Hours after Donald Trump withdrew his endorsement from Rep. Mo Brooks’ Senate campaign in Alabama, the Republican congressman —who spoke (while wearing body armor) at the January 6 rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol and voted against certifying President Joe Biden’s victory—issued a statement that should have the House Select Committee and Attorney General Merrick Garland sitting up and taking notice.

Trump blamed Brooks’ statements about the need to move on from the 2020 elections for his decision to rescind the endorsement, saying Brooks “went ‘woke.’” But Brooks first said that last August, and the decision also comes as Brooks is trailing in Alabama Senate primary polls. So it may be a case of Trump trying to avoid the stench of loser as much as Trump being butt-hurt that Brooks no longer thinks the last election is the biggest thing in U.S. politics today. Now he’s turning his back on a guy who may have things to say that people want to hear.

In his response statement, Brooks first blamed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for having “manipulated” Trump. Brooks called himself “the only candidate who fought voter fraud and election theft when it counted, between November 3 and January 6.”

Brooks then went on to say, “I repeat what has prompted President Trump’s ire. The only legal way America can prevent 2020’s election debacle is for patriotic Americans to focus on and win the 2022 and 2024 elections so that we have the power to enact laws that give us honest and accurate elections.”

Brooks isn’t saying that he thinks President Joe Biden won the 2020 elections fair and square. He says there was voter fraud and election theft (this is a lie) and that he wants to change elections law to prevent it from happening again. But there’s an interesting word in there. “Legal.”

And that word is an important lead-in to the final paragraph of Brooks’ statement: “President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period.”