‘Storm the Capitol,’ Miami Proud Boys’ leader Enrique Tarrio urged colleagues, feds say
Enrique Tarrio, outspoken national leader of the Proud Boys, was an hour away from Washington, D.C., when a throng of his fellow extremists ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Despite his physical absence, an indictment issued earlier this week portrays Tarrio — who lives in Miami — as a key plotter in a plan aimed at stopping Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory over Donald Trump. In text exchanges with other Proud Boys members, Tarrio backed a “1776 Returns” plan that called for occupying “crucial buildings” in D.C., including the House and the Senate, and he supported staging the “main operating theater“ at the Capitol steps.
In one exchange on the morning of Jan. 4, Tarrio advised his colleagues that “you want to storm the Capitol.” The following day, Tarrio also met in a Washington, D.C., parking garage with the founder of another extremist group, the Oath Keepers, about coordinating efforts to target Congress.
Overall, the indictment’s evidence would appear to undermine arguments by some defendants implicated in the Jan. 6 probe that the assault on the Capitol was a spontaneous protest.
Tarrio, 38, was arrested Tuesday in his hometown of Miami and faces a detention hearing Tuesday in federal court where prosecutors plan to ask a magistrate judge to hold him before trial, claiming he is a danger to the community and a risk of flight. He has a federal healthcare-related criminal conviction in Miami dating back a decade likely to affect his bid for release. Tarrio’s defense attorney, Nayib Hassan, declined to comment about the case but plans to seek bail for him while he awaits trial in federal court in Washington, D.C., on the new conspiracy charges, including obstructing an official proceeding.
The indictment describes Tarrio as the former national chairman of the Proud Boys who helped organize a group of hardcore members — the Ministry of Self Defense — to develop “national rally planning” for a “Stop the Steal” protest on Jan. 6 to coincide with Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote that same day. The indictment further accuses Tarrio and the other five Proud Boys defendants of devising a militant strategy to target the Capitol building, using the internet not only to develop strategies and recruit members but also to raise funds and buy paramilitary gear for the assault.
Encrypted text, chat and voice messages, along with unnamed cooperating witnesses “known to the grand jury,” form the foundation of the Justice Department’s case against Tarrio, who currently works for a T-shirt printer in Miami.
Almost 800 people, many from Florida, have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol building. Unlike Tarrio, the vast majority of them were actually there at the time of the assault. In the first case to go to trial, Guy Reffitt, a Texas militia member who was at the head of an early wave of rioters, was found guilty this month of five felony charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding, carrying a firearm during the attack and threatening witnesses. Reffitt faces a maximum possible sentence of 60 years in prison, but will likely get much less time under federal sentencing guidelines.
Legal experts said the 30-page indictment against Tarrio and five other Proud Boys’ defendants offers an extraordinary amount of details in the form of social media and encrypted statements. Former federal prosecutor Joseph DeMaria explained that while the Justice Department normally does not provide so much evidence in an indictment, this kind of case requires it.
“Social media implicates protected First Amendment rights, and the government needs to show the media statements that crossed the line from protected speech to illegal incitement,” said DeMaria, a lawyer who worked in the Justice Department’s organized crime task force in Miami.
While Tarrio’s comments and postings seem to put him in an alleged conspiracy, he wasn’t with about 100 other Proud Boys members who joined in the attack on the Capitol building, the indictment says. After his arrest on Jan. 4, 2021, on charges of burning a Black Lives Matter banner at an earlier protest in Washington, D.C., a judge ordered him to leave the area. Tarrio left on Jan. 5 for Baltimore just before the assault on Congress.
“Tarrio’s absence may raise the defense of withdrawal from the conspiracy,” DeMaria added. “But that will be for the jury to decide if he had really withdrawn when he continued to send social media posts after he left the D.C. area.”
In court papers, the Proud Boys describes itself as a “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world, aka Western Chauvinists.”
According to the new indictment, on Dec. 29, 2020, Tarrio posted a message on social media that the Proud Boys planned to “turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th but this time with a twist. ... We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will be spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who knows ... we might dress in all BLACK for the occasion.”
‘I’m not playing games’
The following day, an unidentified Proud Boys member sent Tarrio the “1776 Returns” plan, a nine-page document spelling out how the group should occupy Congress “with as many people as possible” to “show that We the People are in charge.”
After sending the document, the plan’s author said: “The revolution is [more] important than anything.”
Tarrio responded: “That’s what every waking moment consists of. ... I’m not playing games.”
That same day, Dec. 30, 2020, Tarrio held a video conference call with other Proud Boys members, saying they had to follow the commands of the leadership. He warned they had a choice: “fit in or f*** off.”
On New Year’s Day, Tarrio posted separate messages on social media that read: “Let’s bring this new year with one word in mind ... Revolt” and later, “New Years Revolution.”
On Jan. 3, 2021, Tarrio told the Ministry of Defense group, which consisted of the Proud Boys’ top hierarchy, that he wanted to wait until Jan. 4 to make “final plans” on the Capitol assault, according to the indictment.
That prompted one member of the Proud Boys leadership group to say in a voice note that the “main operating theater should be out in front of the House of Representatives. It should be out in front of the Capitol building. So, we can plan ... the operations based around the front entrance to the Capitol building.”
Another Proud Boys member immediately responded the Capitol was a “good start.”
Then, on the morning of Jan. 4, Tarrio voiced his approval, stating: “I didn’t hear this voice note until now, you want to storm the Capitol.”
Later that same day, Tarrio was arrested on charges of burning a church’s Black Lives Matter banner and carrying ammunition at a Washington, D.C., protest on Dec. 12, 2020. As a condition of his bond, a judge ordered Tarrio to leave the D.C. area, but he didn’t get out of town immediately, the indictment says.
Instead, after his release on Jan. 5, Tarrio tried to get a hotel room in Washington, D.C., to no avail. Then he met in an underground parking garage with Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III and others to coordinate efforts to “Stop the Steal,” the slogan of the National Mall rally to support Trump on the morning of Jan. 6, which led to the revolt at the Capitol that afternoon. Before the demonstration, however, Tarrio did leave D.C. for Baltimore at some point, according to the indictment.
Now, Tarrio is accused of directing and encouraging the Proud Boys to participate in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and later claiming credit for the attack on social media and in an encrypted chat room.
On the afternoon of Jan. 6, as the Proud Boys and other extremist groups stormed the Capitol, Tarrio watched the assault on TV news and expressed his support, according to the indictment.
“After I finish watching this I’ll make a statement about my arrest [on Jan. 4] ... But for now I’m enjoying the show ... Do what must be done. #WeThePeople.”
A few minutes later, Tarrio posted: “Don’t f***ing leave.”
A Proud Boy member responded, “Are we a militia yet?”
In a series of posts, Tarrio said:. “Yep ... Make no mistake ...We did this ...”
High-profile defendant
In the new Justice Department case, Tarrio was indicted on one count each of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding, as well as two counts each of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers and destruction of government property.
Others named in the indictment, which was originally filed last year, are: Ethan Nordean, 31, of Auburn, Washington.; Joseph Biggs, 38, of Ormond Beach, Florida; Zachary Rehl, 36, of Philadelphia; Charles Donohoe, 34, of Kernersville, North Carolina; and Dominic Pezzola, 44, of Rochester, New York. All were previously detained and pleaded not guilty to charges.
Tarrio joins Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes as the two most high-profile defendants charged by the Justice Department in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
Tarrio has a federal criminal history in Miami. In 2013, he pleaded guilty in a healthcare-related fraud case involving diabetic test strips and then assisted federal investigators in targeting a dozen other suspects, court records show. He served one year and four months in prison, which was a reduction of his original sentence, two years and six months.
Tarrio also pleaded guilty to the state charges of burning the BLM banner and carrying firearms magazines at the Dec. 12, 2020, Washington, D.C., Black Lives Matter protest. He was sentenced to five months.
This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 4:31 PM.
