By Aaron Miller-
Four members of the far-right Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy on Thursday for their roles in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by supporters of former president Donald Trump.
Enrique Tarrio, 39, the former “national chairman” of the neofascist organization, was among those found guilty by a jury after a more than three month trial in the nation’s capital.
Three of Tarrio’s lieutenants — Joseph Biggs, 39, Ethan Nordean, 32, and Zachary Rehl, 37 — were also convicted of seditious conspiracy, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, while a fourth Proud Boy, Dominic Pezzola, was found not guilty.
All five Proud Boys members were charged on nine counts in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, while Pezzola — who was caught on video smashing in a window with a Capitol Police shield during the breach, and who admitted to his behaviour on the stand — was separately charged with a tenth count of stealing the police shield and found guilty Thursday.
Defence attorneys argued that the Justice Department was using the group as a scapegoat for the real person to blame for Jan. 6: Donald Trump. Their weak supposed rebuttals hit brick walls at the end of the hearing.
Prosecutors painstakingly presented a coherent narrative suggesting the Proud Boys brought some coordination to the attack on Capitol Hill that brought Mayhem to Newyork as Congressmen and women met to certify the election of Joe Biden,
Among the several criminal complaints made by prosecutors was that days before the Capitol attack, Mr. Nordean issued a call on social media asking for donations of “protective gear” and declared during his podcast, “We are in a war.”
Prosecutors also argued that some group members went to the Capitol with communication equipment and that leaders ordered subordinates to show up undercover, not in their typical black-and-yellow shirts.
On the day of the Capitol attack, 30 year old Mr. Nordean, from Washington State, joined Mr. Biggs, a former soldier who lives in Florida, where they had mustered a large group of Proud Boys, wearing orange hats, apparently as an identifying marker.
A video of the gathering depicted an affiliate member in the crowd was captured yelling, with an expletive, “Let’s take the Capitol!
Two defendants testified during the trial: Rehl, the head of the organization’s Philadelphia chapter, and Pezzola, a floor installer from New York whom members of the organization called “Spaz.” Just before Rehl was set to be cross-examined, online sleuths surfaced videos that appeared to show him deploying a can of pepper spray toward officers; Rehl denied it at trial and was not charged with assaulting police.
Pezzola became very animated on the stand, bringing up conspiracy theories about another Jan. 6 participant, Ray Epps, and ranting about the “fake” charges and the “phony” trial.
Prosecutors most arduous task was convincing a jury that Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chairman, was a part of the conspiracy, given that he spent Jan. 6 at a hotel in Baltimore after being banned from Washington, D.C., the day before.
Tarrio, in encrypted messages revealed during the trial, acknowledged receiving a message from someone who wanted to “storm the Capitol” but didn’t directly endorse that plan, and prosecutors seemed to concede that much of what happened on Jan. 6 happened spontaneously. What they were able to show was that Tarrio said he wanted a “spectacle” on Jan. 6, and celebrated the attack on the Capitol after it happened, giving the Proud Boys credit for the breach.
“Hundreds have already been held accountable for their conduct on January 6, 2021, and this verdict holds some of the most prominent members of the Proud Boys accountable for their role in trying to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election,” US Attorney Matthew Graves said.
“Their crimes, and the crimes of other members of the mob that descended on the Capitol, struck at the very heart of our democracy,” Graves said in a statement.
Pezzola was also found guilty of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers, while the other four defendants were acquitted on that charge.
The jury reached only a partial verdict and Kelly declared a mistrial on several other counts on which the jury did not come to a conclusion.
The trial unfolded over the course of four months, with jury selection beginning in December 2022 and opening arguments starting in early January. The Proud Boys trial was the third seditious conspiracy case to go before jurors since the Capitol attack: Six members of the far-right Oath Keepers group, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were convicted on that charge across two trials in November and January.
Directing Capitol Storming
Tarrio was not in Washington on January 6 but was accused of directing the storming of the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification by Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump.
All five defendants were also convicted of several lesser charges, including obstruction of the proceedings of Congress, impeding law enforcement and destruction of government property.
The 45-year-old Pezzola was also convicted of robbery of US property. In widely viewed video footage from January 6, Pezzola can be seen using a stolen police riot shield to break a window at the Capitol.
The success of federal prosecutors in obtaining convictions for sedition among the January 6 rioters could raise the stakes for Trump and his advisors in the investigation by a Justice Department special counsel into whether they plotted or fomented the Capitol attack.-
Two leaders of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy last year, including its founder, Stewart Rhodes.
According to Tarrio’s indictment, he met with Rhodes on January 5 in an underground parking garage in Washington and was in contact with members of the Proud Boys who breached the Capitol.
In January, four other members of the Oath Keepers were found guilty of seditious conspiracy, fortifying the government’s argument that the January 6 attack was not simply a spontaneous action, but that there was significant planning and coordination involved.
The assault on Congress left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured and followed a fiery speech by Trump to thousands of his supporters near the White House.
Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House of Representatives after the Capitol riot — he was charged with inciting an insurrection — but was acquitted by the Senate.
A House committee that investigated the Capitol riot recommended that the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against Trump.
Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel to oversee the probe into the assault and the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result.
Three weeks before the violence, Trump urged his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6, tweeting: “Be there, will be wild.”
He also told them Vice president Mike Pence did not have the courage to do the right thing, adding that they won’t have a country anymore, if they did not at.
Trump is also facing possible indictment in Georgia for allegedly pressuring local officials to change the election results in the southern state.
The former U.S president is still vying for candidacy for the 2024 U.S elections and is a front runner for the Republican Party.
Image: Erin Schaff