • Tom Pyle, a former Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) staffer who later worked for Koch Industries == Legacy ==

According to conversations leaked to The Washington Post by journalist and liberal activist Sarah Ashton-Cirillo—who had worked for the Nevada Republican Party leading up to and through the November 2020 election under an assumed hard-right, Trumpist persona—a vice president at consultancy McShane LLC claimed that Republican congressman Paul Gosar was planning a "Brooks Brothers Riot" in Arizona to disrupt the counting of votes in the 2020 United States presidential election, and told Ashton-Cirillo to "get the Proud Boys out" for a similar event in Clark County, Nevada. Gosar denies having discussed any protests with the McShane vice president. == See also ==