Proud Boys, stand by...for sentencing.
No longer just beer-drinking brawlers, but seditionists against the U.S.
The May 4 conviction on seditious conspiracy charges of Proud Boys Chairman Henry Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the alt-right group comes with both a sigh of relief and road map.
A sigh of relief because the convictions send a strong signal that individuals and groups who attempt to overthrow a free and fair election will be punished for their actions.
As a bonus, the government’s win also offers a roadmap because of the conviction of Tarrio who was not in the Capitol that day and, thus, not as proximate to the action as others.
Like Tarrio, Trump was also not physically present at the Capitol. So yesterday’s verdict positions the 45th president and other “planners” as vulnerable to prosecution under seditious conspiracy statutes just as Tarrio was.
Trump, just like the mob
According to former U.S. Attorney and chief counsel to the Mueller investigation Andrew Weissmann, that the jury might have, but didn’t excuse Tarrio from a guilty finding, “shows Trump’s exposure,” Weissmann said.
“You don’t have to be the person pulling the trigger and going into the bank to do the robbery to be convicted. If you're the mastermind, you’re just as responsible. Just like in a mob case,” Weissmann said.
Trump wanted to be there
It’s not as though Trump didn’t want to join the Jan. 6 rioters. According to Cassidy Hutchinson who worked for Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and testified before the Jan. 6 special committee, Trump planned to join the insurrectionists after his Ellipse speech about a mile and a half from the Capitol.
But Trump’s Secret Service detail thwarted the plan while driving the presidential limo, insisting they return to the White House. There Trump could only watch the seditionist attack play out on TV.
Significance, then and now
The verdict marked the Justice Department’s third straight victory in three seditious conspiracy trials connected with the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Seditious conspiracy was addressed and outlawed in the 14th Amendment and expanded in the 1950s. The 14th Amendment that was passed soon after the Civil War targeted Southerners who might want to keep fighting the U.S. government and keep their secessionist hopes alive.
Seditious conspiracy prosecutions must prove that two or more people conspired to overthrow, put down or to destroy by force the U.S. government or bring
war against it.
Charges under the 150-year-old law and later ones have been rare in recent history for several reasons, including its high bar of proof and, up to now, reluctant juries to take such charges seriously.
McQuade weighs in
Until Jan. 6, prosecutors faced jurors who believed it was no longer possible to overthrow the government, said former prosecutor and University of Michigan Law School professor Barbara McQuade on MSNBC. But that belief went away with Jan. 6, making the statute an appropriate link between a post Civil War America and one with Donald Trump.
The defense narrative
Defense attorneys pointed the finger at Trump, saying he had made the insurrectionists his “scapegoats.” Lawyers painted the Proud Boys as harmless beer-drinking brawlers who played army on weekends.
Although they have been eager to do the alt-right’s bidding by harassing women and medical providers at abortion clinics, that was about it until Trump came along, the defense narrative went.
Trump’s now infamous Dec. 19, 2020 post inviting Proud Boys and others to come to the Capital to be “wild” was cited as a presidential call to action that changed everything.
It joined Trump’s now-famous September 2020 bugle call to “stand down and stand by” in the first presidential debate. Trump implied he’d be calling on the group to help him out, which they did.
The Prosecution’s case
According to Thursday’s Washington Post, prosecutors presented troves of group chats and recordings that proved rioters were all-in and fought ferociously to keep their leader in power.
Many of the recordings contained alcohol-laced rants against women, Jews, gays, and trans people along with strong pro-Nazi sentiments, according to Thursday’s NewYork Times coverage of events.
Oath Keepers also guilty
The Proud Boys joins guilty verdicts meted out to the Oath Keepers, another alt-right militia group among the DoJ’s now impressive list of victories. Oath Keepers’s senior leaders including Elmer Stewart Rhodes were found guilty of the same charges on Jan. 23.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly has scheduled sentencing in August for the following defendants: Proud Boy chairman Tarrio from Miami; Ethan Nordean of Auburn, Washington, a Proud Boys chapter president; Joseph Biggs of Ormond Beach, Florida, a self-described Proud Boys organizer; Zachary Rehl, president of the Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia; and Dominic Pezzola of Rochester, NY. Pezzola was not found guilty of seditious conspiracy, but was on multiple other counts, including destruction of government property and the disruption of official proceedings on that day.
Donald Trump remains at large.