Tag: Proud

Proud Boys attorneys: Informant had contact with defense team, defendants

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It’s the latest wrench in a trial that has stretched into its fourth month, the most significant to emerge from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Prosecutors have charged Tarrio, Rehl and three others — Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs and Dominic Pezzola — with igniting the attack, methodically working to breach multiple police lines and ultimately entering the building itself to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election as president.
Prosecutors pushed back Thursday, contending that any suggestion of impropriety was baseless and that the informant was never tasked with gathering information about the Proud Boys defendants or their lawyers. They produced additional documents to the defense teams outlining the informant’s work for the FBI and emphasized that her relationship with the bureau was terminated soon after she was subpoenaed by Tarrio’s lawyers to appear as a witness.
The Justice Department supplemented its response with an affidavit from an FBI agent based in San Antonio, who described the informant as someone who had been on the bureau’s radar since 2019 after she came forward due to “her status as a victim.” The agent indicated that the informant helped the bureau with Jan. 6-related matters and had provided information about two of the Proud Boys defendants to the bureau in 2019 — before she officially signed up as a paid informant.
In a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly, government attorneys agreed that the suggestions made by defense lawyers were serious and that they would attempt to provide additional information to allay their concerns. But they said prosecutors had no knowledge of the informant’s contacts with defendants and their counsel.
“This is all news to the government,” said Denise Cheung, acting deputy chief of DOJ’s criminal division.
But attorneys for Biggs and Pezzola said the damage could be too great to continue the trial. Norm Pattis, one of Biggs’ attorneys, described “20 to 30″ contacts between Biggs and the informant, including discussions of his legal representation and finances.
“I don’t want the trial to proceed,” Pattis said.
An attorney for Pezzola, Roger Roots, said the informant had similarly helped shape his client’s witness list. And Nicholas Smith, attorney for Nordean, said the informant had reached out to him “unsolicited” with questions and suggestions for defense strategy.

Kelly emphasized that the key question he’s considering is whether the prosecutors leading the trial learned anything they shouldn’t have known as a result of the informant’s contacts with the defendants or their lawyers. He said he didn’t see an immediate reason to pause the trial but that he would consider the matter further on Friday.
Defense attorneys have repeatedly raised questions about the presence of informants within the Proud Boys and how they might have been deployed by the FBI to track the group ahead of Jan. 6. Jurors in the trial have been shown evidence that there were some informants — also called confidential human sources, or CHSs — within the group, both in text message chains and on the ground on Jan. 6.
The use of such sources is commonplace for the FBI, but there are risks when they remain involved in potential criminal activity alongside targets of an investigation.
In the three-page filing, Hernandez expressed frustration that the Justice Department had not shared more details with the defense team about the informants used in the investigation.
The information about the newly disclosed confidential source, she noted, came a day before one of the defendants was prepared to call this witness to the stand.
Prosecutors have bristled at claims of impropriety, noting that they have made nearly 10 confidential sources available to testify as part of the defense case who could discuss their contacts with the bureau. But the Justice Department is resisting efforts by the Proud Boys defense team to demand testimony from FBI agents who handled those informants and were in touch with them in the days and weeks leading to Jan. 6.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 23, 2023
Proud Boys attorneys: Informant had contact with defense team, defendants

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It’s the latest wrench in a trial that has stretched into its fourth month, the most significant to emerge from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Prosecutors have charged Tarrio, Rehl and three others — Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs and Dominic Pezzola — with igniting the attack, methodically working to breach multiple police lines and ultimately entering the building itself to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election as president.
Prosecutors pushed back Thursday, contending that any suggestion of impropriety was baseless and that the informant was never tasked with gathering information about the Proud Boys defendants or their lawyers. They produced additional documents to the defense teams outlining the informant’s work for the FBI and emphasized that her relationship with the bureau was terminated soon after she was subpoenaed by Tarrio’s lawyers to appear as a witness.
The Justice Department supplemented its response with an affidavit from an FBI agent based in San Antonio, who described the informant as someone who had been on the bureau’s radar since 2019 after she came forward due to “her status as a victim.” The agent indicated that the informant helped the bureau with Jan. 6-related matters and had provided information about two of the Proud Boys defendants to the bureau in 2019 — before she officially signed up as a paid informant.
In a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly, government attorneys agreed that the suggestions made by defense lawyers were serious and that they would attempt to provide additional information to allay their concerns. But they said prosecutors had no knowledge of the informant’s contacts with defendants and their counsel.
“This is all news to the government,” said Denise Cheung, acting deputy chief of DOJ’s criminal division.
But attorneys for Biggs and Pezzola said the damage could be too great to continue the trial. Norm Pattis, one of Biggs’ attorneys, described “20 to 30″ contacts between Biggs and the informant, including discussions of his legal representation and finances.
“I don’t want the trial to proceed,” Pattis said.
An attorney for Pezzola, Roger Roots, said the informant had similarly helped shape his client’s witness list. And Nicholas Smith, attorney for Nordean, said the informant had reached out to him “unsolicited” with questions and suggestions for defense strategy.

Kelly emphasized that the key question he’s considering is whether the prosecutors leading the trial learned anything they shouldn’t have known as a result of the informant’s contacts with the defendants or their lawyers. He said he didn’t see an immediate reason to pause the trial but that he would consider the matter further on Friday.
Defense attorneys have repeatedly raised questions about the presence of informants within the Proud Boys and how they might have been deployed by the FBI to track the group ahead of Jan. 6. Jurors in the trial have been shown evidence that there were some informants — also called confidential human sources, or CHSs — within the group, both in text message chains and on the ground on Jan. 6.
The use of such sources is commonplace for the FBI, but there are risks when they remain involved in potential criminal activity alongside targets of an investigation.
In the three-page filing, Hernandez expressed frustration that the Justice Department had not shared more details with the defense team about the informants used in the investigation.
The information about the newly disclosed confidential source, she noted, came a day before one of the defendants was prepared to call this witness to the stand.
Prosecutors have bristled at claims of impropriety, noting that they have made nearly 10 confidential sources available to testify as part of the defense case who could discuss their contacts with the bureau. But the Justice Department is resisting efforts by the Proud Boys defense team to demand testimony from FBI agents who handled those informants and were in touch with them in the days and weeks leading to Jan. 6.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 23, 2023
Proud Boys prosecutors push back on claims of misconduct after discovery of internal FBI messages

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However, the defense lawyers said the filtered messages included significant and suspicious exchanges that appeared to relate to the seditious conspiracy case against their clients.
In one exchange, Miller and another agent discussed learning of defendant Zachary Rehl’s plan to take the case to trial, in part because they had reviewed messages between him and his attorney at the time, Jonathon Moseley. The defense lawyers said it appeared, on its face, to be a breach of attorney-client privilege.
The lawyers also cited several other exchanges they viewed as fishy: a message from one agent asking that his name be edited out of a report concerning a meeting with a confidential human source; an FBI agent’s opinion about the strength of the Proud Boys conspiracy case; and a message from an agent discussing an order to destroy 338 pieces of evidence in an unidentified case.
Defense attorneys said they should be permitted to grill Miller about each of these topics when the trial resumes this week. The hidden messages sparked an uproar on Thursday, when Nicholas Smith, attorney for defendant Ethan Nordean, began questioning Miller about them. Prosecutors objected and later indicated they believed there had been a “spill” of classified information in the messages — a claim the defense lawyers worried was a pretense to shut down their review. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly called the trial off for the day Friday to give the Justice Department and the defense a chance to clarify the issues.
In an 18-page filing Sunday, prosecutors went through each topic cited by the defense lawyers and suggested their claims lacked merit — and were not part of any attempt to withhold relevant evidence in the case.
The request for an edit to the report concerning the confidential human source, for example, was a “clerical” matter in which an agent who had been promoted to a supervisory role requested to be removed from the report because he was no longer handling the source — a request that was ultimately rescinded, prosecutors said. The comment from an agent about destroying evidence pertained to an unrelated “20-year-old multi codefendant trial” that had concluded long ago, the Justice Department attorneys said.
“As the Court knows, disposal of evidence is a routine part of the lifecycle of every criminal case,” the prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors also dismissed the notion that Miller and other agents had accessed privileged attorney-client information.

“She did no such thing,” they argued, “both because any privilege was waived and, in any event, even assuming … that the email to which the other agent was referring contained privileged information, no privileged information was passed Special Agent Miller.”
The exchange between Rehl and his attorney that the agents discussed was sent between Rehl and Moseley, his former attorney, who has since been disbarred, through a jailhouse email system. That system explicitly notifies users that it is monitored and that emails between an attorney and client will “not be treated as privileged.” Prisoners are supposed to use special legal mail procedures, legal phone calls or in-person meetings to communicate confidentially with their lawyers.
“Rehl waived any privilege by knowingly using FDC-Philadelphia’s monitored email system to communicate with his attorney,” prosecutors contended.
Prosecutors also rejected efforts by defense lawyers to introduce a message from an FBI agent suggesting he harbored doubts about the strength of the conspiracy evidence in the Proud Boys case. Typically, such agent opinions are excluded, and in any case, they say Miller contradicted the doubting agent’s comment, saying: “No we can. We DEF can now.”
Kelly will decide on Monday whether to permit the attorneys for Nordean, Rehl and their three co-defendants — Enrique Tarrio, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs — to ask Miller about these topics. Prosecutors contended on Sunday that their unsuccessfully implemented decision to withhold the messages — even ones that related to the Proud Boys case — was proper. Precedents and laws, they said, required the government to turn over only materials connected to what Miller testified about on the stand, not every statement she made about the Proud Boys case in general.
Miller testified last week, after the furor erupted, that FBI headquarters compiled her messages for her, culling them from a secret-level classified system. She filtered out any messages sent from other agents and then manually removed messages she viewed as not subject to disclosure, including many about other cases. But when prosecutors packaged up the remaining messages, they appear to not have realized the filtered messages from other agents were left in the spreadsheet as “hidden.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine, the supervising prosecutor on the case, told the court on Friday that the Justice Department was concerned that the hidden messages contained potential classified information, since they were drawn from the secret-level system and not fully vetted. Ballantine, in particular, was concerned that the message pertaining to destroying evidence was sent by an agent involved in “covert” activity and could reference classified information.
It’s unclear whether defense lawyers will be satisfied by the government’s responses. They’ve previously raised alarms that prosecutors would use the pretense of “classified” information to claw back damaging evidence. Prosecutors indicated on Sunday that they had removed just 80 rows of “classified or sensitive” messages from a production of nearly 12,000 rows. In addition, they suggested they had provided additional messages to help contextualize the ones cited by the defense.
Smith, one of the defense lawyers, indicated in a Sunday filing that the government had also deleted about 6,000 rows of messages it said were blank, leaving just over 5,000 for the defense to review. And he said he had inquired with prosecutors to clarify how many of the 80 substantive rows of removed messages were classified and how many were dubbed “sensitive” but not classified.
Smith said he should be allowed to cross-examine Miller on her handling of the messages in part because of her answers to a brief set of questions about them on Thursday, when she indicated that she hadn’t removed or filtered out relevant materials.
“Whether the agent gave truthful testimony about her legal obligations related to her work on this case is patently a matter of credibility,” Smith wrote.
Though cross-examination typically relates only to the substance of a witness’s direct testimony, Smith pointed out that he was also permitted to raise questions about a witness’ credibility, which he said made the handling of those messages fair game for questioning.
Prosecutors said that if the defense lawyers were allowed to question her at all about the unsuccessfully withheld messages — a step the government largely opposes — it should come during the defense’s case, set to begin within the next two weeks, not on cross-examination during the government’s case.
“The topics in question are miles outside the scope of Agent Miller’s direct testimony,” the prosecutors argued.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 13, 2023
‘Spill’ of classified info derails Proud Boys trial

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Miller sent her final list to prosecutors, who then packaged the messages into an Excel spreadsheet that they provided to defense lawyers. But unbeknownst to them, the messages Miller initially filtered out — including some that DOJ officials say are likely classified — were left in the final document as “hidden” rows in the Excel spreadsheet. Defense counsel stumbled upon them and began grilling Miller about them in front of jurors in the case.
Overnight, Justice Department attorneys told the defense team they were concerned there had been a “spill” of classified information in the hidden messages they accessed. And on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly paused the trial — already in its third month — to determine how to handle the error.
It’s the latest hiccup in a seditious conspiracy trial that has been marked by excruciating delays and extended legal disputes. Prosecutors say Proud Boys chair Enrique Tarrio and four leaders of the group schemed to prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. The group, according to the Justice Department, split into teams that helped engineer the breach of police lines and, ultimately, the building itself, when one of the defendants, Dominic Pezzola, smashed a Senate-wing window with a stolen riot shield.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine, who is supervising the case for the Justice Department, acknowledged the likely “spill” of classified information Thursday morning. She raised particular concerns about a message sent to Miller by another agent who works on covert activity — and who she said did not work on the Proud Boys case — describing a supervisor’s order to “destroy 338 items of evidence.”
“That could impact a classified equity,” Ballantine said.
Defense lawyers cried foul, though, noting that the government’s claims of “classified” material arrived just as the defense sounded the alarm about the content of some of the inadvertently disclosed messages. While Miller testified Wednesday she had produced about “25 rows” of messages, defense lawyers said there were thousands of rows of hidden messages that included contents they contended were directly relevant to their case.
Some of the messages appeared to reveal that FBI agents accessed contacts between defendant Zachary Rehl and his attorney, which led Miller to tell a colleague she thought Rehl would take his case to trial. In another message, an FBI agent tells Miller, “You need to go into that CHS report you just put and edit out that I was present.” After defense attorneys began to press Miller about the attorney-client messages on Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors objected, and Kelly halted the trial to permit the parties to debate the matter.
After hearing arguments Thursday, Kelly ordered defense attorneys to refrain from reviewing or disseminating the messages until the FBI was able to conduct a classification review, a process that Ballantine said could likely be completed by the end of the day Thursday.

The flare-up comes as prosecutors are nearing the end of their case against the Proud Boys. They’ve laid out evidence showing that Tarrio and his allies developed a sense of existential dread about a Biden presidency and quickly embraced Trump’s claims of fraud in the days and weeks after his defeat in the 2020 election. As Jan. 6 neared, the group’s leaders grew increasingly disillusioned with police — who they accused of insufficiently acting to investigate a man who stabbed several Proud Boys at a December 2020 rally in Washington. And they set up a new chapter, dubbed the “Ministry of Self Defense,” that included men they believed would follow orders.
A week before Jan. 6, Tarrio received a document from a girlfriend titled “1776 Returns” that sketched out a plan to occupy federal buildings in order to derail and delay Congress’ proceedings to certify the 2020 election.
Defense attorneys have contended that the group is little more than a glorified drinking club that had no actual plan to either storm the Capitol or prevent Biden from taking office. Miller’s testimony portrayed the group’s march through Washington on Jan. 6 as an organized and concerted advance toward the Capitol that pinpointed weaknesses in Capitol Police defenses and exploited them to help facilitate the breach of the Capitol.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 9, 2023
Anger at police, and hints of a plan, as Proud Boys marched toward Capitol

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Prosecutors spent the day walking jurors through footage of the group’s approach to the Capitol — which they noted began hours before then-President Donald Trump began speaking to a crowd of supporters near the White House. Nordean is charged alongside Proud Boy Chairman Enrique Tarrio and leaders Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola with conspiring to derail the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden.
Tarrio was sidelined because of his Jan. 4 arrest for actions at a previous pro-Trump march in Washington, and prosecutors have described the group’s subsequent scramble to keep members organized for Jan. 6. Ultimately, Nordean took charge, assembling hundreds of Proud Boys who had descended on the city near the monument early in the day. Biggs and Rehl also appeared to play leading roles.
What emerged was a picture of an organized advance, with hundreds of Proud Boys marching down Constitution Avenue, a spectacle that forced at least one road closure and alarmed law enforcement, which monitored their movements. Prosecutors have contended that the group intended to forcibly prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 election on Jan. 6 to help Trump remain in power, which the group viewed as key to their own future.
The Justice Department argued that the group had become increasingly disillusioned with police after several members were stabbed at a December 2020 pro-Trump march in Washington — a simmering fury that boiled over after Tarrio’s arrest. Jeremy Bertino, one of those stabbing victims, has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and testified that he believed the Proud Boys leaders hungered for an “all-out revolution” by the time Jan. 6 arrived.
Defense attorneys for the group’s leaders say the Proud Boys are little more than a glorified drinking club that had no overarching plan on Jan. 6. They’ve argued that no evidence shows that the group explicitly planning to disrupt the Jan. 6 proceedings and that there was no organized effort or goal.
The evidence prosecutors displayed on Tuesday offered cryptic references to a plan. At one point, just after 11 a.m., Nordean brought the large group to a stop and said he intended to “link up with Alex Jones,” the far-right radio host who traffics in conspiracy theories. Shortly before 11:30 a.m., after the Proud Boys had marched past the thinly defended West Front of the Capitol, Nordean was recorded saying, “We have a plan and they can adjust.”
When one person recording the group mentioned that they should “go check out the Capitol,” a member who moments earlier was walking alongside Nordean turned around and asked her to leave. And when Proud Boy Daniel “Milkshake” Scott shouted, “Let’s take the fucking Capitol,” another person replied, “Let’s not fucking yell that, all right?”
The exchange prompted Nordean to reply, “It was Milkshake, man, ya know — idiot.” Another unidentified person near the group added, “Don’t yell it, do it.” Scott pleaded guilty last month to obstructing Congress’ Jan. 6 proceeding and helping facilitate a breach of police lines.

When the Proud Boys arrived at the Capitol, the relatively staid crowd grew restive, prosecutors indicated. Then, after rioters began breaching the barricades, dozens of Proud Boys and their marching companions were among the first to cross the collapsed police line and drive up pressure on the outnumbered forces trying to keep the mob out of the Capitol.
Throughout the march, Nordean, Biggs and others repeatedly stoked the group’s anger at police to rally the other men.
“Enrique shows up and gets detained before he gets to D.C. and he’s charged with two felonies, multiple felonies for what?” Nordean said during a brief stop on the march. “We put ourselves on the line every goddamn time we come out here. We put our lives and our safety and everything on the line, and these people put us in jail. Well, I’m tired of it. It’s time to just say no.”
Later, Biggs would tell the same group: “We’re gonna let the motherfucking world know that we fucking exist and we’re not going any goddamn where. So let’s fucking march through this fucking city that’s our goddamn city and be loud and motherfucking Proud Boy proud, and let’s go fucking kick some goddamn ass. Metaphorically speaking, but you know what I mean.”
Shortly after 11 a.m., as the Proud Boys approached the Capitol, they passed a group of law enforcement officers putting on gear. Some members of the group began berating them.
“Honor your oath. Pick a side. Don’t make us go against you,” shouted Christopher Worrell, a Proud Boy who was later seen in video footage deploying a canister of chemical spray in the direction of police officers at the Capitol.
Nordean rallied the group a second time by slamming police for arresting Tarrio and failing to charge anyone in the stabbing of a Proud Boy during a December 2020 pro-Trump march.
“You took our boy in and you let the stabber go. You guys gotta prove your shit to us now. … We’ll do your goddamn job for you,” he said. “And don’t forget, we don’t owe you anything. We don’t owe you anything. Your job is to protect and serve the people. Not property or bureaucrats.”
Prosecutors also showed jurors how many members of the group that marched with Nordean, Biggs and Rehl to the Capitol would later help facilitate key breaches of police lines. Pezzola would ignite the breach of the building itself by using a stolen police riot shield to smash a Senate-wing window, which he reached after the first wave of the mob — lined with participants in the Proud Boys’ march — overran police lines.
Defense attorneys have described the Proud Boys’ march as largely consisting of protected First Amendment activity, and have said that efforts by the government to tag the five Proud Boys leaders with the actions of other group members amounts to “guilt by association.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 8, 2023
Feds say Proud Boys associates fanned out to facilitate Jan. 6 breach

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In case after case, prosecutors said, the alleged offenders had links to the Proud Boys — some explicit, some tenuous — and either joined them on their march from the Washington Monument to the Capitol or participated in encrypted text message channels with the group’s leaders ahead of their actions on Jan. 6. But it’s the most specific effort by the Justice Department to capture the breadth of what it sees as the most significant case to arise from the Jan. 6 attack.
None of the 23 associates identified by prosecutors are charged as co-conspirators alongside Tarrio and the other leaders: Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Pezzola. Rather, the Justice Department contends that those in the broader group were handpicked by the leaders and acted as “tools” of the alleged seditious conspiracy.
“The people who marched with them, all the way from before Trump started speaking and who marched onto Capitol grounds, trampled police barricades before he finished speaking, were acting jointly with these defendants,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Kenerson said on Monday.
Whether the jury ever sees this evidence is a question in the hands of U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, who must decide whether prosecutors have made a clear enough case that these individuals acted — knowingly or not — to further the goals of the alleged seditious conspiracy.
The prosecution’s assertion that the some defendants acted as “tools” of those charged in a separate case and that their acts should be imputed to those on trial on conspiracy charges drew outrage from defense attorneys.
Lawyers for the Proud Boys leaders contended that prosecutors were seeking to prove “guilt by association,” tagging Tarrio and others with the violent actions of a loosely connected group of rioters.
“We’ve cut the baloney now so thin that I can see through it and read the other side of the paper,” said Norm Pattis, an attorney for Biggs.
Pattis suggested that the government’s theory that individuals were “activated” by the Proud Boys to help advance their conspiracy could equally apply to other Jan. 6 influencers, including former President Donald Trump himself. Pattis has indicated that he hopes to subpoena Trump to testify in the trial, though it’s unclear whether he has served the subpoena as of this week. He described the government’s theory as “tenuous.”

Prosecutors described varying degrees of relationships between the so-called tools and the Proud Boys leaders. Some, like Paul Rae, crashed at an Airbnb with Nordean and others the night before Jan. 6, or like Gabriel Garcia, who was invited into pre-Jan. 6 encrypted chat groups by Tarrio. Others, like Barton Shively and Trevor McDonald, joined the Proud Boys somewhere along their march to the Capitol, which came even before Trump finished addressing a rally crowd assembled near the White House. Prosecutors said one defendant appeared to fist-bump with a man who later joined a violent push against police.
Kelly said he intends to consider the evidence prosecutors described on Monday and determine whether to permit the government to show it to jurors.
Nevertheless, prosecutors described about a dozen discrete examples of actions by associates of the Proud Boys that they say underscored the group’s influence during the riot.
The most compelling example was the case of Ronald Loehrke and James Haffner, two associates of Nordean. Prosecutors displayed text messages in which Nordean tells Loehrke, “I want you with me,” on Jan. 6. “I’ll have you on the front lines with me,” he says. Haffner came to Washington with Loehrke and is seen on video spraying police officers during a melee outside Capitol doors.
Other examples include Robert Gieswein, who was one of the first rioters to enter the Capitol and joined the confrontation with Capitol Police outside the Senate chamber; Paul Rae and Gilbert Fonticoba, who entered the Capitol with Biggs; and Nicholas Ochs, who scrawled “Murder the Media” on a Capitol door.
Prosecutors said they don’t intend to introduce the Gieswein evidence in front of the jury, which prompted Carmen Hernandez, the defense attorney for Rehl, to assert that Gieswein was invited to join the Proud Boys march by a “confidential human source” working with the government.
Prosecutors also said a group of five associates — A.J. Fischer, Dion Rajewski, Zach Johnson, Brian Boele and James Brett — who they consider “tools” of the Proud Boys’ conspiracy were part of the mob that besieged the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace tunnel, the scene of the day’s worst violence.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 7, 2023
‘All-out revolution’: Proud Boy describes group’s desperation as Jan. 6 approached

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Now, the group’s leaders — Tarrio and Joe Biggs of Florida, Ethan Nordean of Seattle, Zachary Rehl of Philadelphia and Dominic Pezzola of New York — are facing the gravest charges to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“Everyone felt very desperate,” Bertino said of the group’s increasingly militant rhetoric as Jan. 6 neared, particularly after the Supreme Court declined to take up Trump’s actions. As for Tarrio, Bertino added, “His tones were calculated, cold but very determined that he felt the exact same way that I did.”
Bertino didn’t travel to Washington on Jan. 6, in part because he was nursing a stab wound from a skirmish during a Dec. 12, 2020, visit to Washington to protest Trump’s defeat. But he remained in contact with the group on Jan. 6, including Tarrio, who had been released from jail and traveled to a Baltimore hotel. Prosecutors showed jurors Bertino’s excited messages, urging the Proud Boys to push farther into the Capitol and help disrupt the counting of electoral votes intended to certify Biden’s victory.
“I thought I was watching history,” Bertino recalled. “I thought it was historical. I thought it was a revolution starting.”
When one member of the group informed others that then-Vice President Mike Pence had resisted Trump’s entreaties to overturn the election on his own, Bertino assured them: “Don’t worry, boys. America’s taking care of it right now.”
Bertino’s jubilance turned into fury after Trump told rioters to go home and law enforcement cleared the Capitol.
“We failed,” he told other Proud Boys in various Telegram chats, after Congress had returned to continue certifying Biden’s victory. He lamented that the rioters caused mayhem simply to “take selfies in Pelosi’s office.”
That sentiment continued into Jan. 7.

“I’m done fellas,” Bertino said in a voice message to the group. “In case you couldn’t fucking tell. I’m done. I didn’t take a knife in the fucking — in the lungs to watch the power be given right the fuck back to these evil cocksuckers. We need fucking war. We need to take it back. And we need to fucking get these motherfuckers. Judge, jury, executioner, we need to fucking hang traitors.”
“You ready to go full fash?” asked Proud Boy leader John Stewart in response, referring to fascism. Later, Stewart blamed the “normies” — the Proud Boys’ term for nonmembers who align with them — for having “stopped 25% of the way in.”
“That building should still be occupied right now. They should have cops stuck inside that building … They decided to run around and take a bunch of fucking selfies. And, you know, steal some fucking memorabilia to prove that they were in there so that their conviction is assured.”
Throughout Bertino’s testimony — his second day on the stand — Prosecutors homed in on messages sent among Bertino and other Proud Boys leaders discussing the prospect of violence on Jan. 6, and noted repeatedly that Tarrio and other defendants never pushed back or suggested violence wasn’t the goal.
The entire trial — perhaps the most crucial to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack — may hinge on whether jurors believe Bertino’s testimony. He was in frequent contact with Tarrio and other group leaders in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 and provided context for the group’s lengthy chats.
Defense attorneys have yet to cross-examine him, but they’re likely to press him on the contours of his plea deal with the government, as well as his voluminous testimony to the Jan. 6 select committee, which omitted many of the key details he described to the jury on Wednesday.
For example, Bertino described in court — but not to the select committee — an extensive Telegram chat with Tarrio on Jan. 6, while both men were watching the riot unfold from afar. Bertino described a feeling of pride at seeing the Proud Boys help lead the way into the Capitol and a pang of jealousy for being absent.
“I wanted to be there to witness what I believed was the next American revolution,” Bertino told jurors.
Bertino also clarified an odd text to Tarrio that read “They need to get peloton.” It was an autocorrect for Pelosi, Bertino said.
“She was the target, as far as the one who had been pushing the information [about the election],” Bertino recalled thinking. “She was the talking head of the opposition. And they needed to remove her from power.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 23, 2023
Proud Boys leaders facing Jan. 6 charges say they intend to subpoena Trump

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Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and four allies are charged with seditious conspiracy, a plot to violently keep Trump in office anchored in part by preventing Congress from certifying the election on Jan. 6, 2021.
The prospect of Trump appearing on the witness stand seems remote, but until Thursday, the intention of the defendants to call the former president was uncertain.
“We’re going to ask the government for assistance in serving Mr. Trump,” Pattis said.
The Proud Boys defense attorneys have hinted at times throughout the trial that Trump bears responsibility for the actions of their own clients and thousands of others who marched on the Capitol at his urging. Putting him on the witness stand, while still a longshot, would give them a chance to probe his mindset under oath in a way that federal investigators have been unable to so far.
Other Jan. 6 defendants have sought Trump’s testimony but gotten no support from judges, who found their claims to need the former president’s testimony dubious. But the Proud Boys may have the clearest case, given Trump’s explicit reference to the group during the debate and the group’s centrality to the riot that unfolded on Jan. 6.
Prosecutors say the Proud Boys are singularly responsible for the violence that unfolded, helping trigger key breaches of police defenses — including the actual breach of the building itself, when Dominic Pezzola, one of the five defendants, used a stolen riot shield to smash a Senate-wing window.
U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly didn’t give any indication Thursday about whether he would permit the subpoena of the former president.
Tarrio has been a figure of interest to investigators not just for his role on Jan. 6 but for his ties to figures in Trump’s orbit like Roger Stone. Tarrio took a White House tour on Dec. 12, 2020 that drew alarm from the Secret Service and may have reached the ears of then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Prosecutors have also shown evidence of Tarrio’s close relationship with a D.C. police officer who appeared to repeatedly give him inside information about law enforcement matters — including Tarrio’s own subsequent arrest on Jan. 4 for burning a Black Lives Matter flag at a pro-Trump rally in December.
Prosecutors are expected to call North Carolina Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino – who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and is cooperating with the government – to the stand on Tuesday. During arguments related to pieces of evidence the government intends to introduce, prosecutors displayed messages showing Bertino lamenting the group’s failure to stop the transfer of power on the night of Jan. 6.
“We failed. The House is meeting again. That woman died for nothing,” Bertino said, referencing Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she attempted to breach the House chamber.
Bertino was also in a series of leadership chats ahead of Jan. 6 but didn’t go to Washington in part because of injuries he suffered when he was stabbed during a melee in December.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 16, 2023
D.C. police lieutenant delivered pre-Jan. 6 tips from Tarrio to Capitol Police, Proud Boy’s lawyer says

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The messages were the latest twist in the trial on charges that Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders conspired to violently prevent the transfer of power from then-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden, who won the 2020 election. Tarrio, because of his arrest, was not in Washington during the riot, but he remained in contact with other leaders, who marched on the Capitol and were present at some of the most significant breaches as the mob approached the building.
Prosecutors say the Proud Boys played a leading role in pushing the crowd toward weak points in the Capitol’s defenses and that their own “hand-selected” allies were responsible for breaching police lines — and ultimately the building itself — at multiple points.
The details of Tarrio’s relationship with Lamond had largely remained shrouded in mystery until Wednesday, when prosecutors unveiled dozens of messages between the two.
Over several months, including the crucial weeks before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Lamond appeared to provide Tarrio with inside tips about investigations pertaining to the far-right group.
Lamond, who defense attorneys have lamented is unable to testify in Tarrio’s defense because of the threat of potential prosecution he faces, repeatedly sent messages on encrypted platforms to Tarrio in the weeks before Jan. 6, even tipping off Tarrio to his impending arrest for burning a Black Lives Matter flag at a pro-Trump rally in Washington in December 2020.
Prosecutors emphasized that this wasn’t a typical relationship between an investigator and an informant or cooperating source. Typically, it was Lamond who appeared to volunteer sensitive information about investigations connected to Tarrio, even when Lamond had learned that information from other agencies, like the FBI or Secret Service.
And Tarrio, in turn, shared that information with Proud Boys allies, informing the group on Jan. 4, 2021, that the warrant for his arrest “was just signed.” He would be arrested the next day when he arrived in Washington ahead of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, which would later morph into a riot that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
“That info stays here,” Tarrio told allies in one private chat.

The relationship between Tarrio and Lamond has been an enigma. Defense attorneys have pointed to it as proof of Tarrio’s close relationship with law enforcement and his willingness to give police departments a heads-up about Proud Boys activities.
During his own testimony to the Jan. 6 select committee, Tarrio alluded to his contacts with the police, indicating that he coordinated his group’s movements in December 2020, during a large pro-Trump rally.
“I coordinated with Metropolitan Police Department to keep my guys away — on these marches, to keep them away from counter-protesters completely,” Tarrio said. “I would say, ‘Hey, I want to march to the monument,’ and they’d tell me, ‘Hey, there’s counter-protesters between where you are and the monument is.’ And I’d be like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to march 4 over there. We’ll march in the opposite direction.’”
But he didn’t specifically identify Lamond. In their own Jan. 6 committee interviews, Donohue and his deputy, Julie Farnam, described coordinating with Lamond — a top intelligence official with the D.C. police — about potential threats. Neither Donohue nor Farnam, referenced getting Proud Boys-related tips or any information derived from Tarrio.
Robert Glover, commander of the Metropolitan Police Department on Jan. 6, told the House select committee that the Proud Boys had had interactions with the department throughout 2020 and “always want to make it look like they’re law enforcement’s friends.” Robert Contee III, chief of the D.C. police, told the committee that Tarrio had been on the department leaders’ radar ahead of Jan. 6, including in a security briefing with Mayor Muriel Bowser a week before the riot.
“I forget the date that the warrant was actually signed for his arrest,” Contee told the committee, describing a Dec. 30, 2020, briefing with the mayor. “But that was kind of lingering out there, MPD world, something that we were following up on.”
The Jan. 6 select committee also indicated that Lamond forwarded other intelligence to the Capitol Police, including a tip from a “civilian” who lives near Washington who warned of stumbling upon a pro-Trump website that featured “detailed plans to storm Federal buildings, dress incognito, and commit crimes against public officials.”
Prosecutors repeatedly suggested Lamond’s contacts with Tarrio appeared to be a one-way street, with Lamond repeatedly providing sensitive nonpublic information to Tarrio, which he’d characterize as a “heads up.” For example, Lamond appeared to give Tarrio advance notice that an arrest warrant for Tarrio was imminent.
The department’s criminal division “had me ID you from a photo you posted on Parler,” Lamond indicated on Dec. 25, 2020. “They may be submitting an arrest warrant to U.S. attorney’s office.”
To emphasize that point, prosecutors elicited testimony from FBI Agent Peter Dubrowski, one of the agents handling the post-Jan. 6 investigation of Proud Boys leaders, describing how unusual it is for law enforcement officials to share investigative information with someone who may be the subject or target of a probe.
“I see no benefit [to law enforcement],” Dubrowski said on the witness stand in response to questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe.
With the jury out of the room, Tarrio’s attorney, Sabino Jauregui, indicated that many of Lamond’s private communications would also show that he made use of information Tarrio provided him to inform superiors — and even other police agencies like the Capitol Police — about the group’s plans and activities.
“We have example after example,” Jauregui said, noting that Lamond would often tell superiors that “my contact” — Tarrio — had informed him about the timing and locations of Proud Boys activities. He said Tarrio even told Lamond about when he would be arriving in D.C. to help facilitate his planned arrest. Some of Tarrio’s information was directed from Lamond to Donohue in the weeks before Jan. 6, Jauregui said.
The trial featured some of the first discussion, with jurors present, of confidential human sources that the FBI relied on to investigate the Proud Boys. Prosecutors suggested that defense counsel had confused the matter by equating those sources — members of the public who voluntarily share information with law enforcement — with undercover FBI agents.
Dubrowski said there were no undercover FBI agents monitoring the chats of the Proud Boys. However, prosecutors emphasized that there were sources within the group who grew alarmed and provided information to law enforcement.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 16, 2023
Girlfriend of Proud Boys leader pleaded fifth about plan to occupy government buildings

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Notably, prosecutors’ unsuccessful effort to glean information from Flores stands in contrast to the Jan. 6 select committee. Two investigators familiar with her interview — an informal, untranscribed appearance in early 2022 — say that while she was a reluctant witness and initially planned to plead the Fifth, she ultimately agreed to answer some questions about the document.
“Instead of pleading the Fifth, we did an interview with her,” one of the investigators said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe information the committee had not publicly released. “She gave us the name of Samuel Armes as the name of the individual who wrote the document.”
Armes, who knew Flores through their shared cryptocurrency advocacy, would interview with select committee investigators in July. He accused Flores of “blame-shifting” by pinning the authorship of the “1776 Returns” document on him. Rather, Armes said that in the summer of 2020, he did some informal “war-gaming” about what might happen if a sitting president refused to leave office after the election. Flores, he told the panel, expressed interest in his thoughts, which he says he shared with her via a Google drive.
Armes said Flores or someone else she shared the document with must have taken his rough ideas and morphed them into a tactical plan with overt references to 1776, a reference to the Capitol as the “Winter Palace” and a plan to “storm” government buildings.
Prosecutors indicated they interviewed Armes too — in October 2022, three months after the select committee spoke to him.
The select committee investigators said they found Armes to be more forthcoming than Flores, who they said exhibited a “general apprehension.” Flores didn’t respond to messages and emails seeking comment.
“She acted like she didn’t know what it was at all,” said one of the investigators.
The two investigators said Flores indicated she had shared the document with Tarrio to impress him during a sensitive phase in their relationship and disclaimed specific knowledge about its contents.

During the trial of Tarrio and his allies, prosecutors displayed text messages in which Flores boasts to Tarrio about the “brilliance” of her 1776 Returns document and suggests she would pitch it elsewhere if Tarrio wouldn’t use it.
“If you don’t like my plan, let me know. I will pitch elsewhere. But I want you to be the executor and benefactor of my brilliance,” she wrote, asking him not to “play games” with her.
“I’m not playing games,” Tarrio responded.
Tarrio notably used the phrase “The Winter Palace” in conversations about the Capitol with at least two other people in the days before and on Jan. 6.
The select committee, like prosecutors, ultimately couldn’t pinpoint the precise authorship of the “1776 Returns” document, a detail that remains a mystery to this day.
Prosecutors revealed new information about their interactions with Armes and Flores in response to an effort by one of Tarrio’s co-defendants, Dominic Pezzola, to seek a mistrial. Pezzola’s attorney Roger Roots suggested that Armes’ training to be in the intelligence community — even though he ultimately pursued a career in crypto — suggested that the government itself authored the incriminating “1776 Return” document.
“The government strongly disagrees with Pezzola’s characterization of both the facts and the record with respect to these assertions,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jason McCullough and Conor Mulroe wrote. “The government robustly agrees with defendant Pezzola that it would have been egregiously improper for a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community to have conducted a domestic intelligence operation targeting Enrique Tarrio, a U.S. Person, and providing him with a plan to ‘storm’ (or ‘occupy’ or ‘sit in’) House and Senate Office Buildings on January 6.”
“It would have been even more improper,” they continued, “for a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community to send this plan to the leader of the Proud Boys when, just months before, then-President Trump had exhorted the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by’ during a nationally televised debate.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 14, 2023