Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio, 3 others guilty of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy

Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio, 3 others guilty of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy - The Washington Post

Former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and three other members of the extremist group were found guilty Thursday of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Over nearly 15 weeks of trial, prosecutors alleged that the Proud Boys on trial saw themselves as Trump’s “army.” Inspired by his directive to “stand by” during a September 2020 presidential debate and mobilized by his December 2020 call for a “wild” protest when Congress met to certify the election, prosecutors said the men sought to keep Trump in power through violence.

Defense attorneys for Tarrio fought back by blaming the former president, saying prosecutors made the five defendants scapegoats for an unplanned riot triggered by Trump’s incitement of angry supporters.

The jury, which began hearing testimony in January, deliberated about 30 hours over seven days in Washington.

Tarrio, 29, and the others were charged in a 10-count indictment. The charges included conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election, conspiring to obstruct Congress’s confirmation of the election result, and actually obstructing the joint session of Congress. The legal maximum penalty for either seditious conspiracy or the obstruction charges is 20 years in prison.

Also on trial were Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. All five men also faced charges of assaulting police and destroying federal property. Pezzola faced an additional charge of stealing a police riot shield that he allegedly used to smash the first window breached by rioters.

The verdict concludes the last of three Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trials, the most high-profile cases stemming from the largest prosecution in U.S. history. In November and January, six members of the extremist Oath Keepers movement were convicted of the historically rare and politically weighty crime of seditious conspiracy in the assault, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.
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- Former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and three other members were found guilty of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.
Who are the Proud Boys charged with seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, Capitol attack? Here’s what to know about the trial.
- Prosecutions of seditious conspiracy cases are very rare.

Four others members of the two groups previously pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. Three others were acquitted but convicted of obstructing the congressional session.

Both Tarrio and Rhodes are highly visible leaders of the alt-right or far-right anti-government movements, accused of playing an outsize role in organizing the violence or threat of violence by extremists drawn to the Capitol by Trump’s incendiary and baseless claims that the 2020 election was illegitimate.

Defense lawyers say the government’s theory that Tarrio and his co-defendants could be held criminally liable for using other rioters as “tools” of violence could be applied to many others who weren’t near the Capitol that day.

But U.S. prosecutors have not produced any “smoking gun” evidence explicitly tracing the actions of any of the Capitol’s violent actors to Trump or his advisers — either from a cooperating witness or an actual written message — although that conceivably could change if anyone still facing charges or pending sentencing “flips” and cooperates.

The government’s own evidence at trial showed how challenging the investigation has been. Statements by a lead FBI case agent in internal messages accidentally disclosed to the defense and entered into trial show that investigators only cracked Tarrio’s encrypted phone in late January 2022 — a year after the riot.

Only then, FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller wrote on Feb. 1, 2022, did she believe evidence on Tarrio’s phone cleared the “hurdle” to bring a conspiracy case against him.

The government argued that their concerted action on Jan. 6 alone was evidence of a criminal conspiracy, when prosecutors said the group marched to the Capitol even before Trump finished speaking at the White House Ellipse, helped drive rioters forward at several points, and celebrated with “victory smokes” and claims of credit after the Capitol breach.

“Make no mistake …” Tarrio texted, “We did this.”

But the U.S. also cited hundreds of encrypted messages, chats and social media posts involving the defendants. The conversations discussed keeping Trump in power “by any means necessary including force” — as star government witness and Proud Boys cooperator Jeremy Bertino testified — and storming the Capitol. The messages show that the Proud Boys were also angry at police handling of Bertino’s stabbing after a Dec. 12, 2020, rally in Washington, D.C., the government said.

The government has previously shown evidence that Tarrio, a former aide to Trump political confidant Roger Stone, was in contact with Trump’s “stop the steal” campaign organizer Ali Alexander and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes throughout the post-election period. Rhodes had shared a proposal for storming Congress — while Tarrio, Nordean and Biggs were each in phone and text contact with Infowars.com founder Alex Jones or producer Owen Shroyer on Jan. 4, 5 and 6.

Stone, Alexander and Jones have denied any wrongdoing, and have not been charged with any crime.

The Proud Boys used “1776” as a shorthand for what they wanted to achieve, prosecutor Conor Mulroe said in closing arguments. But he said the defendants’ violent revolution would have reversed the Revolutionary War’s achievement — founding “a nation where leaders were chosen by the people, and power was handed over peacefully under the rule of law — not ruled by a king for life through the power of his army.”

Attorneys for the Proud Boys put on a combative defense, variously urging jurors to blame the violence on Trump, not his followers; accusing the Biden administration of overcharging protesters and locking up political opponents; alleging that a corrupt or incompetent Justice Department hid informants’ and police roles in the violence; and casting the defendants as beer-drinking brawlers who were patriots at heart, not “foot soldiers of the right” who turned from violently battling leftists in the streets to attacking police and lawmakers.

“There were no statements in those chats about stopping the transfer of power on Jan. 6 with or without force,” Tarrio attorney Nayib Hassan said, and defendants had no “shared objective” other than to march, protest and promote the Proud Boys brand.

The government’s entire case was built on a kind of “misdirection and innuendo,” manipulating jurors’ hostility toward Trump and playing to their “anger, emotion and partisan prejudice” to convict the men based on “guilt by association,” Nordean defense attorney Nicholas Smith said.

Tarrio, Nordean, and Biggs did not testify at trial, but Rehl said the Proud Boys preparations were strictly for self-defense after past violence in Washington, saying “there was nothing nefarious about it.”

Pezzola took the stand to “take responsibility for my actions,” and to clear the others of culpability. But he also attacked prosecutors and said he would stand “against this corrupt trial with your fake charges.”

While prosecutors offered no specific plan centered on the certification, they showed jurors scores of messages in which defendants said they would go to war to keep Trump in office.

The defense struggled with the deluge of videos, Parler posts and Telegram messages amassed by the government, showing Proud Boys cheering and encouraging violence. When Rehl testified that he assaulted no one, the government surprised him with video that appeared to show him firing pepper-spray at police.

But attorneys cast themselves as defenders of the constitutional right to protest, not just of a group they acknowledged could be offensive, crude and even hateful. One — Biggs attorney Norm Pattis — warned darkly that convictions would only exacerbate the country’s divisions and possibly lead to civil war.

For now, the verdict comes as the Proud Boys organization is a shell of what it once was. The Jan. 6 prosecution, along with revelations that Tarrio and others have been federal informants, have divided the group. But membership continues to grow, and followers have found a new cause in protesting drag performances and transgender rights events around the country, sometimes leading to violence.

“If you are running a group [that] is somewhat effective … I guarantee you that there are [informants] within your group,” Tarrio said after closing arguments Tuesday in a jail call with reporters hosted by Gateway Pundit. He added that upon his release, he thought he might get out of politics and do “some kind of cultural thing.”

The Proud Boys trial

The latest: On Thursday, former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and three other members were found guilty of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In closing arguments, prosecutors said the Proud Boys saw themselves as “Donald Trump’s army."

How did we get here? Former chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and four leaders of the Proud Boys face trial on charges in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. In November, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was found guilty of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy.

Who is involved? Created in 2016, the Proud Boys is the most active right-wing extremist group in the country. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio learned of his arrest in advance from a D.C. police officer, according to a testimony. Here’s what we know about the Proud Boys’ involvement in Jan. 6.