The Rise and Fall of Henry Enrique Tarrio: From Proud Boys Leader to US Capitol Attack Conviction

ormer proud boys chairman Henry Enrique
tario and three other members of the
group The Proud boys were found guilty
Thursday of seditious conspiracy in the
January 6 2021 attack on the U.S Capitol
according to the Washington Post this
comes after uh nearly 15 weeks of trial
where prosecutors allege that the proud
Boys in question saw themselves as
Donald Trump's Army according to the
report so this is a you know high
profile convictions of leaders of The
Proud boys organization which is the
right-wing group that has it has a
history of clashing with antifa in the
streets of Portland and other places and
then you know was very active on the day
of on January 6th they were also charged
some of them and of like um taking
police gear using it to smash windows
that kind of stuff I think that's totally fair to go
after them for all of that I'm a little
I'm not sold on this whole seditious
conspiracy aspect of it so their defense
is that they said this is Donald Trump's
fault he said these things and then and
because he you know he he stoked the
fires of the crowd and then there was
this unplanned Riot people went in
that also comports with like that's
my view of what happened as well and
isn't all that also kind of the
mainstream media's view that this was
Donald Trump's fault so so charging them
in this way makes it sound like like the
government is almost contradicting that
narrative they're saying No this was
planned by these individuals
and you know they're using uh I don't
know this this worries me from like a
free assembly and free expression
standpoint again tote you can charge
them for Smash and stuff absolutely
agree with that but to say that they had
this organized plan to like overthrow
prevent the transfer of power that kind
of thing is a giving them a lot of
credibility and I think then it ends up
actually denying the culpability of
Donald Trump which in other in
another sense it was the like all the
the January 6 commission and all that
Testament that's all about the
responsibility Trump bears not these you
know random crazy far-right activist
people well I think two things can be
true at the same time especially in
this case you have people who were
organized they were obviously a small
militia of crazies who were very intent
on carrying out this idea of Destruction
in order to take back America or reverse
the signs of an election that they
didn't agree with those things are true
I also think that they fail on what I
consider like somewhat Nuremberg style
theory that because they assumed that
they were told to do certain things like
not directed Trump didn't call Ontario
and his crew to do something
specifically but they think that because
of the messaging that he had done across
social media and various other channels
about the election being stolen about
people needing to take up arms a lot of
the rhetoric that he gave emboldened
these individuals who were already known
for doing some pretty crazy things and
they essentially their argument fell on
what he told me to do it and we were
following orders that didn't hold up
seditious conspiracy is extremely hard
to prove so I did find it interesting
that they got charged on that and that
it actually went through but in addition
to that
I think it was deeper than what was
publicly known these people planned they
executed they organized this was not
some ragtag team of folks that came
together the night before and said you
know what we're going to take the
capital that's not what happened was for
months they were planning a protest what
you're allowed to do you are allowed to
produce 99 or more of the people there
were exercising their first mission
right that was known for anti-Semitism
anti-blackness
that's not a crime none of that none of
that is but creating violence and
creating environments where violence can
occur and stoking fear at the same time
that is and this was a group that was
absolutely fine with leaning in on
domestic terrorism and they ended up I
think falling on their own sword this
was I think that this type of ruling
sent shock waves to other groups who are
also alt-right who are also people who
are anti-democratic in nature who are
also people who are absolutely fine
taking up arms against America when they
feel as though their their values and
what they represent is leaving them
steadily
it's going to make people I
think twice because this group assumed
that they would get off you could not
tell tario that him essentially blaming
his actions on President Trump I wasn't
going to relieve him of that think twice
about smashing windows and that goes for
left-wing protesters and everyone else
too but I don't think this is beyond
smashing Windows you and I did not see
the same January 6th video well this
wasn't just about smashing and fine and
then feuding with police officers and
then trespassingly they shouldn't do any
of that they should be prosecuted like
anyone else for all that stuff but the other interesting wrinkle is
that in the past tario Enriquez the
proud boys leader was in fact a
government informant 10-year years ago
in a bunch of other cases he he helped
the government
prosecute people for drug crimes and
some other stuff so the question a lot
of people have had and like this is true
of many militia groups
well there there is a history of
people in these groups cooperating with
law enforcement and then turning on
America well cooperating with
being goaded by law enforcement agencies
agents to take actions that are criminal
in order to arrest a wider swath of
people that very much happened in the
Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping thing the
the organizer the militia guy who's
organizing that plot was being paid by
the FBI to do so because they're gonna
then arrest everyone involved in it
rather than do they that's how they
build a case I mean this entrapment of
Muslim people this has happened a lot.