A legal fight has erupted over a Washington D.C. police officer who was communicating with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack that could shape the outcome of the upcoming trial of Tarrio and other far-right extremists.

Metropolitan Police Lt. Shane Lamond's testimony is crucial for the former Proud Boys national chairman's defense against seditious conspiracy and other serious charges stemming from the attack, Tarrio's attorneys say.

But Lamond now plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination if called to the witness stand after prosecutors warned the officer he could be charged with obstructing the investigation into Tarrio, the Proud Boy's attorneys say. They have accused the Justice Department of trying to bully Lamond into keeping quiet because his testimony would hurt their case. Prosecutors have vehemently denied that charge.

The legal skirmish is unfolding two weeks before jury selection is supposed to begin in one of the highest-profile cases the Justice Department has brought since the Jan. 6 insurrection. Prosecutors charge Tarrio and four co-defendants conspired to forcibly stop the transfer of presidential power from former President Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden.

The Proud Boys trial will be another major test for the Justice Department, which secured a major victory last month in the seditious conspiracy convictions of two other far-right extremist group leaders: Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, and Kelly Meggs, who was the leader of the group’s Florida chapter. Tarrio's far-right, male chauvinist extremist group that seized on the Trump administration’s policies was a major agitator during earlier pro-Trump protests and at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Tarrio wasn’t in Washington when the riot erupted, but authorities say he helped put into motion the violence of that day. Shortly before the riot, authorities say Tarrio posted on social media that the group planned to turn out in “record numbers” on Jan. 6, but would be “incognito” instead of donning their traditional clothing colors of black and yellow.

Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the riot and charged with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December 2020. Tarrio was released from jail on Jan. 14, 2022 after serving his five-month sentence for that case.

An email seeking comment was sent to an attorney for Lamond. Tarrio's lawyers say Lamond has been under investigation for some time for possible obstruction of justice into the investigation of Tarrio.

The Washington Post reported in February that Lamond was placed on leave as part of an investigation into his contacts with the Proud Boys. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee has said the department placed an officer on leave as part of an “ongoing investigation” by the department, the FBI and Justice Department but declined to name the officer.

Lamond, an intelligence officer for the police force, was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys when they came to Washington. Tarrio regularly communicated with Lamond before the Proud Boys came to the capital city to discuss the “purpose of the trip, the agenda, and the location," defense lawyers wrote in court documents.

Tarrio told Lamond that Proud Boys would not be wearing their traditional colors of black and yellow in order to protect themselves from possible attacks from antifa activists. Tarrio told the officer they planned to watch Trump's speech, protest the results of the election “and later that night they planned to party with plenty of beers and babes," Tarrio's lawyers wrote.

“He told me they are trying to go incognito this time,” Lamond told fellow officers in one message, according to Tarrio's attorneys. "Even if they aren’t wearing their colors they will stick together as a group so we should be able to identify them. Not to mention they won’t be head to toe in black with makeshift shields!”

The defense says Lamond's testimony would support Tarrio's claims that he was looking to avoid violence, not cause it. Tarrio’s lawyers have asked the judge to dismiss the case if the government refuses to grant immunity for Lamond so he can take the stand.

“How can there be sedition if the Proud Boys are informing law enforcement of their plans on Jan. 6?” Tarrio attorney Sabino Jauregui said during a recent hearing. “They don't want him to testify because it will completely destroy their case.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Kenerson told the judge the suggestion that prosecutors are pressuring and threatening witnesses is “categorically false.”

Tarrio has a history of cooperating with law enforcement.

Court records uncovered last year showed that Tarrio previously worked undercover and cooperated with investigators after he was accused of fraud in 2012. After Tarrio’s indictment for participating in a scheme involving the resale of diabetic test strips, he helped the government prosecute more than a dozen other people, according to court papers.

Tarrio will stand trial with four others: Ethan Nordean, of Auburn, Washington; Joseph Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida; Zachary Rehl, of Philadelphia and Dominic Pezzola of Rochester, New York.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — After securing seditious conspiracy convictions against two leaders of the Oath Keepers, the Justice Department will begin Monday to try to make its Capitol riot case against four others affiliated with the far-right extremist group.

Openings statements are expected in Washington's federal court less than two weeks after Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, and Kelly Meggs, who led its Florida chapter, were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as a violent plot to overturn President Joe Biden's victory.

The defendants facing jurors in the latest trial are Joseph Hackett, of Sarasota, Florida; Roberto Minuta of Prosper, Texas; David Moerschel of Punta Gorda, Florida; and Edward Vallejo of Phoenix. They are charged with several other felonies in addition to seditious conspiracy.

While the Rhodes' and Meggs' verdicts were a major victory for the Justice Department, three of their co-defendants were acquitted of seditious conspiracy. The major question in the next trial is whether prosecutors will be convince jurors to convict lower-level defendants of the Civil War-era offense.

Seditious conspiracy can be difficult to prove, especially when the alleged plot is unsuccessful. Rhodes and Meggs were the first people in decades found guilty at trial of the charge, which carries up to 20 years in prison.

Thomas Caldwell, of Berryville Virginia; Jessica Watkins of Woodstock, Ohio; and Kenneth Harrelson of Titusville, Florida, were acquitted of sedition. But all five defendants in that case were convicted of obstructing Congress' certification of Biden's electoral win, which also calls for as many as 20 years behind bars.

Prosecutors will try to convince jurors that Minuta, Moerschel, Vallejo and Hackett plotted with Rhodes and others to use force to stop the transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Biden. Authorities say the plot came to a head on Jan. 6, 2021, when Oath Keepers stormed the Capitol alongside hundreds of other angry Trump supporters.

In Rhodes' case, prosecutors spent weeks arguing they were not whipped into an impulsive frenzy by Trump on Jan. 6 but came to Washington intent on keeping Trump in power at all costs. Authorities say the Oath Keepers discussed their plans in encrypted chats for weeks before the riot and stashed weapons at a nearby Virginia hotel in case they were needed to support their plot.

But while investigators combed through thousands of messages sent by Rhodes and his co-defendants, none specifically spelled out a plan to attack the Capitol itself. Defense attorneys emphasized that fact throughout the trial to argue there was never any plot. They said the Oath Keepers didn't come to Washington for violence but to provide security for people like Trump ally Roger Stone at events before the riot.

Authorities say Hackett and Moerschel were part of the first group of Oath Keepers along with Meggs and Watkins that pushed into the Capitol in military-style stack formation. Minuta later joined a second “stack” that forced its way inside as police desperately tried to defend the building, prosecutors say.

Vallejo is accused of helping coordinate the quick reaction force teams in Virginia that authorities say were ready to rush a cache of weapons into the capital city if necessary. The weapons were never deployed.

Prosecutors say that on the morning of the riot, Vallejo and another quick reaction force team member discussed the possibility of “guerrilla war” and “armed conflict.”

“It’s a do or die situation. Because if we walk away from this, and we don’t have any effectual change as a result, then we might as well just give up. We’re done. We’re done. If we don’t do something now, we’re done," Vallejo said on the podcast, according to authorities.

Three other Oath Keepers have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with investigators in the hopes of getting a lighter sentence. But they were never called by prosecutors to the witness stand in Rhodes' case. It's unclear why prosecutors didn't have them testify and whether they might take the stand in the latest trial.

Another sedition trial is also expected to begin later this month against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and other leaders of that extremist group.

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Richer reported from Boston.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — An Arkansas man who propped his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the riot at the U.S. Capitol planned the trip for weeks and came prepared for violence, a prosecutor said Tuesday as his trial got underway.

Richard “Bigo” Barnett had a stun gun tucked into his pants when he stormed the Capitol, invaded Pelosi's office and posed for a photo that became one of the attack's more well-known images, prosecutors said. He also took a piece of her mail and left behind a note that said, “Nancy, Bigo was here," prosecutors said. Barnett punctuated the message with a sexist expletive.

“The defendant violated that space,” said prosecutor Alison Prout during opening statements. “He came prepared for violence.”

Staffers were huddled down the hall at the time, hiding from rioters after leaving behind computers, cellphones and personal files as they fled, she said.

Before leaving Capitol grounds, Barnett used a bullhorn to give a speech to the crowd, shouting, “We took back our house, and I took Nancy Pelosi’s office!” according to prosecutors.

"Barnett has emerged as prominent figure in the attack on the Capitol as a result of the widespread circulation of his photographs in Speaker Pelosi’s office and subsequent interview," prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

"Everything he did inside was grounded in political protest ... it was all protest, protest, protest," the defense wrote. They decided to wait to give opening statements later in the trial.

Defense attorneys have argued that the former firefighter didn’t break barriers or assault police as he was swept along into the building with the rest of the crowd. He wandered into Pelosi’s office suite looking for a bathroom, his lawyers said.

A grand jury indicted Barnett on eight charges, including felony counts of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding. He also faces a charge of entering and remaining in restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon — the stun gun with spikes concealed within a collapsible walking stick.

Barnett planned for weeks before driving from his home in Gravette, Arkansas, to Washington, D.C., to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, prosecutors said. He hid or destroyed evidence of his riot participation after returning home to Arkansas, according to court documents.

Barnett turned himself in to FBI agents at a sheriff’s office in Bentonville, Arkansas, two days after the riot. He told investigators that the large crowd pushed him into the Capitol.

Records from a Bass Pro Shop in Arkansas showed that Barnett purchased the stun gun five days before he traveled to Washington. FBI agents found the packaging for the device in his home.

In June 2021, Barnett appeared on Russian state television with his attorney. When asked if he would do it again, he responded, “I exercise my First Amendment rights every hour, every minute, and every day, and I will never stop,” according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Barnett had a history of arming himself at political demonstrations before the Jan. 6 attack. In July 2020, they said, a 911 caller reported that a man matching Barnett's description had pointed a rifle at her during a “Back the Blue” rally.

"Law enforcement ultimately closed the investigation as unfounded due to unresolved apparent discrepancies in the evidence," prosecutors wrote.

In November 2020, police were called to a “Save the Children” rally when a caller said Barnett was carrying a gun at the protest and acting suspiciously.