The ethics committee of the Alabama Republican Party on Sunday dismissed a complaint brought against former Congressman Mo Brooks by the vice president of the state school board, Wayne Reynolds.

As a member of the state GOP executive committee and the Limestone County GOP executive committee, Reynolds said he based his complaint on comments Brooks made in an interview with Montgomery radio station WACV. In the interview, Brooks spoke at length about China and criticized how its communist party runs the country.

“Communist China is very much aware of my views,” Brooks said in the interview. “And so they did everything they could to assist the election of somebody else to the United States Senate in 2022.”

Brooks, of course, lost in the Republican Senate primary runoff last year to now Sen. Katie Britt. Reynolds objected to Brooks’ comments suggesting Chinese influence in the Senate race that Britt handily won.

Brooks has since been elected as GOP commissioner for the 5th Congressional District – the district he represented in Congress for six terms. The position includes a spot on the Republican state steering committee and given those responsibilities, Reynolds said he believed Brooks’ statements were out of line.

“It’s a victory for freedom of speech,” Brooks said Monday.

“For my part, I did what I felt was right,” Reynolds said Monday, adding that he “accepts the findings” of the committee.

Since the complaint was filed last month, Brooks maintained he did nothing wrong.

“I would hope that Wayne Reynolds, a state school board member, would spend more of his time trying to improve a government-run school system that is failing far too many Alabama children,” Brooks said. “He was elected for that purpose. Not to dishonestly harass other Republican executive committee members.”