The seditious conspiracy trial of Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and four members of the extremist group at the center of an alleged violent plot to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election is underway. Opening statements have not yet begun, however. Instead, jury selection has moved at a glacial pace at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.
Just weeks ago Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the leader of a separate but similar group known as the Oath Keepers, and one of that network’s division leaders, Kelly Meggs, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy in the very same courthouse.
Selection in that case was rigorous too. Much to the Oath Keepers defendants’ opposition, a jury was eventually cobbled together before a 29-day-long trial unfolded and culminated in a mixed bag of verdicts for Rhodes and his cohorts.
The Proud Boys now on trial find themselves in a similar predicament, though their charges are more numerous. Proud Boys defendants Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola face nine charges apiece including seditious conspiracy; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging their duties; obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder; destruction of government property; and aiding and abetting, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers. Pezzola faces a charge unique to him alone: robbery of personal property of the United States.
According to The Washington Post, jury selection for Tarrio and his crew has moved slowly because it has proven tricky to find local jurors who aren’t familiar with the Proud Boys or the group’s well-documented history of violence or association with unsavory elements like racism, xenophobia, and white supremacy. Former President Donald Trump also made them more of a household name in late 2020 when during a memorable moment at the first presidential debate he told Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” after the debate moderator asked him to disavow the group and other extremist or white supremacist elements.
Locals in Washington also got a taste of the Proud Boys on multiple occasions in the runup to Jan. 6, 2021. In November and December 2020, members of the self-proclaimed “western chauvinist” group roamed the streets during and after pro-Trump rallies and clashed with locals or brawled with counterprotesters.
Per the Post, a number of jurors have already been excused because of their familiarity with those events. Other jurors have expressed open revulsion to the group for different reasons. One juror was reportedly excused “after saying that her partner’s grandparents died in the Holocaust [and] that she understood some groups mentioned in the juror questionnaire were Holocaust deniers and that she therefore would have difficulty being impartial.”
There were many ways Tarrio, Nordean, Rehl, Pezzola, and Biggs could have exercised their First Amendment right to protest the outcome of the election on Jan. 6, Kelly explained. But the charges against them were not merely for acts of civil disobedience gone awry. The charges involve sedition, which is one o, if not the gravest offense a person can make against the authority of the federal government.
“They are charged with conduct involving acts of trespass, depredation of property, and interference with law enforcement, all intended to obstruct Congress’s performance of its constitutional duties. No matter Defendants' political motivations or any political message they wished to express, this alleged conduct is simply not protected by the First Amendment. Defendants are not, as they argue, charged with anything like burning flags, wearing black armbands, or participating in mere sit-ins or protests. Moreover, even if the charged conduct had some expressive aspect, it lost whatever First Amendment protection it may have had,” Kelly wrote.
All of the defendants have pleaded not guilty.
“No Trump … No peace. No quarter.”
Federal prosecutors say the conspiracy among Tarrio and Proud Boys Nordean of Washington state, Biggs of Florida, Rehl of Pennsylvania, and Pezzola of New York began in earnest in the wake of the 2020 election.
From Nov. 6 through Nov. 25, Tarrio posted messages repeatedly online railing against the election outcome. Prosecutors say it wasn’t mere venting, but some of the first clear indicators of a nascent plot.
“The media constantly accuses of wanting to start a civil war. Careful what the fuck you ask for. We don't want to start one … but we will sure as fuck finish one,” Tarrio wrote on Nov. 6.
A week later, he posted again: “Fuck unity. No quarter. Raise the black flag.” Four days later he vowed Proud Boys would not be political prisoners and wouldn’t “go quietly.” When Joe Biden posted a message on social media on Nov. 25, 2020 urging the nation to remember that “we are at war with a virus, not with each other,” Tarrio responded online: “No, YOU need to remember the American people are at war with YOU. No Trump … No peace. No quarter.”
Similar messages by Nordean, Rehl, and Biggs littered online message boards. In one from late November, Nordean urged “traitors” in the U.S. to gather their good luck close in the face of an “unstoppable, unrelenting, and now unforgiving” rise of Proud Boys tired of “playing nice and by the rules.”
“Now you will deal with the monster you created,” Nordean wrote.
A Dec. 12, the Million MAGA March in Washington heavily attended by Proud Boys—an event that was curiously preceded by Tarrio taking a public tour of the White House—ended in bloodshed.
Some of the blood spilled belonged to North Carolina Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino. Bertino was stabbed outside of a D.C. bar on Dec. 12. He had attended several pro-Trump rallies before and was a close associate of Tarrio’s. A member of the Proud Boys since 2018, prosecutors say Bertino ended up being part of the special subchapter of Proud Boys that Tarrio allegedly created just for Jan. 6.
That subchapter was known as the Ministry of Self-Defense, or MOSD, and according to court records, it was formed roughly 24 hours after then-President Donald Trump issued his now-infamous Dec. 19, 2021 tweet urging his followers to descend on Washington for a “big” and “wild” event on Jan. 6.
Prosecutors allege Proud Boys intended to amplify and exploit the coming unrest on Jan. 6 and in Tarrio’s indictment. They point specifically to a document found in his possession after his arrest as further evidence of the conspiracy.
The document is a guide labeled “1776 Returns” and features a nine-page strategy with recommendations on how to occupy federal buildings around the Capitol on Jan. 6 in order to protest the certification.
Transcripts revealed by the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in December showed that Florida cryptocurrency peddler and former State Department employee Samuel Armes told investigators during his interview he didn’t come up with “1776 Returns,” but that he once brainstormed some of ideas, or a variation of them, that ended up in the “revolutionary” guide.
According to the committee transcripts and reporting by Politico, his ideas were meant to be private, though he shared them with a friend, Erika Flores, who was also a friend of Tarrio’s.
Ultimately, Bertino ended up being the first member of the Proud Boys to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy, though he didn’t make it to Washington on Jan. 6; he was still recovering from stab wounds. But he admitted to prosecutors that had it not been for those injuries, he would have been in Washington with the rest of the mob.
Tarrio has vehemently denied the charges against him, but Bertino has said that storming the Capitol or using force to disrupt proceedings was always part of the plan.
In a text just after the breach of the Capitol, Bertino wrote to Tarrio: “You know we made this happen.”
The select committee interviewed Bertino as well as Tarrio. Bertino told congressional investigators Trump’s “stand back, stand by” comment exhilarated the Proud Boys and was a useful recruitment tool. Tarrio’s testimony largely consisted of him working to distance himself from the violence and the Oath Keepers or invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, a transcript of his private deposition shows.
Tarrio wasn’t on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6.
He had stolen a Black Lives Matter banner from a historic Black church and set it on fire in December. The Florida resident returned to the D.C. area days before the insurrection. While in D.C. on Jan. 4, he was arrested after a search of his bag turned up two high-capacity firearm magazines. Tarrio told police he intended to sell the magazines to someone in Washington, D.C. He was released on bond and later pleaded guilty. He has already served jail time for that crime.
After his arrest, but before he left town (he was ordered to leave Washington), Tarrio notably attended an underground meeting with Stewart Rhodes on Jan. 5. Tarrio has consistently played down the meeting, saying it was about legal advice. At the Oath Keepers trial, text message evidence showed Meggs and Rhodes discussing the group’s tenuous alliance around Jan. 6.
From the witness stand, Rhodes denigrated the Proud Boys, saying that Oath Keepers were “stone cold silent” whereas Tarrio’s crew was rowdy, unpredictable, and difficult to manage.
Prosecutors say Nordean, Biggs, and Tarrio were the senior-most leaders of MOSD but responsibilities were spread out and included leadership roles for Rehl, too. Messages seized off Proud Boys devices from Dec. 26 show Tarrio, Biggs, and Nordean splitting themselves into councils for marketing and operations for the group. Another council focused on recruitment efforts.
Tarrio, the indictment alleges, stressed that new recruits needed to “fit in or fuck off” if they were to be part of the Jan. 6 mission. Prosecutors claim Nordean gathered donations online to pay for protective gear that Proud Boys wore on Jan. 6. Further text messages in the MOSD group chat show Tarrio instructing members not to wear their typical and recognizable black and yellow garb.
“We will be incognito and we will be spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who knows … we may dress in all black for the occasion,” Tarrio wrote on Dec. 29.
MOSD allegedly contained more than 90 members by the time of the Capitol attack. Video footage has shown that several of the participants in that group chat and its subsequent chat forums, like defendant Pezzola, were at the front of the line during the assault on Jan. 6.
Prosecutors allege that roughly 100 Proud Boys met at the Washington Monument on the morning of Jan. 6, several donning tactical gear and many with real or makeshift weapons. Nordean and Bigg used a bullhorn to direct members as they walked to the Capitol, the indictment alleges.
The Justice Department says Biggs was also part of an integral exchange precipitating the clash between police and the mob. Prosecutors have pointed to video footage of a man named Ryan Samsel speaking to Biggs just moments before he walks up to a police barricade, begins confronting an officer, and then promptly knocks the officer down.
Pezzola, also known as “Spazz” in court records, was among the first on the mob’s front lines. Video footage shows Pezzola using a riot shield that he stole from police to bash open a Capitol window. Federal prosecutors say Pezzola and Biggs used that window to gain entry.
The seditious conspiracy charge alone carries a 20-year maximum sentence.
On Wednesday, the defendants will appear before Kelly to hash out motions over evidence and continue jury selection.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
