Proud Boys Leaders Were Just Charged With Sedition Against the United States & More News Here

Prosecutors consider that Proud Boys leaders wished to incite an riot in opposition to the U.S. authorities. 

On Monday, high brass of the far-right street-fighting gang have been indicted on federal sedition conspiracy prices for his or her alleged roles in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Former chairman Enrique Tarrio, Joe Biggs of Florida, Zach Rehl of Philadelphia, Seattle’s “Sergeant-at-Arms” Ethan Nordean, and Dominic Pezzola of Rochester, New York, have been indicted. 

The males have been beforehand going through an array of different prices, together with conspiring to hinder an official continuing. The sedition conspiracy indictment comes months after their former co-defendant, Charles Donohoe, chief of the North Carolina Proud Boys, took a plea take care of the authorities and agreed to testify in opposition to the others. 

The indictment is additional proof that, of the almost 800 arrested in connection to Jan. 6, the authorities is regularly narrowing its investigation and zeroing in on the folks they consider have been the architects of the riot. 

Prosecutors keep the riot was not a spontaneous outburst of mayhem, which is what many Jan. 6 defendants have tried to argue in court docket.

Messages exchanged by Proud Boys in the aftermath will probably proceed to hang-out their case. Tarrio, for instance, who was watching the chaos from a lodge room in Virginia, crowed in a gaggle chat “make no mistake, we did this.”

After the Capitol was cleared of rioters, an unnamed Proud Boy texted Tarrio excitedly. “Brother, you know we made this happen,” the Proud Boy wrote to him, in accordance with prosecutors. “I’m so proud of my country today.”  

“I know,” Tarrio wrote again.

“1776 motherfuckers,” the Proud Boy wrote. “The Winter Palace,” Tarrio replied, in an obvious reference to the Bolsheviks storming the tsar’s palace in St. Petersburg in 1917.

“Dude, did we simply affect historical past?” the Proud Boy asked. “Let’s first see how this performs out,” Tarrio wrote.

Two groups in particular are being scrutinized carefully by the government. 

The only other defendants who’ve been hit with serious sedition charges so far are members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group. Eleven Oath Keepers, including leader Stewart Rhodes, have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection to the riot. Two of those Oath Keepers have pleaded guilty. 

Meanwhile, dozens of other Proud Boys are facing lesser charges in connection to Jan. 6. 

The five Proud Boys who are facing sedition conspiracy charges are expected to appear for a hearing on June 9 in D.C.

(Disclosure: Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, was a co-founder of VICE in 1994. He left the company in 2008 and has had no involvement since then.)