Category Archives: Proud Boys

I didnt hear this voice note till now, he responded on Jan. 4, 2021, with his own audio file. You want to storm the Capitol.

The Proud Boys, like any gang, have long had an internal lingo, communicating together in a kind of collective code. One of their common slogans Proud of Your Boy was adopted ironically from a song from the Broadway musical Aladdin. Another catchphrase Uhuru is the Swahili word for freedom.

On Wednesday, Conor Mulroe, a prosecutor on the case, said that the word Minecraft a reference to the popular video game appeared frequently in the Telegram chats as a cipher meaning violence.

Its a somewhat tongue-in-cheek tagline they put at the end of a statement when its a facially incriminating statement, Mr. Mulroe told Judge Timothy J. Kelly, who is overseeing the case.

On Thursday, the government showed the jury several examples of how the Proud Boys used the term.

On Oct. 6, 2020, Mr. Rehl, the president of the groups Philadelphia chapter, posted a message to the Official Presidents Chat complaining about restrictions put in place because of the pandemic.

I really hope to see people start fighting back against these tyrants, in minecraft, he wrote.

Five days before the group marched on the Capitol, Mr. Stewart used the term in response to a post about the police in Washington closing roads on Jan. 6.

Lets quit playing games and oblige them in Minecraft, he wrote.

Then, on Jan. 4, 2021 the day Mr. Tarrio was arrested after an act of vandalism at a previous pro-Trump rally in Washington Mr. Wolkind posted a message in which he seemed to be advising his fellow Proud Boys not to communicate openly about criminal activity.

If youre talkin about playing Minecraft, he wrote, you just make sure you dont use your phone at all or even have it anywhere around you.

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Four Takeaways From the Proud Boys Jan. 6 Sedition Trial So Far

Chairman of the Proud Boys

Henry "Enrique" Tarrio (US English: TAR-ee-oh, US Spanish:[tari.o]; born 1984 or 1985[2]) is an American activist, former FBI informant,[5] and convicted felon who serves as chairman of the Proud Boys,[1] a far-right, neo-fascist, and exclusively male organization that promotes and engages in political violence in the United States.[6] Tarrio was indicted in June 2022 on seditious conspiracy charges, along with four other Proud Boy leaders, for his alleged role in the 2021 United States Capitol attack.[7]

Tarrio, who is of Afro-Cuban background,[8] served as the Florida state director of the grassroots organization Latinos for Trump.[9][10][11] In 2020, Tarrio was a candidate in the Republican primary election for Florida's 27th congressional district, but withdrew.[3][4][8] According to a former federal prosecutor and the transcripts of a 2014 federal court proceeding, Tarrio had previously served as an informant to both federal and local law enforcement.[12][13][14]

Tarrio volunteered at a Miami event for far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos in May 2017 when he encountered a member of the Proud Boys, who encouraged him to join the organization.[15] In August 2017, Tarrio attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.[16] He said he was there to protest the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials.[17]

In 2018, Tarrio became a fourth-degree member of the Proud Boys, a distinction reserved for those who get into a physical altercation "for the cause"; he punched a person who was believed to be aligned with antifa.[18] He assumed the role of chairman for the organization on November 29, 2018, succeeding Jason Lee Van Dyke, who held the position for two days, and Van Dyke's predecessor Gavin McInnes.[19][20] McInnes involved Tarrio as a prospective electoral candidate, and in that capacity both conferred with Trump right-wing confidants Steve Bannon (whom Trump later pardoned) and Sebastian Gorka.[21]

Tarrio helped organize the End Domestic Terrorism rally held in Portland, Oregon, on August 17, 2019.[22] The event, co-organized by Joe Biggs, was framed as a response to the June 2019 assault on conservative blogger Andy Ngo.[23][24]

Tarrio attended a pro-Trump march on December 12, 2020, in Washington, D.C., along with around two hundred other Proud Boys. He was arrested in connection with the march on a misdemeanor destruction of property charge related to the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a church.[25] In August 2021 he was sentenced to five months in jail for the incident and on a weapons charge.[26]

In January 2021, Reuters reported that Tarrio had been an informant to both federal and local law enforcement between 2012 and 2014.[27] This report contributed to rifts within the Proud Boys. In the aftermath of the 2021 United States Capitol attack, chapters of the organization split with the national group. Several chapters across three states pointed to Tarrio's past as an informant as a reason for their splintering from the national organization. The Oklahoma chapter also split from the national group because of Tarrio, blaming his "failure to take disciplinary measures [which] have jeopardized our brothers' safety and the integrity of our brotherhood".[28] Tarrio himself did not participate in the attack, having been arrested two days earlier in Washington, D.C., and ordered to stay away from the city. Later, he said he would neither "support" nor "condemn" the attack and did not "sympathize" with lawmakers.[29]

After 2004, Tarrio relocated to a small town in North Florida to run a poultry farm. He later returned to Miami.[15] He has also founded a security equipment installation firm and another providing GPS tracking for companies.[15] Tarrio owns a Miami T-shirt business, known as the 1776 Shop, an online vendor for right-wing merchandise.[30][31] Slate described the 1776 Shop as a "freewheeling online emporium for far-right merch" that sells a range of Proud Boys gear including shirts stating "Pinochet did nothing wrong".[32]

In regard to his views on extremist groups and ideologies, Tarrio has been quoted as saying, "I denounce white supremacy. I denounce anti-Semitism. I denounce racism. I denounce fascism. I denounce communism and any other -ism that is prejudiced towards people because of their race, religion, culture, tone of skin."[33] In regard to his own ethnicity, he has said, "I'm pretty brown, I'm Cuban. There's nothing white supremacist about me."[16]

After Tarrio confronted and shouted expletives at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Coral Gables in late 2018, the chairman of the Miami-Dade Republican Party apologized and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio compared the disruptors to the "repudiation mobs Castro has long ago used in Cuba."[34]

In 2018, Twitter removed Tarrio's account, along with others related to the Proud Boys, citing how platform policy prohibited accounts related to violent extremist groups. The following year, Twitter detected and removed another account that Tarrio created to evade the suspension.[35]

Tarrio said he is a close friend of Roger Stone,[10] a Trump ally who is a high-profile Proud Boys supporter.[30] After Stone was arrested in January 2019, Tarrio appeared outside the courtroom in a shirt emblazoned with the message "Roger Stone did nothing wrong".[36] The two appeared in a video together made on December 11, 2020, the day before a "Stop the Steal" rally where Tarrio stood on stage with Stone.[37] On December 23, 2020, Trump pardoned Stone, whose prison sentence he had previously commuted.[38]

Tarrio began a run for Congress for Florida's 27th district in 2020, but withdrew before the Republican Party primary. In his campaign's responses to a Ballotpedia survey done in 2019, Tarrio listed criminal justice reform, protection of the Second Amendment, countering domestic terrorism, ending the war on drugs, free speech on digital platforms, and immigration reform among his priorities.[3]

In 2004, when he was 20 years old, Tarrio was convicted of theft. He was sentenced to community service and three years of probation and was ordered to pay restitution.[15]

In 2013, Tarrio was sentenced to 30 months (of which he served 16) in federal prison for rebranding and reselling stolen diabetes test strips.[39][40][41]

According to a January 2021 Reuters report, between 2012 and 2014 Tarrio had been an informant to both federal and local law enforcement; in a 2014 federal court hearing, Tarrio's lawyer said that Tarrio had been a "prolific" cooperator who had assisted the government in the investigation and prosecution of more than twelve people in cases involving anabolic steroids, gambling, and human smuggling; had helped identify three "grow houses" where marijuana was cultivated; and had repeatedly worked undercover to aid in investigations. Tarrio denied working undercover or cooperating with prosecutions, but the court transcript contradicted the denial, and the former federal prosecutor in the proceeding against Tarrio confirmed that he cooperated.[42][43]

On January 4, 2021, Tarrio was arrested by Washington, D.C. police and charged with one misdemeanor count of destruction of property in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a Washington, D.C. church during a pro-Trump march on December 12, 2020, that drew around 200 Proud Boys. Tarrio acknowledged that he had burned the banner, but denied that the act was a hate crime.[25][44] A statement released by African Methodist Episcopal Church, which was one of two historically Black churches in D.C. targeted on December 12, said that the church had sued Tarrio and the Proud Boys organization.[45][46] Tarrio was also charged with two felony counts of possession of a high capacity feeding device after two high-capacity firearms magazines were found on Tarrio when he was arrested.[47][48] His request to be allowed to have Bevelyn Beatty, a Black Christian activist who was herself accused of defacing a Black Lives Matter mural, to testify for him as a character witness was summarily denied.[21] As a condition of his release on bail on January 5, 2021, Tarrio was banned from entering Washington except for trial or meeting with his lawyers.[49][50][51]

The FBI later said they had arrested Tarrio in an attempt to prevent the 2021 United States Capitol attack.[42]On July 19, 2021, Tarrio pleaded guilty to a destruction of property charge and a reduced charge of attempting to possess a high-capacity ammunition feeding device.[52][53]

On August 23, 2021, Tarrio received a 155-day prison sentence,[54] more than the 90 days requested by Department of Justice prosecutors.[55] Tarrio began serving his sentence on September 6, 2021.[55] His November 2021 request for early release based on poor living conditions in the D.C. Jail was denied.[56]

By November 2021, at least two dozen Proud Boys members and affiliates had been indicted for their alleged roles in the 2021 United States Capitol attack.[57][58][59] Tarrio and the Proud Boys were subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in November 2021 relating to the organization's alleged involvement.[60]

In March 2022, Tarrio was indicted on a conspiracy charge by the Justice Department for his involvement in organizing the January 6 attack.[61] On June 6, 2022, the Justice Department announced that Tarrio and four other members had been indicted on more serious seditious conspiracy charges.[62][63]

On December 19, 2022, the trial of Tarrio and four co-defendants began after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly denied defense attorneys last-minute bid to delay jury selection.[64][65]

Henry Tarrio was born in 1984 or 1985 and raised Catholic in Little Havana, a neighborhood in Miami, Florida.[34][2][66][1][67] Tarrio is of Cuban heritage and identifies as Afro-Cuban.[15][11] He is divorced.[15]

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Enrique Tarrio - Wikipedia

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.

___

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

____

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

Proud Boys, neofascist white nationalist organization established in the United States in 2016. The groups members were noted for their misogynistic and anti-Semitic rhetoric, QAnon-related beliefs, their support for U.S. Pres. Donald Trump, and their propensity for street violence. The Proud Boys were designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and were designated a terrorist organization by the governments of Canada and New Zealand.

The Proud Boys were created by Gavin McInnes, a Canadian writer and provocateur who had cofounded the magazine Voice of Montreal (later VICE) in 1994. McInnes was the most visible face of VICE as it expanded from a zine chronicling Montreal music and street fashion to an international media presence. McInnes would help define hipster culture of the early 2000s, and he was a strong influence on the magazines vulgar humour, biting tone, and conscious rejection of political correctness. By 2008 McInness public persona had transformed from contrarian gadfly to overtly far-right spokesperson, and VICE Media had forged a corporate relationship with communications giant Viacom; ties between McInnes and VICE were soon severed over what McInnes called creative differences.

McInnes subsequently explored other media ventures and speaking engagements, and his rhetoric became increasingly sexist and xenophobic. In 2010 he cofounded the advertising agency Rooster, but he was forced out of the company in 2014 after publishing a violently transphobic essay in an online magazine. McInnes became a regular contributor to white nationalist and anti-immigration websites, and in 2015 he launched The Gavin McInnes Show on a subscription-based streaming media platform. McInnes would claim that the Proud Boys were an outgrowth of social gatherings held after that show. In an article announcing the creation of the Proud Boys in September 2016, he stated that the groupwhich was open only to menconsisted of Western chauvinists who were vocal in their support for then-candidate Trump. Violence was a fundamental part of the Proud Boys from the beginning, and the groups most famous initiation ritual involved a candidate being beaten by other members until he could correctly name five breakfast cereals.

Far-right extremists were emboldened by Trumps election in November 2016, and Proud Boy Jason Kessler was the main organizer of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. Hundreds of white supremacists descended on the city to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. On the night of August 11 a torchlit march was punctuated with chants like You will not replace us, a phrase grounded in a racist conspiracy theory, and Blood and soil, a Nazi slogan. The following day street fighting between Unite the Right marchers and anti-fascist (antifa) counter-protesters erupted in downtown Charlottesville, and a neo-Nazi drove into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring dozens. McInnes disavowed Kessler and tried to distance himself and the Proud Boys from Charlottesville, but there was already a significant membership overlap between the Proud Boys and other white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. Rather than condemning the events in Charlottesville, Trump prevaricated, stating that there were some very bad people among the violent white nationalists, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.

Throughout the summer of 2018 the Proud Boys were involved in brawls in Portland, Oregon, and they often appeared at rallies with Patriot Prayer, a violent far-right organization based in the Pacific Northwest. The Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, a Proud Boys paramilitary spin-off group, was active in California; its members employed homemade armour and melee weapons to provide tactical defense at right-wing rallies. In August 2018 Twitter suspended the accounts of both McInnes and the group itself, and Facebook followed suit two months later. After McInnes delivered a speech at the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan in October 2018, the Proud Boys initiated a street fight with protesters that led to several arrests. The following month McInnes announced that he was leaving the Proud Boys, and he was succeeded by Henry (Enrique) Tarrio, a former FBI informant who had led both the Miami Proud Boys and a group called Latinos for Trump. In February 2019 McInnes filed a defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center over that organizations designation of the Proud Boys as a hate group.

As governments around the world attempted to slow the spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020, the Proud Boys participated in rallies against mitigation efforts and spread disinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19, the potentially deadly disease caused by the virus. Racial justice demonstrations swept the United States in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in police custody in May 2020, and the Proud Boys often appeared as armed counter-protesters at these events alongside extremist militia groups such as the Oath Keepers. On September 29, 2020, during a presidential debate with Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden, Trump was prompted to denounce white supremacist groups, but he instead seemed to offer the Proud Boys his endorsement with the statement, Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.

After Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, Trump refused to concede and made baseless claims of election fraud. The Proud Boys were a conspicuous presence at so-called Stop the Steal rallies, and at one such event in December 2020 Tarrio set fire to a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church in Washington, D.C. Tarrio was arrested on January 4, 2021, so he was not present two days later when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of Bidens election victory. Dozens of Proud Boys from across the United States would be arrested for crimes committed during the January 6 insurrection, and in May 2021 Canada added the Proud Boys to its list of terrorist entities alongside groups such as the Taliban and the so-called Islamic State. In June 2022 Tarrio and four of his lieutenants were charged with seditious conspiracy for their role in planning and executing the attack on the Capitol. That same month New Zealand designated the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization. Jeremy Bertino, a leader of the South Carolina Proud Boys who had aided in the planning of the January 6 attack, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and unlawful possession of a firearm in October 2022, in a case that was separate from the proceedings against Tarrio. As part of his plea agreement, Bertino, who faced up to 30 years in prison for the charges against him, agreed to cooperate with government investigators.

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Proud Boys | Leader, Founder, History, January 6 Attack, & Donald Trump ...

Proud Boys attorney wants Trump's 'stand back and stand by' statement kept out of trial  WUSA9.com

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Proud Boys attorney wants Trump's 'stand back and stand by' statement kept out of trial - WUSA9.com

Authored by Julie Kelly via American Greatness,

If Republicans eke out a win in the House of Representativeswhich now seems likelyGOP leaders have promised to investigate numerous government scandals, including the irredeemably corrupt Federal Bureau of Investigation. One path of inquiry is how the bureau manufactures data to promote the phony narrative that domestic violent extremists, i.e., supporters of Donald Trump, pose a security threat to the country.

Whistleblowers recently disclosed how the FBI is misrepresenting the scale of domestic violent extremism nationwide by categorizing January 6th-related investigations as organic cases stemming from local field offices, instead of all related to one single incident, according to a report by GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee.

Shortly after the Capitol protest, FBI Director Christopher Wray designated the four-hour disturbance as an act of domestic terror; federal prosecutors routinely compare January 6 defendants to terrorists, enabling the government to seekand receiveextended jail time for misdemeanors convictions and justify indefinite pretrial detention for nonviolent offenders.

During his Senate testimony in March 2021, Wray described members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, two groups involved in the events of January 6, as militia violent extremists. When Senator Lindsey Graham (RINO-S.C.) asked Wray whether he considered either group a domestic terror organization, the director refused to answer directly, instead insisting individuals associated with both groups are domestic terrorists.

Those comments alone should be fireable offenses. Set aside Wrays excuse-making for leftist riotersin 2020, Wray laughably refused to apply the same label to Antifa, calling it a movement or an ideology, not a terror organizationno evidence exists to support Wrays accusations that the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys mimic terror cells comparable to al Qaeda. Of the nearly two dozen members of both groups now facing charges tied to January 6, only one is accused of using a weapon (a riot shield) and it is alleged he used it to break a window, not harm a person, that afternoon.

Members of the Oath Keepers who drove to Washington to attend the presidents speech left their legally transported weapons at a Virginia hotel rather than violate the citys strict gun control laws. Worst militia ever.

And no one in either group carried a firearm into the building or on Capitol grounds.

But Wray, conveniently, left off another vital detail about these militias: the number of FBI confidential human sources embedded within them both before and during the Capitol protest.

Prior to the September start of the seditious conspiracy trial against members of the Oath Keepers, prosecutors finally disclosed that at least five FBI informants were embedded in the groups weeks and months before January 6. Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia handling over 900 January 6 cases, sought to prevent the jury from hearing about the informants activities or involvement in past investigations.

None testified as a witness for the government. But the defense wanted to call to the stand the vice president of the Oath Keepers, a man who worked directly with Stewart Rhodes, the founder and head of the group. Greg McWhirter is a former sheriffs deputy and current owner of a tactical shooting range and gun shop in Montana.

McWhirter also is an FBI informant.

According to a bombshell piece in the New York Times, McWhirter was secretly reporting to the F.B.I. about the groups activities in the weeks and months leading up to the Capitol attack. Reporter Alan Feuer further revealed that McWhirter had suffered a medical emergency boarding a plane to Washington to testify and required hospitalization. (Prosecutors asked the presiding judge to find out who leaked the information about McWhirters role, under court-ordered protective seal, to Feuer. Defense dropped him as a witness.)

Not only did McWhirter work for the FBI, he lured Oath Keepers to his remote business by offering discounts to buy guns and ammunition before the 2020 electionpresumably, at the behest of the FBI to produce evidence of a self-styled militia even though no crime was committed.

All of it reeks of the FBI-engineered plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, an entrapment scheme underway at the very same time the FBI utilized informants in the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers before January 6. In the Whitmer fednapping hoax, Dan Chappel, the lead informant, acted as the commanding officer of an imaginary militiarevealed during trial as a fabrication of the FBIto lure the FBIs targets into the trap.

Further, another Oath Keeper turned informant called the FBI tip line in November 2020 over fears the group planned to go to war with the United States government but investigators didnt contact him until March 2021.

But unlike the Whitmer fednapping plot where the FBI arrested their targets before any attempted kidnapping could occur, the FBI did not use any foreknowledge about possible violence on January 6 to prevent what happened that day despite connections to several informants. The question iswhy not?

The FBI also ran informants in the Proud Boys before January 6. Last year, Feuer revealed that the FBI embedded one informant in the group in July 2020; the informant was involved in the first breach of the restricted area. As scores of Proud Boys made their way, chanting and shouting, toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, one member of the far-right group was busy texting a real-time account of the march, Feuer reported in September 2021. The recipient was his F.B.I. handler. Another FBI informant was associated with a separate chapter of the Proud Boys that also participated in the events of January 6.

Now it appears that the FBI had multiple assets dispersed among the Proud Boys. A last-minute discovery dump last week by prosecutors includes at least 500 pages of possibly exculpatory evidence related to the FBIs confidential human source operation within the Proud Boys. (Jury selection for the first trial is scheduled to start December 12.)

The Times reported late Monday night that at least eight FBI informants were placed in the Proud Boys.

According to one defense motion, the Justice Department held this material for more than a year only to release heavily redacted versions of the pages one month before trial; one defense lawyer noted that even page numbers had been redacted.

Defense attorneys have now asked U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly to take action. Counsel for Zachary Rehl, a Proud Boy from Pennsylvania, asked Kelly to dismiss the indictment in this case and impose such other sanctions as are just and proper on the grounds that the government has violated Mr. Rehls rights to a fair trial and to the due process of law by failing to produce until this past week information favorable to Mr. Rehl that is material either to guilt or to punishment under Brady v. Maryland.

Even more outrageous is that Rehl and three of his co-defendants have been behind bars under pre-trial detention orders since early 2021; Kelly, a Trump appointee, has consented to their indefinite incarceration as the Justice Department plays last-minute games to either force plea agreements or delay trial once again.

Gamesmanship aside, its now evident the FBI infiltrated these two militia groups well in advance of January 6. So, only one of two explanations is possible: either the FBI hired lousy informants, all of whom failed to tell their handling agents that the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys planned to overthrow the government that day or, more likely, the FBI replicated the Whitmer fednappinginformants worked with supervising agents and FBI hierarchy to concoct another domestic terror attack to bolster Wrays unsubstantiated warnings about domestic violent extremists for political reasons. In other words, they wanted to sabotage Donald Trump.

In either case, where is the outrage among January 6 propagandists that the FBI, contrary to Wrays public assertions, had plenty of resources devoted to collecting intelligence about the Capitol protest? Why did Wrays surveillance operation fail so spectacularly? Who are the handling agents responsible for such widespread failure? Why havent heads rolled? Where is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) calling for Wrays resignation?

That these questions remain unansweredand, more importantly, unaskedis a telling sign.

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Feds Had Informants In Proud Boys And Oath Keepers For J6

1. A Disputed Witness at the Proud Boys Sedition Trial: A Police Officer  The New York Times
2. Proud Boys want DC police officer to testify in their defense at upcoming trial  CNN
3. Fight Over DC Officer Testimony Roils Proud Boys Sedition Case  NBC4 Washington
4. Accused Proud Boys leader wants D.C. police officer to testify in his defense  The Washington Post
5. Proud Boys Member Facing Seditious Conspiracy Charge Accuses Government of Intimidating Defense Witness  Law & Crime
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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A Disputed Witness at the Proud Boys Sedition Trial: A Police Officer - The New York Times