1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

'Goodness gracious!' DC judge snaps at Proud Boys lawyer in the final days of the trial



U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, D.C. snapped at one of the lawyers of the Proud Boys in court Monday. Lawfare editor Roger Parloff has spent the last 61 days live-tweeting 61 days live-tweeting what he observes in the trial that isn't being streamed to the public, only the audio has been available at times.

The top five members of the Proud Boys that are appearing in court face "a ten-count indictment, the government alleges that five Proud Boy defendants ... conspired to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force," Parloff explained in January when the trial began. The men are former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.

Monday marked closing statements from the lawyers and theoretically should be the final day of the trial, and the next steps are the jury's decision.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough asked the judge for a sidebar as the Proud Boys lawyer walked through all of the things they took issue with something said by the Proud Boys' lawyer.

Nicholas Smith, attorney for Ethan Nordean, accused the prosecutors of building a case on “misdirection and innuendo.” He went on to say that the prosecutors repeatedly played clips of Trump in an effort to manipulate the jury.

“Does that prove some conspiracy by the men here?” Smith asked jurors. “We all know it doesn’t.”

He went on to cite the definition of seditious conspiracy and argue that the government hasn't shown any proof other than the men engaged in a protest and march. He said that the prosecutors hadn't shown when an agreement was reached or by whom, and if there was a conspiracy, then the men would have been aware of a plan. The government prosecutors objected to the comment, which was sustained by the judge. That's when the court reporter asked for a 10-minute break.

When the jury left, Judge Kelly chastised the Proud Boys' lawyers. He said that so much of the closing statements are consistent with how the lawyer has conducted himself throughout the case.

"You've got misstatements of the law. You've stated them, and now you've got a graphic. When you're done, I'm going to instruct the juror that what you've told them is wrong. It's not the law land. It's quite misleading. Tell me why you should tell them what the law is and not me."

Smith claimed the other prosecutors instructed the jury on the law in their statements.

"We're not reading law that inconsistent — it's from a supreme court case," said Smith

"It's taken out of context," the judge said. He also argued that Smith has repeatedly commented on whose been charged and who has not. "We've litigated this many times, but goodness gracious."

After a back and forth, the judge told Smith, "I halve to correct them after you're done. That is not the law and they are to disregard it. This is what happens when we take a lot of time to litigate jury instructions and you disregard them."

Read the full thread here: https://twitter.com/rparloff/status/1650572540710903817

[Rick Plant]

Closing arguments in the marathon Jan 6 seditious conspiracy trial of the group of accused Proud Boys....including Domenic Pezzola.

Pezzola was cross-examined last week....He's accused of smashing open Capitol window with police riot shield.

[Rick Plant]

Proud Boys were ready for ‘all-out war’ before January 6, prosecutors argue

The neo-fascist group’s leader and four lieutenants are accused of seditious conspiracy to forcibly stop the transfer of power in 2021


Proud Boys members Zachary Rehl, left, and Ethan Nordean walk toward the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP


Ready for “all-out war”, leaders of the far-right Proud Boys viewed themselves as foot soldiers for Donald Trump as he clung to power after the 2020 election, a prosecutor said on Monday at the close of a historic trial over the January 6 Capitol attack.

After more than three months of testimony, jurors began hearing closing arguments in the seditious conspiracy case accusing the former Proud Boys national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, and four lieutenants of plotting to forcibly stop the transfer of power.

The Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf”, prosecutor Conor Mulroe said. “These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it.”

The justice department has worked to link the violence of 6 January 2021 to Trump. Prosecutors have repeatedly shown a video clip of Trump telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Joe Biden.

Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Capitol attack investigation. He wasn’t in Washington but is accused of orchestrating it from afar. Defense attorneys say there is no evidence of a conspiracy or a plan to attack the Capitol.

Nicholas Smith, an attorney for the former Proud Boys chapter leader Ethan Nordean, said prosecutors built their case on “misdirection and innuendo”, accusing them of repeatedly playing the clip of Trump to manipulate jurors.

“Does that prove some conspiracy by the men here?” Smith asked. “We all know it doesn’t.”

Mulroe said a conspiracy can be an unspoken and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod”.

Seditious conspiracy, a civil war-era charge that can be difficult to prove, carries a sentence of up to 20 years. The Proud Boys face other charges too.

The justice department has secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers. But this is the first major trial involving the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group that remains a force in Republican politics.

The government’s case is founded on messages leaders and members exchanged in encrypted chats and posted on social media before, during and after the January 6 attack. The messages show Proud Boys celebrating when Trump told them to “stand back and stand by”. After the election, they raged online about baseless claims of a stolen election and what would happen when Biden took office.


Dominic Pezzola, center with police shield, inside the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP


“If Biden steals this election, [the Proud Boys] will be political prisoners,” Tarrio posted. “We won’t go quietly … I promise.”

Jurors also saw gleeful messages posted during the Capitol riot when a group marched to the Capitol and some of them entered the building after the mob overwhelmed police.

“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote. “We did this.”

Prosecutors showed videos during closing statements, including one that appeared to show defendant Zachary Rehl spraying police with pepper spray. Confronted with the images earlier in the trial, Rehl said he didn’t remember it and couldn’t tell if it was him. Mulroe said the images show “he did it and he lied under oath about it”.

Tarrio, a Miami resident, Nordean and Rehl are on trial with Joseph Biggs and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described organizer. Rehl was president of a chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a member from Rochester, New York.

Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the January 6 attack on charges that he burned a church’s Black Lives Matter banner. He followed a judge’s order to leave town.

Defense attorneys called several current and former Proud Boys, trying to portray the group as a drinking club that only engaged in violence for self-defense.

“If you don’t like what some of them say, that doesn’t make them guilty,” Rehl’s attorney, Carmen Hernandez, told jurors.

Rehl said the group had “no objective” on 6 January. Pezzola testified that he got “caught up in the craziness” and acted alone when he used a riot shield to smash a Capitol window.

The prosecutor told jurors the Proud Boys leaders wanted to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory “by any means necessary, including force”.

“You want to call this a drinking club? You want to call this a men’s fraternal organization? Ladies and gentlemen, let’s call this what it is … a violent gang that came together to use force against its enemies,” Mulroe said.

Key witnesses included two former Proud Boys who pleaded guilty to riot-related charges and are cooperating with the government in hope of lighter sentences.

The first, Matthew Greene, testified that group members were expecting a “civil war”. The second, Jeremy Bertino, testified that he viewed the Proud Boys as leaders of the conservative movement and “the tip of the spear”.

The Proud Boys’ defense mirrored arguments made by lawyers for members of the Oath Keepers: that there was no evidence of a plan to attack the Capitol.

Prosecutors secured seditious conspiracy convictions against six Oath Keepers, while three were acquitted. Those three, however, were convicted of obstructing certification of Biden’s victory.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/24/proud-boys-jan-6-attack-trial-closing-arguments

[Rick Plant]

Proud Boys were ‘Donald Trump’s army,’ prosecutor says in closing arguments of seditious conspiracy trial

Washington CNN — After months of legal battles, infighting between defense lawyers and dozens of rejected mistrial motions, the federal criminal trial against five Proud Boys accused of plotting to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, moved to its final stage Monday.

One prosecutor and two defense attorneys gave their closing arguments to the Washington, DC, jury tasked with deciding whether Enrique Tarrio, Dominic Pezzola, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs and Ethan Nordean are guilty of several federal crimes, including seditious conspiracy.

The Justice Department’s Conor Mulroe argued that the defendants stirred fellow members of the far-right Proud Boys toward violence in the lead up to January 6 and directed them that day to attack the iconic building.

Attorneys for Nordean and Rehl repeatedly said that the mountains of evidence only showed vulgar, stupid messages from their clients and violence from others in the crowd on January 6 – none of which amounted to the seditious conspiracy charge their clients face.

All five of the defendants have pleaded not guilty. Closing arguments are expected to continue into Tuesday.

DOJ: ‘The Capitol was the focus from the start’

In the lead-up to January 6, Mulroe argued, the defendants were infuriated by then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss and began calling for revolutionary action to oppose the incoming administration.

"The founders of this country fought to create a nation where the leader is chosen by the will of the people and power is handed over peacefully following a process of law,” Mulroe said. “These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it.”

Mulroe showed the jury countless messages and videos the defendants sent to one another in the weeks and months before the attack, calling for violence against politicians, police and left-wingers, arguing the five men “had been thirsting for violence and organizing for action.”

“To these defendants, politics was no longer something for the debating floor or voting booth. To them, politics meant actual physical combat, a battle between good and evil in the most literal sense,” Mulroe said.

“The Capitol was the focus from the start,” he said. “They made it plain as day why they were there. It was not to see Donald Trump’s speech, it was not to protect patriots, it was certainly not to protest peacefully. They were there to threaten and, if necessary, use force to stop the certification of the election.”

As the attack unfolded, Mulroe said, several of the defendants took part in breaking down police barriers, signaled directions to one another, and at a critical moment when police had reestablished a line in front of the Capitol, the men pressed forward.

Playing the jury audio clips of panicked US Capitol Police officers begging for backup as the mob breached the Capitol grounds, Mulroe said, “That is what it looks like when the process of government is brought to a screeching halt. Those radio calls are the sound of a 200-year tradition of the peaceful transfer of power being shattered.”

He added: “Ladies and gentlemen, this was a national disgrace. To them, it was mission accomplished. They had done it. They had stopped the certification.”

But in the days after the riot, Mulroe said, and the defendants became angry more wasn’t done to keep Trump in power.

“They came up short,” Mulroe added. “So now, they are facing consequences.”

Defense attorney: ‘Even if you don’t like what some of them say, it doesn’t make them guilty’

Defense attorneys told jurors their clients never entered a conspiracy to attack the Capitol and chided prosecutors for trying to connect their clients to Trump.

Nordean’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, argued that prosecutors only used the infamous video from a 2020 debate stage where Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” to rile up the jury.

“It was played to manipulate you into confusing your dislike for a politician with whether these men are guilty of a crime,” Smith said. “Whatever the former president’s personal crimes are, you have seen no evidence that Mr. Trump conspired with Ethan Nordean from Seattle.”

The prosecutors’ case, Smith said, “was designed to make you hate these men and find them fearful,” adding that several of the statements shown by prosecutors were from before January 6 and that videos of violence between Proud Boys and others played for the jury were from past rallies immediately after the 2020 election.

"The loud sounds and scary and chaotic scenes” from those rallies, Smith argued, were tactic by prosecutors. “It was designed to make you hate these men and find them fearful,” he said.

Smith and Carmen Hernandez, who represents Rehl, argued there was not a single message, video or statement from the defendants outlining a specific plan to stop Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election on January 6.

Hernandez also rebuked the “mountain of evidence” prosecutors showed as inflammatory, saying that “much of it, in my humble opinion, (had) nothing to do with Mr. Rehl.”

“We think these guys are racist and sexist,” Carmen said, pointing at the five defendants sitting in the courtroom, “and they may be. But that’s not what they’re charged with. Even if you don’t like what some of them say, it doesn’t make them guilty.”

Both Hernandez and Smith told jurors that while their clients acted inappropriately, neither of them had come to Washington, DC, as part of an explicit plan for violence in the Capitol.

“Were not debating for a second that it wasn’t inappropriate for a person to go into the Capitol building, of course it was,” Smith said, adding that Nordean “should not have gone into the Capitol. He should not have been where he was.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/24/politics/proud-boys-seditious-conspiracy-trial-closing-arguments/index.html

[Rick Plant]

Faux News fired right wing propagandist hack Tucker Carlson yesterday. He was pushing disinformation about the January 6th insurrection on his fake propaganda program. Good riddance! 


Tucker Carlson amplifies Jan. 6 lies with GOP-provided video




WASHINGTON (AP) — Handed some 41,000 hours of Jan. 6 security footage, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has launched an impassioned new effort to explain away the deadly Capitol attack, linking the Republican Party ever more closely to pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the 2021 riot.

The conservative commentator aired a first installment to millions of viewers on his prime-time show Monday, working to bend perceptions of the violent, grueling siege that played out for the world to see into a narrative favorable to Donald Trump. A small additional bit was shown Tuesday amid calls from critics to stop.

The undertaking by Fox News comes as Trump is again running for president, and executives at the highest levels of the cable news giant have admitted in unrelated court proceedings that it spread the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election despite dismissing Trump’s assertions privately.

The effort dovetails with the work of Republicans on Capitol Hill, led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who turned over the security footage to Fox. The Republicans are trying to claw back the findings of the House Jan. 6 investigation, which painstakingly documented, with testimony and video evidence, how Trump rallied his supporters to head to the Capitol and “fight like hell” as Congress was certifying his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump on Tuesday contended that Carlson’s presentation was “irrefutable” evidence that rioters have been wrongly accused of crimes and he thanked the host and the speaker for their work. Carlson praised McCarthy as having “rectified” the official record.

Trump called anew for the release from custody of people who have been convicted or have pleaded guilty to charges from the attack.

At the same time, criticism poured in from Democrats — and some top Republicans, too — over the GOP’s attempt to amplify falsehoods about the attack that was seen around the world as Trump supporters laid siege to the seat of U.S. democracy.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the Democrat who chaired the House Jan. 6 Committee investigating the riot, called McCarthy’s decision to selectively release the security footage “a dereliction of duty.”

“The speaker decided it was more important to give in to a Fox host who spews lies and propaganda than to protect the Capitol,” Thompson said in a statement. He called Jan. 6 “one of the darkest days in the history of our democracy.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Monday night Fox News episode from Carlson “one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on television.”

The show’s portrayal was “an insult to every single police officer,” Schumer said, especially the family of Brian Sicknick, who died later after fighting the mob. “Nonviolent? Ask his family.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said it was a mistake for Fox News to depict the footage as it did — at odds with the Capitol Police assessment and what he and others witnessed firsthand at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

But McCarthy, who has shifted from blaming Trump for the riot to softening his criticism of the former president, stood by his decision, saying people can watch and “come up with their own conclusion.”

In the roughly 30-minute segment, Fox distilled the thousands of hours of footage of the gruesome scenes at the Capitol that day and did show some of the hand-to-hand combat as rioters laid siege to the building, broke windows and kicked down doors to gain entry.

But Carlson also emphasized imagery of the invaders, some in combat gear and wielding flagpoles, merely milling about the gilded halls, taking pictures of the surroundings during pauses in the hours-long attack.

“These were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers,” Carlson said.

The footage he aired focused on one of the highest-profile rioters, Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman,” garbed in his horned hat and bare chested, as he poked around the building, officers standing by or opening doors. Chansley pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

Carlson denounced the Jan. 6 committee led by Democrats in the past Congress, and called out Trump’s chief Republican critics Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as liars on the panel.

Carlson is reviving the falsehoods launched by Trump and his allies, including Republicans in Congress, that the attackers were peaceful protesters and acted like tourists, despite the well-documented carnage of the day and the deaths of five people in the riot and its aftermath. It’s part of an effort to reverse criminal charges for those being prosecuted in the attack, many of whom have pleaded guilty and said they regretted their actions on Jan. 6.

Capitol Police officers who were defending against the mob have testified to their harrowing experiences — one said she was slipping in other people’s blood, while another told of being crushed in the mob — as they worked and ultimately failed to block the rioters from storming the Capitol.

The criminal cases stemming from the riot have laid bare the violence. Officers have testified in court about being chased, hit, dragged and scared for their lives as they tried to defend the Capitol. One tweeted images late Monday of his cuts, stitches and swollen bruises from that day.

Among those who died in the riot and its aftermath were Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt who was shot by police and Capitol Police officer Sicknick who died after fighting the mob.

Carlson aired footage of Sicknick inside the Capitol picking up posters and politely ushering protesters out the door, portraying that as evidence the officer was not killed in the crush.

That last was denounced by Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger as “the most disturbing accusation from last night.”

“The Department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day,” Chief Manger said in a memo to his police force.

He said the program “cherry-picked” from calmer moments of the day, ignoring “the chaos and violence that happened before or during.”

The Sicknick family said in a statement that the footage simply showed that Brian Sicknick bravely resumed his duties for a time after he had been attacked by a chemical agent.

Ken Sicknick, Brian Sicknick’s brother, said in an interview that the family is “at a loss” about how to fight back against a network with millions of viewers and the speaker of the House who gave access to the footage.

Law enforcement failures on Jan. 6 have been investigated in Congress and acknowledged: Police failed to heed signs of a looming attack and were slow to provide an adequate response, including reinforcement from the National Guard.

More than half of the roughly 1,000 people charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes have pleaded guilty, including more than 130 who pleaded guilty to felony crimes, according to an Associated Press tally.

Members of the extremist Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups are facing rare charges of sedition for their roles at the front of the assault. Several members of the Oath Keepers have been found guilty of sedition. Hundreds of other rioters were charged only with misdemeanor offenses and many have served no prison time.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are mounting an effort to retell the history of Jan. 6 through the House Administration Committee, which has opened an online portal for submissions from the public.

Some GOP leaders, however, appeared uncomfortable with McCarthy’s move and the way the footage was being used.

Senate Republican leader McConnell quickly distanced himself from the endeavor, saying he wanted to “associate myself entirely” with the police chief’s views.

McConnell said, “Clearly the chief of the Capitol Police correctly describes what most of us witnessed firsthand on Jan. 6.”

AP reporters Michael Balsamo and Alanna Durkin Richer and videojournalist Rick Gentilo contributed to this story.

https://apnews.com/article/jan-6-tucker-carlson-capitol-riot-mccarthy-adc245e22f50b076925eb72948062808

[Rick Plant]

Donald Trump central to Proud Boys trial as DOJ, defense attorneys blame him for Jan. 6 attack




As the seditious conspiracy trial of five Proud Boys  comes to an end, both prosecutors and defense attorneys have made it clear there's an elephant not in the courtroom: former President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors are accusing the defendants of acting like "Donald Trump's army," motivated to keep Trump in power after what they viewed as a fraudulent presidential election in 2020.

Defense attorneys for the Proud Boys on trial agree Trump is to blame, but for different reasons; they say that the former president's rhetoric inflamed the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — not members of the right-wing extremist group.

"It was Donald Trump’s words, it was his motivation, it was his anger that caused what occurred on Jan. 6," Tarrio attorney Nayib Hassan said in his closing remarks. "They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald Trump and those in power."

Longtime Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants — Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — face trial for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Civil War-era charge is rarely alleged and even more rarely convicted. They face an array of other serious charges.

Closing remarks began Monday in the historic trial. In its 15 weeks, Trump has been central to the cases built by both the government and the Proud Boys' attorneys.

“The most interesting thing to me is the idea of Trump as the empty chair in these trials,” said Jill Huntley Taylor, CEO of Taylor Trial Consulting. “On both sides, both sides are pointing to Trump.”

DOJ portrays Trump as Jan. 6 instigator


Violent Trump mob storms the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.


Government prosecutors have portrayed Trump as an instigator who boosted the Proud Boys' credibility and their resolve in the months leading up to Jan. 6.

After Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" during a September 2020 presidential debate, members of the right-wing extremist group celebrated and expressed an increased sense of importance in private Telegram messages, according to evidence introduced in court.

They sent a flurry of messages to a group chat called "Official Presidents Chat," which prosecutors say was populated by Proud Boys chapter presidents across the country. Tarrio, Nordean and Rehl were in the chat.

"PROUD BOYS"

"SHOUT OUT"

"Wouldn't condemn us," said the messages from different Proud Boys, pouring in within milliseconds of each other.

Once it became clear Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and Joe Biden would become president, the Proud Boys mobilized to keep him in the White House, prosecutors argued.

"These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe.

Proud Boys defense attorneys blame Trump for Jan. 6

Defense attorneys have directed fire toward the former president for entirely different reasons. They say Trump's incendiary rhetoric and false claims of election fraud inflamed the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, not the Proud Boys.

On Dec. 19, 2020, Trump tweeted that a "big protest" would take place on Jan. 6, the same day as the joint session of Congress where the 2020 presidential election votes would be certified and Biden would officially be named president-elect. He told his followers: “Be there, will be wild!”

In February, Biggs attorney Norman Pattis raised the possibility of subpoenaing Trump as a witness in the high-profile trial, but the long-shot bid to put Trump on the witness stand was not taken up by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, who is presiding over the case.

Experts in extremism told USA TODAY that Trump acted as a uniting force for the disparate group of Americans that descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6.

"When we look at January 6, you kind of have that perfect storm," said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. "You have the mob. You have the 'Stop the Steal' influencers...You have your extremist groups — your Proud Boys, your Oath Keepers. And then you have Trump who in that moment acted as that focusing lens."

"He gave them the time, the place and the enemy," Lewis added.

House Jan. 6 committee also blamed Trump

The House Jan. 6 committee that investigated the Capitol attack in March said it had gathered evidence indicating that former President Donald Trump and others "engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States."

"The evidence supports an inference that President Trump and members of his campaign knew he had not won enough legitimate state electoral votes to be declared the winner of the 2020 Presidential election during the January 6 Joint Session of Congress," the committee disclosed in court documents. "But the President nevertheless sought to use the Vice President to manipulate the results in his favor."

Trump has not faced any charges tied to the Capitol attack, though Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is investigating Trump's role in the events of that day. 

After closing remarks in Proud Boys trial, the jury decides

Closing remarks are still ongoing in the Proud Boys trial. But the jury will soon get the chance to decide whether the blame for the defendants' actions fall on them alone.

"The jurors want to get it right; they will pay a lot of attention to all of the evidence that's coming in and try to block out whatever noise is associated with the trial," Taylor said. "I do think that they may be extraordinarily careful about what decisions they make...all jurors do, but maybe to a greater degree under these circumstances."

Watch video in link below:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/04/25/proud-boys-trial-doj-donald-trump-jan-6/11734356002/

[Rick Plant]

This says it all. This is coming from the Proud Boys' defense attorney.

In closing argument to jury, defense attorney for accused Jan 6 seditious conspiracy defendant Enrique Tarrio:

“It was Donald Trump’s words, it was his motivation, it was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6 in your amazing and beautiful city"

So, the defense attorney for Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the right wing hate group "the Proud Boys" is putting the blame on Donald Trump for the January 6th insurrection. This debunks all the bogus right wing propaganda that the fired Faux News liar Tucker Carlson was promoting about January 6th being "peaceful".   

The defense attorney is blaming Donald Trump for all the violence and the attempted coup on January 6th.

Yes, Donald Trump is to blame for January 6th because it was his lies and violent rhetoric that incited his gullible base into believing the election was stolen.

But, that does not excuse his violent supporters for storming the Capitol trying to overthrow the US government and preventing a peaceful transfer of power.

Trump's MAGA supporters engaged in seditious criminal activity and they are being held accountable for their crimes.