Daily Archives: January 25, 2023

In federal court this week, a former Proud Boy who flipped on his alleged co-conspirators testified to increasingly violent conversations among the far-right group's members leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Matthew Greene of Syracuse, New York, took the stand in Washington on Tuesday in the trial of the former leader of the Proud Boys and four associates who are each accused of seditious conspiracy against the United States, among other charges, as part of an alleged plot to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.

Enrique Tarrio, the ex-leader, and Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola have all pleaded not guilty.

In his testimony, Greene said that in the weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, the group had been trying to stir up violent interactions with those they believed to be part of an "antifa," or anti-fascist, group.

"We, as the Proud Boys, almost viewed ourselves as the foot soldiers of the right, whereas antifa were the foot soldiers of the left," Greene said.

After Biden defeated Donald Trump to become president, the Proud Boys were "more and more angry about the result of the election," Greene said, "and at that point I was pretty well convinced we were heading toward a civil war."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Kenerson questioned Greene about his first interactions with the Proud Boys as he described the group's recruiting process, including an online application and in-person vetting. Greene's cooperation appears to be critical as prosecutors seek to prove that the Proud Boys were more than a loosely organized drinking club, as defense attorneys have argued.

Greene was arrested in April 2021 and initially pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction of Congress, but he changed his plea about eight months later -- after striking a deal with prosecutors.

Proud Boys members Zachary Rehl, left, and Ethan Nordean, left, walk toward the U.S. Capitol in Washington, in support of President Donald Trump, Jan. 6, 2021. Nordean and Joseph Biggs, two of the four Proud Boys charged in an indictment.

Carolyn Kaster/AP, FILE

On the stand on Tuesday, Greene acknowledged he was upset about the results of the 2020 presidential election and said he was looking for like-minded people to share his political concerns. But the events of Jan. 6 were a wakeup call, he said.

"After everything that happened [on Jan. 6], I had kind of a slap in the face," he told the jury.

He denied having direct knowledge of alleged plans to riot by Proud Boys leadership. Defense attorneys said he was not part of group messages used by leadership and had no direct interactions with Rehl or Tarrio.

But prosecutors argued that Greene had personal interactions with several Proud Boys members on multiple occasions. Greene testified to a culture of violence and said Tarrio and Pezzola were present at times when they discussed using force on Jan. 6.

"I can't say it was ever overtly encouraged," Greene said. "But it was never discouraged, and when it happened, it was celebrated."

Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, stands outside of the Hyatt Regency where the Conservative Political Action Conference is being held, Feb. 27, 2021, in Orlando, Fla.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

On cross-examination, Greene acknowledged he never had a direct conversation with Biggs, Tarrio or Nordean but described a collective expectation among members of the group that violence was permissible.

Defense attorneys have vigorously objected to the use of Greene's testimony at trial, saying he was making broad assumptions about the defendants based on irrelevant interactions with other members.

"It's just mind-boggling that this person -- for the court's understanding -- who says he knows nothing about nothing about nothing all of a sudden he says he has all this information," defense attorney Carmen Hernandez said Tuesday.

Multiple defendants said allowing his testimony should result in a mistrial, a motion that U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly denied.

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Former Proud Boy testifies in Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trial

While federal prosecutors are casting the Capitol insurrection trial of five far-right Proud Boys leaders as an attempt to bring participants of an attack on US democracy to account, the members of the group are using the proceedings to ask one question even some of their opponents on the political left agree is valid.

Why have prosecutors so far only focused their energy on the supporters of Donald Trump who are accused of a coordinated invasion of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the congressional certification of his defeat to Joe Biden in the previous years presidential election? Is it because they regard the former Republican president himself who urged his supporters to fight like hell that deadly day as too formidable and them as easier targets?

Attorneys for the ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four of his lieutenants have sought to ingrain that question in the minds of jurors chosen after a particularly turbulent selection process which began last month and gave way to opening arguments and witness testimony beginning 12 January.

They do so even as the strategy has not proven effective in other cases where it has been suggested that it is really Trump who is culpable for the Capitol attack not his less powerful sycophants and camp followers.

Weeks after the seditious conspiracy convictions of two leaders of the Oath Keepers another far-right group in connection with the Capitol attack, prosecutors in the Proud Boys case have broadly asserted that Tarrio, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs mustered up a fighting force to halt Biden from ever assuming the presidency.

Tarrio and his fellow self-described western chauvinists believed a Democratic Biden presidency would threaten the groups very existence, therefore they engaged in seditious conspiracy, headed a mob that forced its way into the Capitol and tried to drive a stake through the heart of our democracy, prosecutor Jason McCullough contended.

Tarrio and his four co-defendants have pleaded not guilty to their alleged roles in the attack, which has been linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of law enforcement officers who protected the Capitol and were left traumatized. An attorney for Rehl, Carmen Hernandez, has insisted that her client went to the nations capital on 6 January not to riot but to exercise his free speech rights in protest of Trumps loss to Biden.

Meanwhile, an attorney representing Tarrio, Sabino Jauregui, argued that his client and the others were simply on trial because its too hard to blame Trump, whose full-throated defense to any prosecution would be mounted by an army of lawyers.

Its easier to blame the Proud Boys, Jauregui added, saying his client and his fellow co-defendants were mere scapegoats.

Similar arguments have been made before by others among the nearly 950 people who have been criminally charged with having participated in the Capitol riot, including about 540 who have been convicted. Those hefty numbers notably do not include Trump, though the former president has been recommended for prosecution by a congressional committee which investigated the attack.

Just days ago, a judge ruled that a woman who helped attack the Capitol was indeed merely following orders from Trump, who fired up his supporters with false claims that he had been robbed of victory over Biden by electoral fraudsters.

But, presiding over a bench trial, the judge concluded that the woman was still responsible for her actions, convicted her of charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and offered up a stark reminder of how flimsy the Trump made me do it defense is.

Nonetheless, a recent article in Salon agreed with Jauregui that its ridiculous that Trumps not in prison over the Capitol attack.

The willingness of Jauregui and others in the Proud Boys case to so pointedly ask why low-ranking followers of Trump are having their fates tried by juries while he runs for the White House again could reflect a growing sense of frustration in the larger public over how the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has handled what to do about the former president.

It could be a couple of weeks more, if not longer, before jurors decide the outcome of the charges against Tarrio, Rehl, Nordean, Pezzola and Biggs, who each face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of seditious conspiracy.

The most powerful evidence and witnesses against the accused Proud Boys almost certainly remains ahead after court wrapped up Friday, the seventh day since jurors in the case began hearing arguments and testimony.

Prosecutors have said they intend to make their case with private communications between the defendants, their statements in public, their coordinated movements at the Capitol, and their celebrations of the attack before they then tried to make it seem like they were never involved.

But the trials already had plenty of drama.

Beginning before Christmas, jury selection was turbulent, in part because Rehls lawyer Hernandez moved to dismiss nearly every prospective juror who mentioned having any knowledge whatsoever of the well-publicized Proud Boys, CNN reported.

Then, when prospective jurors claimed they had not heard of the Proud Boys, Tarrios lawyers Jauregui and Nayib Hassan objected, saying those people could be lying to get on the jury in hopes of convicting their client.

Prosecutors also reportedly contributed to the spectacle by blaming their failure to provide evidence binders to the defense because their office had gone through their supply of dividers and had not gotten permission to buy new ones.

Then, after being seated, jurors heard grueling recordings of radio transmissions among police officers who were trying to defend the Capitol during the attack.

Send all you have! one officer said as Trump supporters stormed their way into the building. Another voice later lamented: Our situation here is dire.

They later also heard from a British film-maker, Nick Quested, who explained that he began following the Proud Boys and recording video of them because he wanted to document worsening political divisions across the US. He ended up capturing footage of the Proud Boys among the January 6 mob, he testified, according to the left-leaning Daily Kos website.

Quested filmed as mob members screamed treason and honor your oath at police in riot gear who were desperately trying to maintain order. But the odds were overwhelmingly against the officers.

There was maybe a dozen police officers at the first line, Quested said on the witness stand, and you can see there are a couple hundred people at least at this point and more coming.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Proud Boys on defensive at sedition trial haunted by absent Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) The month before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, members of the Proud Boys were growing increasingly angry about the outcome of the 2020 election and were expecting a civil war, a former member told jurors on Tuesday as he took the stand in the seditious conspiracy case against the group's former leader.

Matthew Greene testified in the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants under a cooperation deal with the government after pleading guilty to storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with fellow extremists.

Greene told jurors that the Proud Boys' conversations became more heated as December 2020 wore on and challenges to President Donald Trump's election loss were unsuccessful. The Proud Boys were getting ready and willing for anything that was going to happen, Greene said, adding that the group saw itself as essentially the tip of the spear.

We were openly expecting a civil war at that point, Greene said.

Greene is the first Proud Boys cooperator to take the stand in the case accusing Tarrio and associates of plotting to forcibly stop the transfer of power from Trump to President Joe Biden. He was the first Proud Boys member in December 2021 to publicly plead guilty to conspiring with others to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. He's cooperating with prosecutors in the hopes of getting a lighter sentence.

Prosecutors allege that members of the Proud Boys carried out a coordinated attack on the Capitol in a desperate attempt to keep Trump in power. It's one of the most consequential cases to emerge from the Justice Department's sprawling Jan. 6 investigation.

The other co-defendants are Joseph Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, a self-described Proud Boys organizer; Zachary Rehl, who was president of the Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia; and Dominic Pezzola, a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.

Defense attorneys say there is no evidence that the Proud Boys plotted to attack the Capitol and stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6. A lawyer for Tarrio has acknowledged that the former chairman and other self-described Western chauvinists in the Proud Boys shared offensive messages, but said it was Trump who unleashed the mob that attacked the Capitol.

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Greene, who was a new recruit to the Proud Boys on Jan. 6 and says he has since left the group, said he didn't know of any specific plan to storm the Capitol. He said leaders didn't overtly encourage members to use force, but when it did happen it was celebrated.

My expectation was, if there was violence started, you should not back down," he said.

Tarrio, whos from Miami, wasnt in Washington on Jan. 6 because he was arrested two days before the riot and charged with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December 2020. He was ordered to leave the capital, but prosecutors say he remained engaged in the extremist groups planning for Jan. 6.

Others who may testify against Tarrio include Jeremy Bertino, the only Proud Boy who has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. A statement of offense filed in court says that Bertino understood the Proud Boys goal in traveling to Washington was to stop the certification Bidens victory and that the group was prepared to use force and violence if necessary to do so.

Greenes testimony comes a day after four members of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers, were convicted of seditious conspiracy in a separate case at the same Washington courthouse. The groups leader and another Oath Keeper were convicted of sedition in November.

Greene traveled from Syracuse, New York, to Washington, with other Proud Boys on Jan. 5 and was at the front of the mob on Jan. 6 when police began using pepper spray and other crowd-control measures.

One of those was Pezzola, who is accused of wrestling a police riot shield away from an officer and later smashing a Capitol window. Greene was with him around the time that happened, but soon after began having second thoughts and turned back, he testified. He didn't see Pezzola again until much later that day.

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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

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Follow APs coverage of the Capitol riot at: https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege

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Proud Boys expecting 'civil war' before Jan. 6, witness says

'We were openly expecting a civil war' | Former Proud Boy testifies at seditious conspiracy trial  WUSA9.com

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'We were openly expecting a civil war' | Former Proud Boy testifies at seditious conspiracy trial - WUSA9.com