Freed Enrique Tarrio says ‘I did nothing wrong’ on Jan. 6
Over a year ago, when he was sentenced in federal court for seditious conspiracy against his country, Enrique Tarrio called Jan. 6 a “national embarrassment.”
But on Friday, after receiving a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, the leader of the Proud Boys struck a different tone with journalists at Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine in Doral.
Jan. 6, 2021 — when more than 1,000 people broke through the U.S. Capitol doors and windows with weapons, scaling walls and beating police officers to reach the chambers where lawmakers were trying to ratify the 2020 presidential-election result, leading to at least five deaths on that day or soon after — was “a protest gone wrong,” he said.
Three days after he was freed from prison, Tarrio said at a press conference that Trump’s pardons of him and other Jan. 6 defendants on Monday were warranted due to injustices by the Justice Department. He didn’t “condone violence” but wouldn’t “condemn” Jan. 6 and still believed that Joe Biden had “stolen” the election in 2020.
“There’s absolutely nothing I will apologize for because I did nothing wrong,” Tarrio, 40, said on Friday. “The Proud Boys did nothing wrong, and American patriots did nothing wrong.”
“There might be some people in there that were violent,” he added, “but the process was corrupt so they do deserve a pardon.”
Others, including lawmakers, officers who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and former prosecutors, expressed outrage about the pardons, and a feeling of betrayal.
“To me, it’s a travesty of justice,” said Miami lawyer Marcos Jimenez, a former U.S. attorney in South Florida who was appointed by George W. Bush. “It shows a complete disrespect for the rule of law, our government, the U.S. Capitol and the law-enforcement officers who defended it on Jan. 6. It’s incredibly demoralizing, especially for the people who work at the Department of Justice.”
Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison in September 2023 after a federal jury in Washington found him and other Proud Boys guilty of seditious conspiracy and related charges. Arrested in March 2022 and detained before trial, he was given the longest sentence related to the Jan. 6 attack at the time. Trump pardoned him and about 1,300 individuals convicted of crimes in the attack on the Capitol, and commuted the sentences of 14 others.
At his trial, Tarrio’s defense team said he never saw himself as the field general of the Proud Boys, as the Justice Department did. While his colleagues stormed the Capitol, he watched the violence unfold on TV from a hotel room in Baltimore, having been arrested two days prior for burning a Black Lives Matter flag stolen from Asbury United Methodist Church. A judge had ordered him to leave D.C. He was also charged with possession of “two high-capacity firearm magazines” that he said he had intended to transfer to a “customer.”
The Justice Department pointed to evidence in his messages and social-media posts after the attack and the role that fellow Proud Boy leaders played in the events. U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in the announcement of Tarrio’s sentence that the Proud Boys had the most “boots on the ground at the Capitol” and were at “the forefront of every major breach of the Capitol’s defenses, leading the on-the-ground efforts to storm the seat of government.”
“Make no mistake ... we did this,” Tarrio told senior Proud Boy leadership after the attack, the Justice Department reported. On social media, watching the events unfold on TV, he wrote: “Proud of my boys and my country” and “Don’t f---ing leave.”
Tarrio was accused in an indictment of organizing a group called the “Ministry of Self Defense” of hard-core Proud Boy members 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. Convicted alongside him were Proud Boys Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl, who were also pardoned or had their sentences commuted.
“Tarrio and the other leaders of the Ministry of Self Defense established a chain of command, chose a time and place for their attack, and intentionally recruited others who would follow their top-down leadership and who were prepared to engage in physical violence if necessary,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Tarrio denies the accusation, and when asked his role that day, said he was in Maryland, watching the news.
The United States’ largest police organization, which backed Trump in the past three elections, condemned the president’s decision to pardon the rioters, some of whom were convicted of attacking law-enforcement officers. In one incident, a man named David Rodriguez tased Metropolitan Police Department Officer Mike Fanone multiple times. The violence was recorded on Fanone’s body camera. Fanone later suffered a heart attack and resigned.
“Allowing those convicted of these crimes to be released early diminishes accountability and devalues the sacrifices made by courageous law enforcement officers and their families,” the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
For an hour on Friday, surrounded by friends, family and his attorneys, Tarrio criticized the Justice Department. When asked about the injured officers and the lawmakers who feared for their lives, Tarrio said the pardons weren’t about the actions of that day, but the lack of a fair trial.
“People who put their hands on a police officer should get charged with whatever it is, whether it’s assault on a police officer,” he said. “But that’s not where the problem in these cases were. The problem of these cases lie in the miscarriage of justice and how it was performed.”
Tarrio said he was considering legal action against individuals involved in the Justice Department investigation. He claims his human rights were violated during the trial process and his detention.
A bipartisan survey conducted by States United Democracy Center and published on Jan. 17, before Trump made his decision, found that across party lines, the majority of Americans did not support pardoning offenders who committed violent crimes or assaulted officers. The results showed more openness toward pardons for non-violent offenders.
“Full pardon,” President Trump said, as he signed the executive order on Monday.
The executive order has ignited a national debate, with widespread outcry from police organizations and police officers who were injured during the insurrection at the Capitol, as well as criticism from legal experts who view Trump’s sweeping pardons and the lack of remorse by Tarrio and others offensive.
Jimenez, the former U.S. attorney in Miami, said he sees Tarrio as a “complete and total hypocrite” who begged for mercy at his sentencing hearing in 2023, then as soon as he was released from prison “he’s calling for other people to be put behind bars,” including former Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“I am not a political zealot. Inflicting harm or changing the results of the election was not my goal,” Tarrio said at his sentencing in September 2023. “Please show me mercy. ... I ask you that you not take my 40s from me.”
Many officials, including lawmakers who hid from rioters as they broke into the Capitol, also condemned the pardons.
“The attack was also deeply personal for me. I was in the House Gallery when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol,” U.S. Representative Mike Quigley, D-Ill., wrote in a statement. “These pardons are a betrayal of our law enforcement and a slap in the face to all those who survived that day.”
Republicans who had supported Trump’s statement that he would take a case-by-case approach to pardoning so-called “J-6ers” were relatively quiet when the sweeping pardons rolled out. Tarrio and another Miami “J-6er,” Gabriel Garcia, who received a pardon as well, both said they also supported a case-by-case review of the defendants, and that they believed Trump had conducted one.
Trump was asked by a reporter on Tuesday at a White House press conference why Rodriguez deserved a pardon for stunning a police officer, along with others convicted of assaulting officers.
“Well, I don’t know,” the president responded. “We’ll take a look at everything.”
Some Republican lawmakers did release statements condemning the wide-reaching pardons.
“The Capitol Police officers are the backbone of Congress — every day they protect and serve the halls of democracy,” Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski wrote on X. “I strongly denounce the blanket pardons given to the violent offenders who assaulted these brave men and women in uniform.”
Maine Sen. Susan Collins released a similar statement, writing that she does “not support pardons given to people who engaged in violence on January 6, including assaulting police officers, or breaking windows to get into the Capitol.”
“While I believe some Americans were caught up in the crowd on January 6 and may well deserve the clemency President Trump has given,” Collins wrote, “there is a great difference between violent crimes and non-violent crimes.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 3:00 PM.
