It pays to do background checks on who you hire to represent you in a court of law and this fool surely would not be someone I’d hire to represent my pets let alone me! Good riddance throwing away a career for someone would step on you to save himself!
Rioter charged in Pelosi laptop theft sentenced to prison
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman linked to a far-right extremist movement was sentenced on Thursday to three years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, where she invaded then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with other rioters.
Riley June Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was charged but not convicted of helping steal a laptop from Pelosi’s office suite during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
A federal jury convicted Williams in November of six charges, including a felony count of civil disorder, after a two-week trial. But it deadlocked on two other counts, including “aiding and abetting" the laptop's theft.
Jurors also deadlocked on a charge of obstructing an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory. Then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress evacuated the House and Senate chambers when rioters attacked the Capitol.
Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to sentence Williams to seven years and three months in prison.
“Everywhere she went, Williams acted as an accelerant, exacerbating the mayhem. Where others turned back, she pushed forward,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Defense lawyers requested a term of imprisonment of one year and one day for Williams, who was 22 in January 2021.
“In some respects, she is starkly different from the average January 6th defendant – particularly given her youth and that she is a female,” they wrote. “In other ways she is similar to many of other January 6th defendants with no prior criminal record, that were caught up with the mob that day, acting on impulse and without thought to the consequences of their actions.”
Jackson also sentenced Williams to three years of supervised release after her prison term and ordered her to pay $2,000 in restitution, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia.
Williams was an ardent supporter of the white nationalist “Groyper” movement led by internet personality Nick Fuentes, according to prosecutors. They said Williams was “obsessed" with Fuentes and fixated on baseless claims — amplified by Fuentes — that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Williams' attorneys argued that her political beliefs shouldn't be a factor in her sentencing. They said the First Amendment protects her interest in Fuentes and his “Groyper Army” of followers.
Fuentes has used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric. In November, former President Trump dined at his Mar-a-Lago club with Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who is now known as Ye.
Other Fuentes followers have been charged with Jan. 6-related crimes, including former UCLA student Christian Secor, who waved a flag associated with Fuentes’ movement when he entered the Capitol. Secor was sentenced last year to three years and six months in prison.
Williams wore a green “I’m with Groyper” T-shirt when she traveled to Washington, D.C., with her father and his friends on Jan. 6. They attended Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally before heading to the Capitol. Williams entered the building through the Senate Wing Door two minutes after other rioters breached the entrance.
Williams used men wearing helmets and body armor like a “human battering ram,” pushing them forward to break through police lines inside the Capitol, prosecutors said. Entering Pelosi's main conference room, she stole a gavel and encouraged another rioter to take a laptop from atop a table, according to prosecutors.
“As the other rioter later manipulated the laptop and its cords, Williams filmed the theft that she had just commanded and encouraged, and further instructed the rioter, 'Dude, put on gloves!'” prosecutors wrote.
Williams then went to the Rotunda, where she shouted insults at police and urged other rioters to join her in pushing against officers.
Williams spent roughly 90 minutes in the Capitol. After leaving, she climbed on the roof of a parked police car.
Williams destroyed evidence before her arrest, deleting her social media accounts, resetting her iPhone and using software to wipe her computer, according to prosecutors.
Williams bragged online that she stole Pelosi’s gavel, laptop and hard drives and that she “gave the electronic devices, or attempted to give them, to unspecified Russian individuals,” prosecutors said in a June 2022 court filing.
“To date, neither the laptop nor the gavel has been recovered,” they added.
A witness described as a former romantic partner of Williams told the FBI that she intended to send the stolen laptop or hard drive to a friend in Russia who planned to sell it to Russia’s foreign intelligence service. But the witness said Williams kept the device or destroyed it when the transfer fell through, according to the FBI.
When the FBI questioned her, Williams denied stealing the laptop. She accused an ex-boyfriend of fabricating the allegation.
Williams was taken into custody after the jury convicted her on Nov. 21.
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“WACO, Texas (AP) — Facing a potential indictment, Donald Trump took a defiant stance at a rally Saturday in Waco, disparaging the prosecutors investigating him and predicting his vindication as he rallied supporters in a city made famous by deadly resistance against law enforcement.
With a hand over his heart, Trump stood at attention when his rally opened with a song called “Justice for All” performed by a choir of people imprisoned for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Some footage from the insurrection was shown on big screens displayed at the rally site as the choir sang the national anthem and a recording played of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.“
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Prosecutor: Proud Boys viewed themselves as 'Trump's army'
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST
1 hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ready for “all-out war,” leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Donald Trump as the former president clung to power after the 2020 election, a prosecutor said Monday at the close of a historic trial over the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Jurors began hearing attorneys' closing arguments for the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants. They are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's electoral victory on Jan. 6, 2021, when the pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol.
Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf," prosecutor Conor Mulroe told jurors, who heard more than three months of testimony. “These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump's army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it."
The prosecution's words underscore how the Justice Department has worked throughout the trial to link the violence on Jan. 6 to the rhetoric and actions of the former president. Prosecutors have repeatedly shown jurors a video clip of Trump telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first presidential debate with Joe Biden.
Defense attorneys have said there is no evidence or a conspiracy or a plan for Proud Boys to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mulroe said a conspiracy can be an unspoken and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod.” A “plan,” he added, isn't the right word for what this case is about.
Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot that erupted at the Capitol. Tarrio wasn’t in Washington, D.C., that day but is accused of orchestrating an attack from afar.
The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers. But this is the first major trial involving leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, a neofacist group of self-described “Western chauvinists” that remains a force in mainstream Republican circles.
Seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era charge that is rare and can be difficult to prove, carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The Proud Boys also face other serious charges.
Jurors have heard 50 days of testimony by more than three dozen witnesses since the trial started in January. Two of the five defendants testified, but Tarrio wasn't one of them.
The foundation of the government's case is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders and members privately exchanged in encrypted chats — and publicly posted on social media — before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.
The messages show Proud Boys celebrating when Trump, a Republican, told the group to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden, a Democrat. After the 2020 election, they discussed plans to travel to Washington for Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. And they raged online for weeks about baseless claims of a stolen election and what would happen when Biden took office.
“If Biden steals this election, (the Proud Boys) will be political prisoners,” Tarrio posted on Nov. 16, 2020. “We won’t go quietly ... I promise.”
Jurors also saw the string of gleeful messages that Proud Boys members posted during the Jan. 6 riot. A group of Proud Boys marched to the Capitol that day. Some entered the building after the mob of Trump supporters overwhelmed police lines.
“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in one message. “We did this.”
Tarrio, a Miami resident, is on trial with Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, of Auburn, Wash., was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Fla., was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, N.Y.
Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the Jan. 6 riot on charges that he burned a church's Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier march in the city. Tarrio heeded a judge's order to leave the nation's capital after his arrest.
The defense attorneys called several current and former Proud Boys to the stand, trying to portray the group as a drinking club that only engaged in violence for self-defense against antifascist activists.
Rehl, the first defendant to testify, said the group had “no objective” that day. Pezzola testified that he got “caught up in the craziness” and acted alone on Jan. 6 when he used a riot shield stolen from a police officer to smash a Capitol window.
Prosecutors have argued that Tarrio and the others mobilized a loyal group of foot soldiers — or “tools” — to supply the force necessary to carry out their plot. Mulroe said the Proud Boys leaders wanted to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory “by any means necessary, including force.”
“You want to call this a drinking club? You want to call a men’s fraternal organization? Ladies and gentlemen, let’s call this what it is … a violent gang that came together to use force against its enemies” the prosecutor said.
Key witnesses for prosecutors included two former Proud Boys members who pleaded guilty to riot-related charges and are cooperating with the government in the hopes of getting lighter sentences.
The first, Matthew Greene, testified that group members were expecting a “civil war” as they grew increasingly angry about the election results. The second, Jeremy Bertino, testified that he viewed the Proud Boys as leaders of the conservative movement and as “the tip of the spear” after the November 2020 election.
The Proud Boys’ defense mirrored arguments made by lawyers for members of the Oath Keepers, who were separately charged with seditious conspiracy. They, too, said there was no evidence of a plan for group members to attack the Capitol.
Several Oath Keepers — including the antigovernment group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes — also took the witness stand in their trials, with mixed results. Over the course of two Oath Keepers trials, prosecutors secured seditious conspiracy convictions against Rhodes and five other members, while three defendants were acquitted of the charge. Those three, however, were convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
___
Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.
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Proud Boys leader lawyer: Trump to blame for Jan. 6 riot
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
47 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A defense attorney argued Tuesday at the close of a landmark trial over the Jan. 6 riot that the Justice Department is making Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio a scapegoat for Donald Trump after the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Tarrio and four lieutenants are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to attack the Capitol to stop the transfer of presidential power from Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election.
In his closing argument, defense lawyer Nayib Hassan noted Tarrio wasn't in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, having been banned from the capital after being arrested on allegations that he defaced a Black Lives Matter banner. Trump, Hassan argued, was the one to blame for extorting a crowd outside the White House to “ fight like hell.”
“It was Donald Trump's words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” Hassan told jurors in Washington federal court. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”
Seditious conspiracy, a rarely used charge that can be difficult to prove, carries a possible prison term of up to 20 years.
Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot, which temporarily halted the certification of Biden’s election win.
From the outset of the trial, Tarrio's lawyers have accused prosecutors of using him as a scapegoat because charging Trump or his powerful allies would be too difficult. But his attorney's closing arguments were the most full-throated expression of that defense strategy since the trial started more than three months ago.
Trump has denied inciting any violence on Jan. 6 and has argued that he was permitted by the First Amendment to challenge his loss to Biden. The former president is facing several civil lawsuits over the riot and a special counsel named by Attorney General Merrick Garland is also overseeing investigations into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election.
A prosecutor told jurors on Monday during the first day of closing arguments that the Proud Boys were ready for “all-out war” and viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Trump as the Republican spread lies that Democrats stole the election from him.
“These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it,” said the prosecutor, Conor Mulroe.
Jurors could begin deliberating as soon as Tuesday after hearing closing arguments and a rebuttal from prosecutors.
Tarrio, a Miami resident, is on trial with Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.
Attorneys for Nordean and Rehl gave their closing arguments on Monday.
Tarrio is accused of orchestrating an attack from afar even though he wasn’t in Washington that day. Police arrested him two days before the riot on charges that he burned a church’s Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier march in the city. A judge ordered Tarrio to leave Washington after his arrest.
Defense attorneys have argued that there is no evidence of a conspiracy or a plan for the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol. Tarrio “had no plan, no objective and no understanding of an objective,” his attorney said.
Pezzola testified that he never spoke to any of his co-defendants before they sat in the same courtroom after their arrests. Defense attorney Steven Metcalf said Pezzola never knew of any plan for Jan. 6 or joined in any conspiracy with the Proud Boys leaders.
“It’s not possible. It’s fairy dust. It doesn’t exist,” Metcalf said.
Mulroe, the prosecutor, told jurors that a conspiracy can be an unspoken and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod.”
The foundation of the government’s case, which started with jury selection in December, is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders and members privately exchanged in encrypted chats — and publicly posted on social media — before, during and after the deadly Jan. 6 attack.
Another prosecutor, Nadia Moore, said the Proud Boys did more than just talk about their goal of keeping Trump in office. They marched to the Capitol and helped stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, she told jurors.
“These men aren’t here because of what they said. They’re here because of what they did,” Moore said Tuesday.
Norm Pattis, one of Biggs' attorneys, described the Capitol riot as an “aberration” and told jurors that their verdict “means so much more than January 6th itself” because it will ”speak to the future.”
“Show the world with this verdict that the rule of law is alive and well in the United States,” Pattis said.
The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers. But this is the first major trial involving leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group of self-described “Western chauvinists” that remains a force in mainstream Republican circles.
___
This version corrects that jury selection in the trial began in December, not January.
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Ex-Proud Boys leader Tarrio guilty of Jan. 6 sedition plot
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, LINDSAY WHITEHURST and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
26 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right extremist group were convicted Thursday of a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election.
A jury in Washington, D.C., found Tarrio guilty of seditious conspiracy after hearing from dozens of witnesses over more than three months in one of the most serious cases brought in the stunning attack that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, as the world watched on live TV.
Tarrio was also convicted of obstructing Congress' certification of President Joe Biden's electoral victory and obstructing law enforcement as well as two other conspiracy charges. He was cleared of an assault charge stemming from a co-defendant who stole an officer's riot shield.
It’s a significant milestone for the Justice Department, which has now secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the leaders of two major extremist groups prosecutors say were intent on keeping Biden out of the White House at all costs. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Tarrio, behind bars since his March 2022 arrest, didn't appear to show any emotion as the verdict was read. He hugged one of his lawyers and shook the hand of the other before leaving the courtroom. A few of the people sitting among the defendants’ relatives wiped away tears as the verdict was read.
An attorney for Tarrio declined to comment Thursday.
Tarrio was a top target of what has become the largest Justice Department investigation in American history. He led the neo-fascist group — known for street fights with left-wing activists — when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden.
Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, because he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and ordered out of the capital city. But prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol that day.
In addition to Tarrio, a Miami resident, three other Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl.
Jurors have not yet reached a unanimous verdict on the sedition charge for fifth defendant: Dominic Pezzola. The judge told them to keep deliberating.
Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter leader. Rehl led a group chapter in Philadelphia. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Pezzola was a group member from Rochester, New York.
Prosecutors told jurors the group viewed itself as “Trump’s army” and was prepared for “all-out war” to stop Biden from becoming president.
The Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf,” prosecutor Conor Mulroe said in his closing argument.
The backbone of the government’s case was hundreds of messages exchanged by Proud Boys in the days leading up to Jan. 6 that show the far-right extremist group peddling Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and trading fears over what would happen when Biden took office.
As Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol, Tarrio cheered them on from afar, writing on social media: “Do what must be done.” In a Proud Boys encrypted group chat later that day someone asked what they should do next. Tarrio responded: “Do it again.”
“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in another message. “We did this.”
Defense lawyers denied there was any plot to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. A lawyer for Tarrio sought to push the blame onto Trump, arguing the former president incited the pro-Trump mob’s attack when he urged the crowd near the White House to “fight like hell.”
“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” attorney Nayib Hassan said in his final appeal to jurors. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”
The Justice Department hadn’t tried a seditious conspiracy case in a decade before a jury convicted another extremist group leader, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, of the Civil War-era charge last year.
Over the course of two Oath Keepers trials, Rhodes and five other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a separate plot to forcibly halt the transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden. Three defendants were acquitted of the sedition charge, but convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
The Justice Department has yet to disclose how much prison time it will seek when the Oath Keepers are sentenced next month.
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Comments
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman linked to a far-right extremist movement was sentenced on Thursday to three years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, where she invaded then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with other rioters.
Riley June Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was charged but not convicted of helping steal a laptop from Pelosi’s office suite during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
A federal jury convicted Williams in November of six charges, including a felony count of civil disorder, after a two-week trial. But it deadlocked on two other counts, including “aiding and abetting" the laptop's theft.
Jurors also deadlocked on a charge of obstructing an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory. Then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress evacuated the House and Senate chambers when rioters attacked the Capitol.
Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to sentence Williams to seven years and three months in prison.
PROUD BOYS
Informant didn't spy on Proud Boys defense, prosecutors say
Federal prosecutors reveal Proud Boys witness was informant
Prosecutors rest in sedition case against Proud Boys leaders
Proud Boys deployed foot soldiers in sedition plot, Feds say
“Everywhere she went, Williams acted as an accelerant, exacerbating the mayhem. Where others turned back, she pushed forward,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Defense lawyers requested a term of imprisonment of one year and one day for Williams, who was 22 in January 2021.
“In some respects, she is starkly different from the average January 6th defendant – particularly given her youth and that she is a female,” they wrote. “In other ways she is similar to many of other January 6th defendants with no prior criminal record, that were caught up with the mob that day, acting on impulse and without thought to the consequences of their actions.”
Jackson also sentenced Williams to three years of supervised release after her prison term and ordered her to pay $2,000 in restitution, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia.
Williams was an ardent supporter of the white nationalist “Groyper” movement led by internet personality Nick Fuentes, according to prosecutors. They said Williams was “obsessed" with Fuentes and fixated on baseless claims — amplified by Fuentes — that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Williams' attorneys argued that her political beliefs shouldn't be a factor in her sentencing. They said the First Amendment protects her interest in Fuentes and his “Groyper Army” of followers.
Fuentes has used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric. In November, former President Trump dined at his Mar-a-Lago club with Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who is now known as Ye.
Other Fuentes followers have been charged with Jan. 6-related crimes, including former UCLA student Christian Secor, who waved a flag associated with Fuentes’ movement when he entered the Capitol. Secor was sentenced last year to three years and six months in prison.
Williams wore a green “I’m with Groyper” T-shirt when she traveled to Washington, D.C., with her father and his friends on Jan. 6. They attended Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally before heading to the Capitol. Williams entered the building through the Senate Wing Door two minutes after other rioters breached the entrance.
Williams used men wearing helmets and body armor like a “human battering ram,” pushing them forward to break through police lines inside the Capitol, prosecutors said. Entering Pelosi's main conference room, she stole a gavel and encouraged another rioter to take a laptop from atop a table, according to prosecutors.
“As the other rioter later manipulated the laptop and its cords, Williams filmed the theft that she had just commanded and encouraged, and further instructed the rioter, 'Dude, put on gloves!'” prosecutors wrote.
Williams then went to the Rotunda, where she shouted insults at police and urged other rioters to join her in pushing against officers.
Williams spent roughly 90 minutes in the Capitol. After leaving, she climbed on the roof of a parked police car.
Williams destroyed evidence before her arrest, deleting her social media accounts, resetting her iPhone and using software to wipe her computer, according to prosecutors.
Williams bragged online that she stole Pelosi’s gavel, laptop and hard drives and that she “gave the electronic devices, or attempted to give them, to unspecified Russian individuals,” prosecutors said in a June 2022 court filing.
“To date, neither the laptop nor the gavel has been recovered,” they added.
A witness described as a former romantic partner of Williams told the FBI that she intended to send the stolen laptop or hard drive to a friend in Russia who planned to sell it to Russia’s foreign intelligence service. But the witness said Williams kept the device or destroyed it when the transfer fell through, according to the FBI.
When the FBI questioned her, Williams denied stealing the laptop. She accused an ex-boyfriend of fabricating the allegation.
Williams was taken into custody after the jury convicted her on Nov. 21.
Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. More than 400 have been sentenced, with over half of them receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.
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“WACO, Texas (AP) — Facing a potential indictment, Donald Trump took a defiant stance at a rally Saturday in Waco, disparaging the prosecutors investigating him and predicting his vindication as he rallied supporters in a city made famous by deadly resistance against law enforcement.
With a hand over his heart, Trump stood at attention when his rally opened with a song called “Justice for All” performed by a choir of people imprisoned for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Some footage from the insurrection was shown on big screens displayed at the rally site as the choir sang the national anthem and a recording played of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.“
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"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Ready for “all-out war,” leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Donald Trump as the former president clung to power after the 2020 election, a prosecutor said Monday at the close of a historic trial over the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Jurors began hearing attorneys' closing arguments for the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants. They are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's electoral victory on Jan. 6, 2021, when the pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol.
Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf," prosecutor Conor Mulroe told jurors, who heard more than three months of testimony. “These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump's army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it."
The prosecution's words underscore how the Justice Department has worked throughout the trial to link the violence on Jan. 6 to the rhetoric and actions of the former president. Prosecutors have repeatedly shown jurors a video clip of Trump telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first presidential debate with Joe Biden.
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Defense attorneys have said there is no evidence or a conspiracy or a plan for Proud Boys to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mulroe said a conspiracy can be an unspoken and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod.” A “plan,” he added, isn't the right word for what this case is about.
Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot that erupted at the Capitol. Tarrio wasn’t in Washington, D.C., that day but is accused of orchestrating an attack from afar.
The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers. But this is the first major trial involving leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, a neofacist group of self-described “Western chauvinists” that remains a force in mainstream Republican circles.
Seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era charge that is rare and can be difficult to prove, carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The Proud Boys also face other serious charges.
Jurors have heard 50 days of testimony by more than three dozen witnesses since the trial started in January. Two of the five defendants testified, but Tarrio wasn't one of them.
The foundation of the government's case is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders and members privately exchanged in encrypted chats — and publicly posted on social media — before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.
The messages show Proud Boys celebrating when Trump, a Republican, told the group to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden, a Democrat. After the 2020 election, they discussed plans to travel to Washington for Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. And they raged online for weeks about baseless claims of a stolen election and what would happen when Biden took office.
“If Biden steals this election, (the Proud Boys) will be political prisoners,” Tarrio posted on Nov. 16, 2020. “We won’t go quietly ... I promise.”
Jurors also saw the string of gleeful messages that Proud Boys members posted during the Jan. 6 riot. A group of Proud Boys marched to the Capitol that day. Some entered the building after the mob of Trump supporters overwhelmed police lines.
“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in one message. “We did this.”
Tarrio, a Miami resident, is on trial with Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, of Auburn, Wash., was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Fla., was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, N.Y.
Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the Jan. 6 riot on charges that he burned a church's Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier march in the city. Tarrio heeded a judge's order to leave the nation's capital after his arrest.
The defense attorneys called several current and former Proud Boys to the stand, trying to portray the group as a drinking club that only engaged in violence for self-defense against antifascist activists.
Rehl, the first defendant to testify, said the group had “no objective” that day. Pezzola testified that he got “caught up in the craziness” and acted alone on Jan. 6 when he used a riot shield stolen from a police officer to smash a Capitol window.
Prosecutors have argued that Tarrio and the others mobilized a loyal group of foot soldiers — or “tools” — to supply the force necessary to carry out their plot. Mulroe said the Proud Boys leaders wanted to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory “by any means necessary, including force.”
“You want to call this a drinking club? You want to call a men’s fraternal organization? Ladies and gentlemen, let’s call this what it is … a violent gang that came together to use force against its enemies” the prosecutor said.
Key witnesses for prosecutors included two former Proud Boys members who pleaded guilty to riot-related charges and are cooperating with the government in the hopes of getting lighter sentences.
The first, Matthew Greene, testified that group members were expecting a “civil war” as they grew increasingly angry about the election results. The second, Jeremy Bertino, testified that he viewed the Proud Boys as leaders of the conservative movement and as “the tip of the spear” after the November 2020 election.
The Proud Boys’ defense mirrored arguments made by lawyers for members of the Oath Keepers, who were separately charged with seditious conspiracy. They, too, said there was no evidence of a plan for group members to attack the Capitol.
Several Oath Keepers — including the antigovernment group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes — also took the witness stand in their trials, with mixed results. Over the course of two Oath Keepers trials, prosecutors secured seditious conspiracy convictions against Rhodes and five other members, while three defendants were acquitted of the charge. Those three, however, were convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Capitol insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A defense attorney argued Tuesday at the close of a landmark trial over the Jan. 6 riot that the Justice Department is making Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio a scapegoat for Donald Trump after the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Tarrio and four lieutenants are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to attack the Capitol to stop the transfer of presidential power from Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election.
In his closing argument, defense lawyer Nayib Hassan noted Tarrio wasn't in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, having been banned from the capital after being arrested on allegations that he defaced a Black Lives Matter banner. Trump, Hassan argued, was the one to blame for extorting a crowd outside the White House to “ fight like hell.”
“It was Donald Trump's words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” Hassan told jurors in Washington federal court. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”
Seditious conspiracy, a rarely used charge that can be difficult to prove, carries a possible prison term of up to 20 years.
Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot, which temporarily halted the certification of Biden’s election win.
From the outset of the trial, Tarrio's lawyers have accused prosecutors of using him as a scapegoat because charging Trump or his powerful allies would be too difficult. But his attorney's closing arguments were the most full-throated expression of that defense strategy since the trial started more than three months ago.
Trump has denied inciting any violence on Jan. 6 and has argued that he was permitted by the First Amendment to challenge his loss to Biden. The former president is facing several civil lawsuits over the riot and a special counsel named by Attorney General Merrick Garland is also overseeing investigations into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election.
A prosecutor told jurors on Monday during the first day of closing arguments that the Proud Boys were ready for “all-out war” and viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Trump as the Republican spread lies that Democrats stole the election from him.
“These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it,” said the prosecutor, Conor Mulroe.
Jurors could begin deliberating as soon as Tuesday after hearing closing arguments and a rebuttal from prosecutors.
Tarrio, a Miami resident, is on trial with Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.
Attorneys for Nordean and Rehl gave their closing arguments on Monday.
Tarrio is accused of orchestrating an attack from afar even though he wasn’t in Washington that day. Police arrested him two days before the riot on charges that he burned a church’s Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier march in the city. A judge ordered Tarrio to leave Washington after his arrest.
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Defense attorneys have argued that there is no evidence of a conspiracy or a plan for the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol. Tarrio “had no plan, no objective and no understanding of an objective,” his attorney said.
Pezzola testified that he never spoke to any of his co-defendants before they sat in the same courtroom after their arrests. Defense attorney Steven Metcalf said Pezzola never knew of any plan for Jan. 6 or joined in any conspiracy with the Proud Boys leaders.
“It’s not possible. It’s fairy dust. It doesn’t exist,” Metcalf said.
Mulroe, the prosecutor, told jurors that a conspiracy can be an unspoken and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod.”
The foundation of the government’s case, which started with jury selection in December, is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders and members privately exchanged in encrypted chats — and publicly posted on social media — before, during and after the deadly Jan. 6 attack.
Another prosecutor, Nadia Moore, said the Proud Boys did more than just talk about their goal of keeping Trump in office. They marched to the Capitol and helped stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, she told jurors.
“These men aren’t here because of what they said. They’re here because of what they did,” Moore said Tuesday.
Norm Pattis, one of Biggs' attorneys, described the Capitol riot as an “aberration” and told jurors that their verdict “means so much more than January 6th itself” because it will ”speak to the future.”
“Show the world with this verdict that the rule of law is alive and well in the United States,” Pattis said.
The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers. But this is the first major trial involving leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group of self-described “Western chauvinists” that remains a force in mainstream Republican circles.
___
This version corrects that jury selection in the trial began in December, not January.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Capitol insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
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2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Huh
Put them in a federal supermax in genpop away from the ABs. Put them in with the black and Hispanic gangs
They won't last long.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right extremist group were convicted Thursday of a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election.
A jury in Washington, D.C., found Tarrio guilty of seditious conspiracy after hearing from dozens of witnesses over more than three months in one of the most serious cases brought in the stunning attack that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, as the world watched on live TV.
Tarrio was also convicted of obstructing Congress' certification of President Joe Biden's electoral victory and obstructing law enforcement as well as two other conspiracy charges. He was cleared of an assault charge stemming from a co-defendant who stole an officer's riot shield.
It’s a significant milestone for the Justice Department, which has now secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the leaders of two major extremist groups prosecutors say were intent on keeping Biden out of the White House at all costs. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Tarrio, behind bars since his March 2022 arrest, didn't appear to show any emotion as the verdict was read. He hugged one of his lawyers and shook the hand of the other before leaving the courtroom. A few of the people sitting among the defendants’ relatives wiped away tears as the verdict was read.
An attorney for Tarrio declined to comment Thursday.
Tarrio was a top target of what has become the largest Justice Department investigation in American history. He led the neo-fascist group — known for street fights with left-wing activists — when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden.
Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, because he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and ordered out of the capital city. But prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol that day.
In addition to Tarrio, a Miami resident, three other Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl.
Jurors have not yet reached a unanimous verdict on the sedition charge for fifth defendant: Dominic Pezzola. The judge told them to keep deliberating.
Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter leader. Rehl led a group chapter in Philadelphia. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Pezzola was a group member from Rochester, New York.
Prosecutors told jurors the group viewed itself as “Trump’s army” and was prepared for “all-out war” to stop Biden from becoming president.
The Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf,” prosecutor Conor Mulroe said in his closing argument.
The backbone of the government’s case was hundreds of messages exchanged by Proud Boys in the days leading up to Jan. 6 that show the far-right extremist group peddling Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and trading fears over what would happen when Biden took office.
As Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol, Tarrio cheered them on from afar, writing on social media: “Do what must be done.” In a Proud Boys encrypted group chat later that day someone asked what they should do next. Tarrio responded: “Do it again.”
“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in another message. “We did this.”
Defense lawyers denied there was any plot to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. A lawyer for Tarrio sought to push the blame onto Trump, arguing the former president incited the pro-Trump mob’s attack when he urged the crowd near the White House to “fight like hell.”
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“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” attorney Nayib Hassan said in his final appeal to jurors. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”
The Justice Department hadn’t tried a seditious conspiracy case in a decade before a jury convicted another extremist group leader, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, of the Civil War-era charge last year.
Over the course of two Oath Keepers trials, Rhodes and five other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a separate plot to forcibly halt the transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden. Three defendants were acquitted of the sedition charge, but convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
The Justice Department has yet to disclose how much prison time it will seek when the Oath Keepers are sentenced next month.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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