A defence attorney for former longtime Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio blamed former president Donald Trump for “unleashing that mob” on 6 January, 2021, as a crowd of his supporters stormed the US Capitol.
Sabino Jauregui – whose client is charged with seditious conspiracy along with four other members of the far-right nationalist gang – said it was Mr Trump who told his supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” not Tarrio or members of his group.
“Enrique didn’t say that. He didn’t say anything to anybody on the grounds of the Capitol. He just happens to be the leader of the Proud Boys,” Mr Jauregui said in his opening arguments in US District Court on 12 January.
He said federal prosecutors were unable to place blame for the riot on alleged FBI informants or security failures within the administration and law enforcement and its leadership, and “instead they go for the easy target”.
“The evidence will show it’s too difficult to blame each other as Americans … it will show it’s easier to blame Enrique as the face of the Proud Boys. Don’t let the government do it,” he said.
He claimed that there is no evidence Tarrio advocated “storming the Capitol” or “planning to storm the Capitol” as federal prosecutors seek to prove to jurors that members of the group conspired to use force and breach the halls of Congress to stop the transfer of presidential power.
“You’re not going to see it. All you’re going to see in innuendo,” he said.
Discussing a damning “we did this” message on Telegram that Tarrio posted after the riots, he said it was Tarrio’s reply to a message saying “antifa stormed the Capitol,” the attorney said.
“He was replying and saying ‘we did this,’ as not the Proud Boys, but Trump supporters over all. It’s not that he was celebrating what happened,” he added.
Federal prosecutors hope to secure another conviction of seditious conspiracy weeks after a jury returned a guilty verdict against two members of the far-right militia group the Oath Keepers, including founder and leader Stewart Rhodes.
The men have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
Prosecutors and defence attorneys have stressed to the jury that the group itself is not on trial, but Mr Jauregui’s opening statement appear to downplay the group’s behaviours and well-publicised actions in an effort to distance defendants from the far-right nationalist gang designated a terrorist organisation by the Canadian government.
He claimed that the Proud Boys “are not a racist, sexist, homophobic organisation” but are merely a “drinking club.”
Mr Jauregui pointed to a Pride flag in a photo flown by “gay Proud Boys,” calling it an “all-inclusive” group which is also “Western chauvinist.”
“Enrique was the very public face of the Proud Boys,” he said “That’s why he’s the scapegoat. If the government takes down Enrique Tarrio, it takes down the whole Proud Boy organisation. That’s why they added him to this case.”
The group, founded in 2016 by Vice co-founder turned far-right commentator Gavin McInnes, has been accused of using a self-aware veneer of white male aggression to launder white nationalist, antisemitic and anti-LGBT+ tropes.
Across his platforms, Mr McInnes “carved out an ideological space for frustrated young men to rally around” by arguing for the superiority of white western culture and against white liberal “guilt”, feminism, Islam and LGBT+ people, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Over the last several years, the Proud Boys have emerged as a “fascistic, right-wing political bloc” relying on street-level violence in concert with right-wing media and Republican elected officials, according to SPLC senior research analyst Cassie Miller. Recently, members of the group have harrassed drag queen story-telling events at libraries and amplified “groomer” smears aimed at LGBT+ people.
