Rep. Mo Brooks shifted blame onto his staff after he was accused of helping to organize the January 6 Capitol rally

• Mo Brooks shifted blame to his staff over his alleged role in planning the "Stop the Steal" rally.
• Two planners told Rolling Stone that Rep. Brooks had been in contact with organizers for the event.

Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks sought to shift blame onto his staff over his alleged role in planning the rally that preceded the Capitol riot.

"I don't know if my staff did," Brooks said when asked if he was part of the planning for the "Stop the Steal" event, CNN's Melanie Zanona tweeted.

The Capitol Hill reporter said Brooks also told her that if his staff were involved in planning the rally, he'd "be proud of them for helping to put together a rally lawful under the First Amendment at the ellipse to protest voter fraud & election theft."

Brooks was responding to a Rolling Stone report that identified him as one of the lawmakers involved in planning the rally outside the Capitol in Washington, DC.

Brooks spoke at the event, telling the audience to start "taking down names and kicking ass." He wore body armor as he spoke, Slate reported in July.

Shortly afterward, hundreds of pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol in a challenge to the certification of Joe Biden's election victory.

The news comes as the bipartisan congressional investigation into the events of January 6 heats up, with the panel moving on Monday to pursue criminal contempt charges against Steve Bannon, the former Trump aide who refused to share information about any role he may have played that day.

Two people who planned the rally beforehand told Rolling Stone that multiple people involved in planning the "Stop the Steal" rallies communicated with members of Congress in the run-up to the January 6 event, one of whom was Brooks.

The planners also said they'd been in communication with Reps. Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs, and Louie Gohmert.

Brooks has also been identified as being involved in the planning of the "Wild Protest," a separate event held in DC on January 6 that sought to challenge Biden's election victory.

In a now deleted livestream, Ali Alexander, who helped organize that protest, said Brooks, along with Gosar and Biggs, had come up with the idea for the protest, The Washington Post reported.

"I was the person who came up with the Jan. 6 idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks, and Congressman Andy Biggs," Alexander said.

"We four schemed up on putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting so that - who we couldn't lobby - we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing our loud roar from outside," he added.

Brooks' office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.