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Proud Boys: Trial on seditious conspiracy charges begins Monday

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CNN
 — 

Leaders of the right-wing extremist Proud Boys will face trial starting Monday for their alleged conspiracy to stop Joe Biden from assuming the presidency, another test for the Justice Department’s effort to punish the far-right political movement connected to fierce allies of former President Donald Trump.

Federal prosecutors intend to prove that four leaders of the Proud Boys – Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl – plotted and broadly encouraged violence in the build up to January 6.

When the riot, allegedly initiated by a member of the Proud Boys, broke out at the Capitol, Nordean, Biggs and Rehl stood back while others – including the fifth defendant Dominic Pezzola – took action, prosecutors argue.

To prove their case, prosecutors will likely feature the testimony of several Proud Boys who pleaded guilty to charges connected to the conspiracy including two alleged leaders and close allies of Tarrio. Prosecutors will also heavily depend on the defendants’ own words in texts and social media posts, as well as recorded planning meetings and videos from the riot.

Attorneys for the five defendants have argued that they were merely protesting on January 6 and have also suggested that the government is overcharging their clients. In court hearings, defense attorneys have also said the group had no real, cohesive plan to attack the Capitol that day.

The trial against the Proud Boys is scheduled to start on Monday with jury selection in DC federal court. All five defendants have pleaded not guilty to the indictment and face a maximum sentence of 20 years in a federal prison.

Enrique Tarrio, 38, is the longtime chairman of the Proud Boys.

Ethan Nordean, 31, is a Proud Boys leader from Washington state. Nordean, who goes by the moniker “Rufio Panman” after a member of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys, rose to prominence in 2017 after a video of him knocking out an anti-fascist protester in one punch went viral.

Joseph Biggs, 38, is an Army veteran and Proud Boys leader from Florida. Biggs previously worked as a correspondent for Infowars, a far-right outlet that peddles false conspiracy theories.

Zachary Rehl, 36, is a former Marine and the president of his local Philadelphia chapter of the Proud Boys.

Dominic Pezzola, 44, is a Proud Boy from New York who goes by the nicknames “Spaz,” “Spazzo,” and “Spazzolini.” Pezzola is a former Marine.

– Source:
CNN
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Ex-FBI Deputy Director on the message the Oath Keepers jury verdict sends to domestic extremists

According to the indictment, leaders of the Proud Boys began planning for a “war” in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

“If Biden steals this election, [the Proud Boys] will be political prisoners. We won’t go quietly…I promise,” Tarrio allegedly posted online in the days after the election was called for Joe Biden.

By December, members of Proud Boys had started attending Washington, DC, rallies en masse. Some of the protests broke out in violence and the Proud Boys, who are known for street fighting, were in the middle.

When Trump announced the January 6 rally on Twitter, Tarrio and others decided to create a new national chapter of the Proud Boys for the event called the Ministry of Self Defense (MOSD) according to court documents. The MOSD was allegedly made up of more than 90 “hand selected members” and “rally boys” – members who were willing to break the law – and were encouraged not to wear the traditional Proud Boys uniform of black and yellow polos when they came to DC.

The MOSD, Tarrio allegedly informed new members, would have a “top down structure.” He, Biggs and Nordean were viewed as the MOSD leaders, prosecutors say. Several others including Rehl were also part of MOSD leadership.

Tarrio was arrested in Washington, DC, on January 4, 2021, for burning a DC church’s Black Lives Matter banner in December and bringing high-capacity rifle magazines into the district. He was ordered by a judge to leave the city. In encrypted leadership chats, Tarrio allegedly told other members he hoped his arrest could inspire people to lash out violently against police.

A group of approximately 100 Proud Boys met at the Washington Monument the morning of January 6, prosecutors say. Several of the members, including Biggs and Rehl, allegedly had walkie-talkie style radios, and Nordean and Biggs both used a bullhorn to direct the group as they marched to the Capitol.

The group arrived at the Capitol around 15 minutes before Congress was set to start the joint proceeding to certify the 2020 election, according to videos from that day, and walked to an access point on the west side of the building. A Proud Boy named Ryan Samsel was the first to charge and breach barricades on the Capitol grounds, prosecutors say, and he spoke to Biggs just one minute before acting.

As the battle at the Capitol ensued, members of the hand selected MOSD including Pezzola can be seen in videos consistently on the front lines of the riot, prosecutors say. Nordean, Biggs and Rehl allegedly stayed back, opting to follow once others had already broken through police lines.

When the mob arrived at the Capitol doors, Pezzola used a stolen police riot shield to smash a window, prosecutors say. The first members of the mob to breach the Capitol building, allegedly including Pezzola and Biggs, entered through that window. The Senate suspended its session minutes later.

Tarrio watched the chaos unfold from Baltimore, allegedly posting publicly on social media “Don’t f***ing leave” and “Make no mistake…We did this…”

The Justice Department has already successfully prosecuted a seditious conspiracy case against leaders of the Oath Keepers, which could act as a model for prosecutors as they turn to the Proud Boys.

Both Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Tarrio did not enter the Capitol during the hours-long breach, but during his trial, prosecutors successfully argued that Rhodes acted like a general overseeing his troops on January 6, a narrative prosecutors will likely employ against Tarrio.

Unlike the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys have a long history of violent action – a history that prosecutors will likely use to convince a jury that the group has a propensity toward violence and that the riot at the Capitol was not out of character.

In previous court filings, prosecutors have said that Tarrio, Biggs, Nordean, Rehl and other Proud Boys leaders encouraged their followers to “turn your brains off a little bit,” and used those followers as “tools” to achieve their larger plan to interfere with the joint congressional proceeding.

If the Justice Department secures convictions for Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders, the group will continue to exist, Rachel Carroll Rivas, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center who studies extremism told CNN.

“It’s not hierarchical like a lot of militia movements,” Rivas told CNN, noting the group doesn’t depend on any one leader to act and gain power.

The group’s goal, Rivas said, is focused on “creating chaos, creating fear through a sense of uncertainty and a lack of feeling of safety,” which she says is meant to lead fewer people speaking up against the group.

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US

Oath Keepers: Second seditious conspiracy trial against Oath Keepers begins with opening statements

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Washington
CNN
 — 

Prosecutors on Monday presented opening arguments in a second trial against members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group accused of joining a monthslong plot to keep Joe Biden out of the White House, as the defense opened its own case saying the men have been “overcharged” and had no real plan.

The Justice Department prosecuted the first Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case earlier this fall with mixed success – two leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, were convicted of the charge while three others were acquitted. The two convictions vindicated, at least in part, how the department is prosecuting high-profile cases related to the US Capitol riot.

But in this case, brought against Oath Keepers Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel and Edward Vallejo, federal prosecutors will likely have to adjust their arguments to explain how the four men, none of whom are alleged to be leaders of the militia, helped to orchestrate the violent plot.

That adjustment was on full display Monday, as prosecutor Troy Edwards delivered his opening argument to the jury. While prosecutors focused on lofty constitutional arguments, the Insurrection Act and the Electoral College vote in the first trial, Edwards instead emphasized that these defendants were focused on using “brute force” to keep Trump in power.

“In the defendant’s words, they were at war,” Edwards said. “These defendants agreed to and joined together to stop the transfer of power, and they were ready to do it by force. And on January 6, 2021, they did.”

The four defendants have all pleaded not guilty.

Edwards said that the four defendants took their cues from Rhodes, who was convicted earlier this month for his role in the alleged plot.

Prosecutors struggled at times during the first trial to explain whether Rhodes directly ordered his militia to enter the Capitol building. On Monday, Edwards pointed to a message from Rhodes telling his followers that America’s founding fathers “stormed the governor’s mansion in MA… They didn’t fire on them, but they street fought. That’s where we are now.”

“Recall that Rhodes had consistently told his troops to be ready, to be ready to act to stop the transfer of power. They were. Rhodes told them it was now time to take their place in history,” Edwards said. “They acted. Everything crystallized. They did what was necessary to stop that process.”

Edwards also worked to undercut any suggestion that the Oath Keepers were only present at the Capitol to hear Trump speak and to provide security for so-called VIPs – an argument that defense lawyers in the first trial used to argue that there was no premeditated conspiracy to storm the Capitol or stop the transfer of power.

The defendants “had a few other reasons to be at the Capitol than fighting the transfer of power. And we know this is normal because humans are complicated,” Edwards said.

When the Oath Keepers heard that the Capitol had been breached, Edwards said they hustled toward the chaos. “They abandoned anything they were doing that day and they activated their agreement to take matters into their own hands,” he said.

“A defendant’s unlawful action is not excused just because they talked about other things for a few months. A defendant is not off the hook just because they were there for more than one reason,” he added.

Edwards also preemptively struck at defense arguments that the Oath Keepers went into the Capitol to help law enforcement, telling the jury officers would testify that “none of these defendants helped them, they only presented a danger.”

Minuta, Moerschel, Hackett and Vallejo “perverted the Constitutional order” and “were willing to use force to push their view of the Constitution, their view of America on the country,” Edwards said, telling the jury that each defendant, at the end of the trail, should be found guilty of several charges, including seditious conspiracy.

Defense lawyers for the four defendants said in their opening statements that their clients were being “overcharged” and that the militia did not have an explicit plan to storm the US Capitol. They painted the defendants as victims of the militia’s persuasive leader.

“There were no instructions, there was no plan,” Angela Halim, an attorney for Hackett, told the jury. “There was no unity of purpose.”

Halim said that prosecutors had an “understandable need to hold people accountable,” but had “tunnel vision” in the case of the Oath Keepers and “cherry-picked pieces plucked from here and there that supported their narrative.”

“Do not let them do that. Do not let them tell a story that is incomplete,” Halim said.

Vallejo’s defense attorney, Matthew Peed, also told the 12 jurors and four alternates that prosecutors “may have someone who did something wrong, but they are overcharging them,” and that it is the jury’s job to decide whether investigators “got it right.”

Several of the defense attorneys said their clients had been swept up in the events of 2020, including the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and the racial justice protests that dominated the summer.

In Florida, Hackett was “subject to messaging that encouraged him and his community to be afraid. It wasn’t always clear what the precise threat was, but the message was always to be afraid,” Halim said.

Defense attorney Scott Weinberg said that his client, Moerschel, had a “steady diet from outlets like Newsmax and Fox News” that “tell you to be afraid.”

The defendants also were swayed by the passionate political tirades of Rhodes, some defense attorneys told the jury. Weinberg referred to Rhodes as a “right-wing televangelist” and a “faulty leader” who lives off member dues from Oath Keepers but was ultimately “incompetent” and could not have organized a conspiracy to stop the transfer of power.

Ultimately, Weinberg told jurors, they will see that prosecutors “overpromised and underdelivered” in their accusations against the Oath Keepers, which he described as people who were “out of shape, overweight, elderly, and really just wanted to play military.”

“I think Drake said it best,” Weinberg said, referencing the rapper: “These gentlemen had Twitter fingers, not trigger fingers.”

This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.

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Jeremy Bertino is first Proud Boys leader to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy

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A lieutenant of longtime former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio became the group’s first member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on Thursday, deepening the government’s case against an organization accused of mobilizing violence to prevent the inauguration of Joe Biden.

Jeremy Bertino, 43, of Belmont, N.C., agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders with ties to influential Donald Trump supporters Roger Stone and Alex Jones. The Proud Boys defendants are set to face trial in December on charges including plotting to oppose by force the presidential transition, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly in Washington, Bertino pleaded guilty to that count and to one count of illegal possession of firearms as a former felon, punishable by 51 to 63 months in prison at sentencing under advisory federal guidelines, prosecutors said.

In a sign of the sensitivity and potential importance of Bertino’s testimony, prosecutors agreed that in exchange for “substantial cooperation,” they could seek leniency at sentencing and enter Bertino into a Justice Department witness protection program.

In plea papers, Bertino said Proud Boys leaders “agreed that the election had been stolen, that the purpose of traveling to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, was to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, and that the [Ministry of Self Defense] leaders were willing to do whatever it would take, including using force against police and others, to achieve that objective.”

He admitted that at least two days earlier he received encrypted chat messages indicating that members of the Proud Boys leadership group who called themselves the Ministry of Self Defense “believed that storming the Capitol would achieve the group’s goal” and would require using violence.

Bertino had a place in the inner circle of Proud Boys leaders accused of conspiring to impede Congress with angry Trump supporters as lawmakers met to certify the election results. Bertino’s home in North Carolina was searched in March at the same time that Tarrio was arrested on charges that he and at least the four others “directed, mobilized and led” a crowd of 200 to 300 supporters onto Capitol grounds. Many in that crowd are accused of leading some of the earliest and most aggressive attacks on police and property.

At the time of the search, Bertino allegedly possessed two pistols, a shotgun, a bolt-action rifle and two semiautomatic AR-15-style rifles with scopes. Bertino was convicted in 2004 of first-degree reckless endangerment in New York state, a felony, and sentenced to five years of probation with a period of local jail time, according to court filings.

Bertino’s testimony could implicate Tarrio, a former aide to GOP strategist Stone, and co-defendant Joe Biggs, a former employee of Jones’s online Infowars show. Stone and Jones are two prominent right-wing figures who promoted Trump’s incendiary and baseless assertions that the election was stolen.

Stone remained in contact with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and in Washington in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, coordinated post-election protests and privately strategized with figures such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander, The Washington Post has reported.

Post exclusive: The Roger Stone Tapes — Video shows effort to overturn 2020 election results

Stone also communicated via encrypted texts after the 2020 election with Tarrio as well as Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of a second right-wing extremist group, the Oath Keepers, accused of playing an outsize role in planning for and organizing violence at the Capitol. Rhodes was on trial Thursday on seditious conspiracy charges in the same courthouse where Bertino pleaded.

Before Bertino, all four of 14 people hit with the historically rare charge of seditious conspiracy in the Capitol riots who have pleaded guilty were affiliated with the Oath Keepers.

Tarrio and Rhodes were part of a Signal chat group titled F.O.S. — or Friends of Stone, and the pair met in an underground parking garage next to the Capitol the evening before Jan. 6 with leaders of two pro-Trump grass-roots groups.

Jones, meanwhile, promoted a Nov. 20, 2020, podcast by Tarrio with Biggs and co-defendant Ethan Nordean in which Tarrio suggested in an expletive-laden call that Trump supporters infiltrate the Biden inauguration and turn it into a “circus, a sign of resistance, a sign of revolution.”

Rhodes, Tarrio, Nordean and Biggs have pleaded not guilty to seditious conspiracy and other charges. Stone, who has not been charged, has denied involvement in the Jan. 6 riot. He has previously told The Post: “Any claim, assertion or implication that I knew about, was involved in or condoned the illegal acts at the Capitol on Jan. 6 is categorically false and there is no witness or document that proves otherwise.”

An attorney for Alexander said he testified before a federal grand jury this summer after being assured he was not a target of the investigation. Jones has said he did not lead but followed the crowd to the Capitol that day, grew alarmed by the chaos and recorded himself urging calm and directing others not to fight police.

Tarrio and Bertino were not in Washington on Jan. 6, the only two of more than 870 federally charged defendants who were elsewhere. But in sworn plea papers that largely restated the 10-count indictment against Tarrio and others, Bertino corroborated many of prosecutors’ allegations against the others, and admitted joining in calls for violence including against police, whose support the Proud Boys have long tried to cultivate.

Released videos show Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio meeting Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes the day before the attack on the Capitol. (Video: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia)

Bertino was a regional leader in charge of recruiting handpicked members for the MOSD. He said the group was trying on Dec. 30, 2020, to prepare for the expected arrest of Tarrio for burning a Black Lives Matter flag at an earlier pro-Trump rally in Washington, speculating that it might cause Proud Boys and others gathering for Jan. 6 to “riot.”

“Maybe it’s the shot heard round the world and the normies will f— up the cops,” Bertino admitted saying.

Tarrio was arrested Jan. 4, released on bond and later pleaded guilty and completed a jail term this year.

Proud Boys leader charged with conspiracy in Capitol insurrection

On Jan. 4, according to his indictment, Tarrio posted a voice message to an MOSD leaders group of Proud Boys, stating, “I didn’t hear this voice note until now, you want to storm the Capitol.” After the Capitol was breached, Tarrio wrote in a Telegram group chat, “We did this,” prosecutors said.

That night, Bertino — previously identified as “Individual A” or “Person 1” in charging papers — acknowledged messaging Tarrio, “Brother you know we made this happen,” and “1776,” exulting with a profanity. Tarrio replied, “The Winter Palace,” according to Tarrio’s indictment. Prosecutors allege it is a reference to a Proud Boys planning document that had a section called “Storm the Winter Palace,” referring to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the former imperial palace in St. Petersburg that was raided by Bolsheviks, CNN first reported.

Bertino has been on the radar of both the FBI and a House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6. Bertino told the House panel that membership “tripled” after Trump famously urged the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 presidential debate, according to a video clip of his interview played during a House hearing in June.

Social media posts, video recordings from Jan. 6 and earlier charging papers by the FBI also indicate that Nordean and Proud Boys leaders were motivated to confront police that day in part by what they perceived to be an insufficient response to the stabbing of Bertino outside Harry’s Bar in downtown Washington after a pro-Trump demonstration the previous month.

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Trump news today: Jan 6 committee evidence leaks as Hillary Clinton attacks ‘seditious’ Fox News

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Jamie Raskin doesn’t say whether the Jan 6 Committee will get Mike Pence to testify

Hillary Clinton has laid into Fox News for its decision not to broadcast the 6 January select committee’s upcoming hearings, tweeting that “Fox News won’t air the January 6 hearings because they prefer their sedition made fresh on-site”.

The channel has decided to not air the 6 January public hearings live and instead show only “as news warrants” during its prime time show, with full coverage relegated to its less-viewed sister channel Fox Business. This will make Fox News the only major news network in the US to not carry this Thursday’s hearing live.

Fox News will, however, offer live streams of the hearing without authentication on Foxnews.com and Fox Nation.

The Washington Post reports that witness accounts of 6 January given to the committee include the Secret Service rebuffing Donald Trump’s request to walk to the Capitol with supporters for two weeks before he announced it on the day to the crowd, leaving them scrambling, but ultimately scuttling the idea.

Senior members of the far-right Proud Boys group are facing a new indictment on multiple charges stemming from the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, including counts of seditious conspiracy against the US government.

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Report: House Democrats investigating if foreign gifts to Trump are missing

CNN reports that House Democrats are investigating if gifts from foreign governments and officials to former President Donald Trump have gone missing — potentially amounting to thousands of dollars worth of items.

Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have sent a letter to the National Archives after receiving information from the State Department indicating “the Trump administration ‘did not prioritize this obligation’ and failed to comply with the law that governs foreign gift reporting during President Trump’s final year in office”.

“As a result, the foreign sources and monetary value of gifts President Trump received remain unknown,” it adds. “The Department of State also stated that it was unable to determine the identities of some government officials who received foreign gifts during the Trump Administration, as well as the sources of those foreign gifts.”

The committee wants the National Archives to provide details about all the gifts received during the Trump administration.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 06:45

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Matthew McConaughey pounds White House lectern in anger over Uvalde massacre

An emotional Matthew McConaughey pounded the White House lectern in anger as he called for change in the wake of the Uvalde elementary school massacre.

The Oscar-winner choked up as he described how victim Maite Yuleana Rodriguez could only be identified by her favorite green Converse shoes after she was shot and killed.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 06:15

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Matthew McConaughey holds up artwork of children killed in Uvalde in White House briefing

An emotional Matthew McConaughey took to the White House briefing room on Tuesday to plead for stronger gun laws in the wake of the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 19 students and 2 teachers in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.

The veteran actor became emotional as he held up artwork and photos of children slain by the 18-year-old gunman and described the severity of wounds inflicted by the AR-15-style rifle used in that massacre.

“Make these lives matter,” he said.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 05:45

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Hillary Clinton launches damning attack on Fox News

Fox News announced on Monday that they won’t carry the hearings live on Thursday, but will instead “cover the hearings as news warrants”.

“Fox News won’t air the January 6 hearings because they prefer their sedition made fresh on-site,” Ms Clinton, a former secretary of state, New York senator, and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, tweeted on Tuesday morning.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 05:15

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Fox News could be only major network to not cover Jan 6 hearings

Fox News could become the only major network in the US that will skip covering the first public hearing for the House Select Committee investigating the 6 January Capitol insurrection.

Instead, coverage of the hearings will move to the Fox Business Network and the right-leaning news channel will only cover the hearings “as news warrants”, said a Fox press release cited by Business Insider.

After almost a year-long exhaustive investigation, the select committee will hold its first primetime hearing on Thursday at 8pm ET.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 04:45

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Son of Buffalo shooting victim demands Senate address ‘cancer of white supremacy’

The son of the eldest victim of the Buffalo grocery store massacre has demanded US senators take action against the “cancer of white supremacy”.

Garnell Whitfield Jr, whose 86-year-old mother Ruth Whitfield was killed in the 14 May attack, called on members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to “yield your positions of authority” if they were unwilling to find a solution to the growing domestic terror threat.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 04:15

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GOP senator caught on phone at opening of emotional hearing into domestic terrorism

A Texas Republican senator was spotted using his phone while witnesses gave their opening statements at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday called in response to the massacre in Buffalo, New York.

John Cornyn was seen looking down and scrolling on his device while a former US district attorney gave his remarks to the panel.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 03:45

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Senate votes to advance landmark burn pits bill

The US Senate has voted to advance landmark burn pits bill bringing veterans who are sick and dying from toxic exposure one step closer to getting healthcare access and benefits.

The toxic burn pit exposure bill (Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our PACT Act of 2022) cleared a Senate cloture vote 86-12 on Tuesday.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 03:15

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Secret Service rebuffed Trump for two weeks over plan to walk to Capitol

The Washington Post reports that former President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was going to walk down to the Capitol with his supporters on 6 January 2021, caused the Secret Service to scramble to try and secure a safe route.

The paper cited two people briefed on witness accounts given to the select committee investigating the events surrounding the storming of the US Capitol building.

This scramble happened after two weeks of pressure from Mr Trump on the Secret Service to prepare for such a trip that had been rebuffed by the agency.

A rush to try to accommodate the president only began after he told the 30,000-strong crowd gathered for his rally at the Ellipse that morning: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol.”

Calls to DC police to help secure streets and block intersections were declined as they were already stretched thin with protests, and later a growing mob outside Congress.

Eventually, the plan was called off by the presidential detail as “untenable and unsafe”.

A DC official confirmed the request to the Post. Mr Trump has previously told the outlet that his desire to go to the Capitol on 6 January 2021 was blocked by the Secret Service.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 02:45

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Jan 6 committee still finalising witness list

According to reporting by The New York Times, the final witness list for the upcoming primetime televised herding of the January 6 committee is still being finalised.

It could still mean that high-profile former Trump administration officials could appear and give testimony.

Key aides to former Vice President Mike Pence will be appearing during the first night of TV coverage, and the public will be presented with a multimedia presentation including fresh material.

Further to that though, the committee is said not to have “nailed down the full slate of witnesses” that could appear. This could include former Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen who served after Bill Barr stepped down near the end of the Trump administration.

The panel is waiting for Jeffrey A. Rosen, the former acting attorney general, and Richard P. Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, to respond to formal requests to testify, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Both Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue have already told multiple congressional committees that Mr. Trump and his allies pressured the department to say falsely that it had found voter fraud and to use its power to undo the results.

In addition, there are also reportedly ongoing informal talks with Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel, as well as Byung Pak, the former US attorney in Atlanta, who left his role on 4 January 2021 after finding out the president wanted to fire him for not finding voter fraud.

Oliver O’Connell8 June 2022 02:15

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Enrique Tarrio and Proud Boys members charged with seditious conspiracy for alleged Jan. 6 crimes

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Washington – The leader of the far-right Proud Boys and four of the group’s members have been charged with seditious conspiracy stemming from their alleged planning for and participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Enrique Tarrio, along with codefendants Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola, are accused of conspiring to use force to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power “by preventing, hindering, or delaying by force the execution of the laws governing the transfer of power,” according to a grand jury indictment filed Monday.

The five men were previously indicted on charges of conspiracy and pleaded not guilty. Monday’s indictment adds the even more serious “seditious” element to the counts, although many of the details in the new indictment had previously been alleged in the initial conspiracy charges. 

According to the indictment, in December 2020, Tarrio and the Proud Boys members conspired to obstruct and stop the counting of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6. An unnamed individual sent Tarrio a document entitled “1776 RETURNS,” which described a plan to occupy multiple buildings in Washington, D.C., including congressional office buildings. 

Using encrypted messaging programs, the indicted Proud Boys are accused of discussing their plans for the rally and beyond. One member of the group allegedly asked on Jan. 3, 2021, “What would they do if 1 million patriots stormed and too the capital building. Shoot into the crowd? I think not…They would do nothing because they can do nothing.” 

That same day, according to charging documents, an unidentified individual sent a voice message in the group chat and is accused of stating in part, “The main operating theater should be out in front of the house of representatives…plan the operations based around the front entrance of the Capitol building.” Rehl allegedly responded, “good start.”

In court documents filed Monday evening, Rehl’s court-appointed attorney Carmen Hernandez asked the judge overseeing her client’s case for permission to publicly comment on the new indictment, citing local court rules that limit attorneys’ public disclosures.

“Without adding a single factual allegation concerning Mr. Rehl, the government today filed the Third Superseding Indictment in the instant case, nearly 1-1/2 years after Mr. Rehl was first indicted and detained pretrial and just two months before he is scheduled to begin trial,” the filing reads in part. 

She later wrote, “the worst that has been alleged against Mr. Rehl is that he has associated himself with the Proud Boys, a lawful fraternal association as is his right protected by the First Amendment.”  

Tarrio and his codefendants are the second group to be accused of seditious conspiracy. They join Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and other accused members of the group previously charged with the most serious criminal charges in the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation.  

Also on Monday, documentarian Nick Quested of Goldcrest Films confirmed to CBS News that he will testify during Thursday’s House January 6 Committee hearing. Quested was following Tarrio on Jan. 5, 2021, and captured a meeting with Tarrio and Oath Keepers’ leader Stewart Rhodes in a D.C. hotel parking garage.

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Proud Boys leader Tarrio, 4 top lieutenants charged with seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 Capitol attack

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Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, longtime chairman of the extremist group Proud Boys, was indicted on a new federal charge of seditious conspiracy with four top lieutenants on Monday. The charges expand the Justice Department’s allegations of an organized plot to unleash political violence to prevent the confirmation of President Biden’s election victory on Jan. 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol.

Tarrio, 38, was not in Washington that day, but allegedly guided the group’s activities from nearby Maryland as Proud Boys members engaged in the earliest and most aggressive attacks to confront and overwhelm police at several critical points on restricted Capitol grounds. One co-defendant, Dominic Pezzola, of Rochester, N.Y., broke through the first window of the building at 2:13 p.m. with a stolen police riot shield, authorities said.

A new 10-count superseding indictment returned Monday morning charges Tarrio, Pezzola and three other existing co-defendants — Ethan Nordean, of Seattle, Joe Biggs, of the Daytona Beach area, and Zachary Rehl, of Philadelphia — with coordinating travel to Washington and the movements of the group around the Capitol that day. The group is also accused of plotting to foment a riot and storm Congress, action that eventually forced the evacuation of lawmakers meeting to confirm the 2020 election results.

Federal prosecutors previously leveled the historically rare charge of seditious conspiracy for the first time in the Jan. 6 attack against the founder and leader of the extremist group Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, and 10 associates. Since filing the charges in January, a year after the mob violence, two of Rhodes’s co-defendants and one other Oath Keeper member have pleaded guilty to the charge and are cooperating with the Justice Department: Joshua James, 34, of Alabama, Brian Ulrich, 44, of Georgia, and William Todd Wilson, 44, of North Carolina.

But the new charges show that prosecutors are pulling together a wider picture of organization within extremist groups that shared overlapping if not common goals.

At the same time, the deepening criminal investigation has exposed hints of coordination among groups, even as the FBI and Justice Department are expanding their probe into the ranks of former president Donald Trump’s political orbit. The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is expected to shine a spotlight on such connections in public hearings beginning Thursday.

Newly released videos show Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio meeting Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes the day before the attack on the Capitol. (Video: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia)

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Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Indicted on Seditious Conspiracy Charge Over Jan. 6 Capitol Riot

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The Department of Justice on Monday charged Enrique Tarrio with seditious conspiracy in a new superseding indictment alleging the Proud Boys national chairman helped organize a wide-ranging plot to block the certification of then-President-Elect Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Tarrio, 38, was not present at the Capitol when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the building, but planned and choreographed the far-right gang’s movements that day from Baltimore, according to prosecutors. Four other Proud Boys were also hit Monday with seditious conspiracy charges, including Ethan Nordean, 31; Joseph Biggs, 38; Dominic Pezzola of New York, 44; and Zachary Rehl, 37. They all now face a total of nine charges each, except for Pezzola, who faces an additional robbery charge.

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Two North Texas ‘Oath Keepers’ Charged With Seditious Conspiracy in Jan. 6 Attack – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

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What to Know

  • Two North Texas men face sedition charges related to Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol.
  • The charges mark a serious escalation in the DOJ investigation and rebut, in part, those who question if the attack was an attempted insurrection.
  • Seditious conspiracy charges carry a possible prison term of 20 years.

Two North Texas men, Stewart Rhodes and Roberto Minuta, linked to the militia group Oath Keepers, are among 11 people charged with seditious conspiracy in last year’s assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Despite hundreds of charges already brought in the year since pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, this is the first time seditious conspiracy charges have been brought by prosecutors in connection with the Jan. 6 riot.

Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, 56, of Granbury, was arrested by the FBI Thursday in Little Elm, the Department of Justice said. Another North Texas man, Roberto Minuta, 37, of Prosper, was previously arrested but the conspiracy charges were added to his case.

Rhodes is the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, a group that seeks members who are former military, law enforcement, and first responders, the DOJ said. Rhodes and the others made plans to bring weapons to Washington, prosecutors said.

Elmer Stewart Rhodes

The charges mark a serious escalation in the largest investigation in the Justice Department’s history – more than 700 people have been arrested and charged with federal crimes – and highlighted the work that has gone into piecing together the most complicated cases. The charges rebut, in part, the growing chorus of Republican lawmakers who have publicly challenged the seriousness of the insurrection, arguing that since no one had been charged yet with sedition or treason, it could not have been so violent.

The indictment (embedded at the bottom of this article) alleges Oath Keepers for weeks discussed trying to overturn the election results and preparing for a siege by purchasing weapons and setting up battle plans. They repeatedly wrote in chats about the prospect of violence and the need, as Rhodes allegedly wrote in one text, “to scare the s—out of” Congress. And on Jan. 6, the indictment alleges, they entered the Capitol building with the large crowds of rioters who stormed past police barriers and smashed windows, injuring dozens of officers and sending lawmakers running.

According to the indictment, the FBI obtained encrypted communications among the Oath Keepers. On Nov. 5, two days after the election, Rhodes sent a message: “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit.”

A few days later, Rhodes wrote: “We must now do what the people of Serbia did when Milosevic stole their election — refuse to accept it and march en-mass on the nation’s Capitol.”

The indictment against Rhodes alleges Oath Keepers formed two teams, or “stacks,” that entered the Capitol. The first stack split up inside the building to separately go after the House and Senate. The second stack confronted officers inside the Capitol Rotunda, the indictment said. Outside Washington, the indictment alleges, the Oath Keepers had stationed two “quick reaction forces” that had guns “in support of their plot to stop the lawful transfer of power.”

Sedition charges are difficult to win and rarely used, but defendants face steep prison time of 20 years if convicted, compared with five for the other conspiracy charges. The last time U.S. prosecutors brought such a seditious conspiracy case was in 2010 in an alleged Michigan plot by members of the Hutaree militia to incite an uprising against the government. But a judge ordered acquittals on the sedition conspiracy charges at a 2012 trial, saying prosecutors relied too much on hateful diatribes protected by the First Amendment and didn’t, as required, prove the accused ever had detailed plans for a rebellion.

Among the last successful convictions for seditious conspiracy stemmed from another, now largely forgotten storming of the Capitol in 1954, when four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire on the House floor, wounding five representatives.

Most of the hundreds of people charged with violence are facing lower-level crimes. More than 150 people have been charged with assaulting police officers at the Capitol. Over 50 have been charged with conspiracy, mostly people linked to the far-right Proud Boys and anti-government Oath Keepers. There have been no sedition charges brought against the Proud Boys.

Rhodes did not enter the Capitol building on Jan. 6 but is accused of helping put into motion the violence. Jonathan Moseley, an attorney who said he represented Rhodes, said Rhodes was supposed to testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection in a deposition but it got called off.

“He has been subject to a lot of suspicion to why he wasn’t indicted,” so far in the Jan. 6 riot, Moseley said. “I don’t know if this is in response to those discussions, but we do think it’s unfortunate. It’s an unusual situation.”

A second attorney representing the group, Kellye SoRelle, said she was issuing a statement later and said Mosley did not represent Rhodes.

Rhodes has said in interviews with right-wing hosts that there was no plan to storm the Capitol and that the members who did so went rogue. But he has continued to push the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, while posts on the Oath Keepers website have depicted the group as a victim of political persecution.

Other defendants in the conspiracy have argued in court that the only plan was to provide security at the rally before the riot or protect themselves against possible attacks from far-left Antifa activists.

Rhodes, a former U.S. Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate who founded the Oath Keepers in 2009, has appeared in court documents in the conspiracy case for months as “Person One.”

Authorities say Rhodes held a GoToMeeting call days after the election, telling his followers to go to Washington and let then President Donald Trump know “that the people are behind him.” Rhodes told members they should be prepared to fight Antifa and that some Oath Keepers should “stay on the outside” and be “prepared to go in armed” if necessary.

“We’re going to defend the president, the duly elected president, and we call on him to do what needs to be done to save our country. Because if you don’t guys, you’re going to be in a bloody, bloody civil war, and a bloody — you can call it an insurrection or you can call it a war or fight,” Rhodes said, according to court documents.

Authorities have said Rhodes was part of an encrypted Signal chat with Oath Keepers from multiple states leading up to Jan. 6 called “DC OP: Jan 6 21” and it showed the group was “activating a plan to use force” that day.

On the afternoon of the 6th, authorities say Rhodes told the group over Signal: “All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. They’ve had enough.”

Around 2:30 p.m., Rhodes had a 97-second phone call with Kelly Meggs, the reputed leader of the group’s Florida chapter, who was part of the military-style stack, authorities say. About 10 minutes later, Rhodes sent a photo to the group showing the southeast side of the Capitol with the caption, “South side of US Capitol. Patriots pounding on doors.” Around that same time, those in the stack formation forcibly entered the Capitol, prosecutors say.

Rhodes was expected in court on Friday in Texas.

Seditious conspiracy charges carry a possible prison term of 20 years.

NBC 5’s Scott Gordon and Associated Press writers Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix, Jake Bleiberg in Dallas, Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City, and Nomaan Merchant, Eric Tucker, Michael Kunzelman in Washington contributed to this report.

DOJ INDICTMENT, US VS RHODES

NBC 5 and The Associated Press.

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Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes charged with seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 Capitol riot – The Washington Post

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  1. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes charged with seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 Capitol riot The Washington Post
  2. Oath Keepers Leader Stewart Rhodes Arrested in Jan. 6 Investigation The New York Times
  3. Oath Keepers leader and 10 others charged with ‘seditious conspiracy’ related to US Capitol attack CNN
  4. Oath Keepers leader, 10 others charged in seditious plot to breach U.S. Capitol during January 6 insurrection CNBC
  5. DOJ indicts Oath Keepers leader, members on seditious conspiracy charges involving Jan. 6 attack ABC News
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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