"President Trump told these people that the election was stolen," declared the lawyer for Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio last week, during opening remarks for his client's trial on charges of seditious conspiracy. Tarrio and other Proud Boys who believed they were acting on Trump's wishes when they stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are merely "scapegoats" for the government, he continued, because it would be too hard to put the ex-president on the witness stand, "with his army of lawyers."
Tarrio and four other Proud Boys are currently standing trial for attempting to overthrow the government. Most media coverage of their attorneys has been of a "get a load of these toolbags" variety. Joe Biggs, the Proud Boy whose pre-Jan. 6 activities included "jokingly" advocating using roofies to rape women, had a particularly high-drama defense team. One of his lawyers had his law license suspended right before trial, thanks to misconduct in defending another insurrection sympathizer, Alex Jones of Infowars. Another got into an ugly shouting match with the judge. Another lawyer for a different defendant, Zachary Rehl, has been late to court so often that she got scolded by the judge.
