Brooks Brothers Riot: Republican Operatives Physically Stop Miami-Dade Recount

On November 22, 2000, a mob of Republican operatives and staffers violently disrupted the Miami-Dade County canvassing board’s recount of votes from the disputed 2000 presidential election, successfully forcing officials to shut down the recount early. Roger Stone, Richard Nixon’s longtime political operative, organized the demonstration from a Winnebago command post, recruiting Cuban-American protesters through Spanish-language radio warnings that Al Gore planned a Castro-style coup. The demonstrators, many flown in from Washington D.C. on flights provided by Enron and Halliburton, wore business attire that earned the incident its name. Congressman John Sweeney of New York set the violence in motion by telling an aide to ‘shut it down.’ According to The New York Times, ‘several people were trampled, punched or kicked when protesters tried to rush the doors outside the office of the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections.’ The intimidation worked: battered election supervisor David Geller returned home to see a TV bulletin announcing that Miami-Dade had suspended its recount. The legal team supporting the recount shutdown included three future Supreme Court justices: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Many participants received positions in the Bush administration. The Brooks Brothers Riot established a template for using physical intimidation and organized mob action to stop democratic processes, directly prefiguring the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.