Prosecutors began delivering opening arguments Thursday in the seditious conspiracy trial of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four other members of the far-right extremist group involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
All five defendants are charged with conspiring to “oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force” and “preventing, hindering or delaying by force the execution of governing the transfer of power.”
They’re also charged with assaulting and impeding law enforcement officers, obstructing a governmental proceeding and destroying government property.
Some of the evidence expected to be presented against them at trial includes their own social media posts. “So we just stormed the f—ing Capitol,” one of the defendants, Joseph Biggs, said in a selfie-style video during the attack, according to court filings. “That was so much fun.”
The defendants are members of the Proud Boys, the group that then-President Donald Trump said should “stand back and stand by” when asked to condemn white supremacy during a presidential debate with Joe Biden in Sept. 2020.
After the election, Tarrio posted on social media that the presidency was being stolen and vowed that his group won’t “go quietly,” prosecutors said.
When then-President-elect Biden said on Nov. 25 that “we’re at war with the virus, not each other,” Tarrio re-posted the message on social media and said, “No, YOU need to remember the American people are at war with YOU. No Trump… No peace. No quarter.”
After Trump issued a call on Twitter on Dec. 19 for his supporters to come to D.C. for a rally on Jan. 6 that would be “wild,” Biggs, who was the leader of a Florida chapter of the group, sent Tarrio a private message saying, “Let’s get radical and get real men,” according to the indictment.
The next day, Tarrio set up an encrypted message group that he called his “national rally planning committee,” the indictment says. According to the filing, the group then laid out plans to recruit members to come to Washington, D.C., and told them they should not wear their traditional Proud Boy colors and should be “incognito.”
They also raised cash for members to travel to D.C. and set up a command structure for the day of the rally, prosecutors said.
Tarrio, prosecutors say, was aware of discussions around a plan to storm the Capitol and was involved in discussions about occupying buildings, including in the Capitol complex.
The group helped rile up the crowd on the day of the rally and successfully led rioters to break past police barricades and into the Capitol, prosecutors said.
Tarrio wasn’t at the Capitol, but messaged with members throughout the riot, prosecutors said. At 11:16 p.m. that night, he posted a message on social media that appeared to be of himself wearing a mask and a black cape in front of an empty Capitol building. He captioned the picture, “Premonition,” court filings say.
Also charged in the case are Ethan Nordean, who led a Proud Boy chapter in Washington, and Zachary Rehl, who led a chapter in Pennsylvania. The fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, is accused of using a stolen police shield to break a window in the Capitol allowing rioters to climb inside the building.
Their defense attorneys have denied that they planned or led an attack on the Capitol, and also argued at times that their clients are victims of selective prosecution and are being targeted because of their political beliefs.
The seditious conspiracy case is the second of its kind to go to trial.
In November, a jury in the same courthouse convicted Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, another member of the far-right organization, of seditious conspiracy. Three other members of the group were found not guilty of the charge. All five defendants were convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.
They’re expected to be sentenced in late May.
Tarrio — who was ordered to stay out of D.C. before Jan. 6 — met with Rhodes and other members of the Oath Keepers the day before the attack, prosecutors said.
The trial was originally scheduled for August but was delayed after information relating to some of the defendants emerged during the hearings held by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, including that the panel had interviewed Tarrio.
Lawyers for Biggs and Pezzola contended the transcripts were “must-haves” before they stood trial.
The government agreed and joined in the defense’s request to postpone the case until they obtained information from the committee.
“Given the prominence of the Proud Boys in the Committee’s publicly televised hearings and the appearance of several Proud Boys members in publicly aired videotape depositions (e.g., Tarrio), it is reasonably foreseeable that information relevant to the defendants’ guilt (or innocence) could soon be released to the parties and the public,” Justice Department lawyers wrote.
The case was then expected to go to trial earlier this week, but was delayed in part thanks to the suspension of one of Biggs’ lawyers, Norm Pattis.
A Connecticut judge last week ordered Pattis be suspended for six months for his conduct while representing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in a defamation suit brought by relatives of children who were slain in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Pattis was accused of releasing unauthorized Sandy Hook files that included medical information about the plaintiff’s families to Jones’ lawyers in Texas, despite a directive not to share them with anyone out of state.
Pattis refused to answer questions about the disclosure citing his Fifth Amendment rights during a hearing in August of last year. In a court filing, he called the release an “innocent mistake.”
Pattis had asked Judge Timothy Kelly to allow him to remain on the case while he appeals the suspension, but relented on Wednesday, asking to withdraw because of differences with his co-counsel and Kelly formally rejected the request on Thursday. Pattis’ co-counsel, John Daniel Hull, is also facing a separate conflict of interest, but Kelly allowed him to remain on the team after he signed a waiver.
The seditious conspiracy charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
