Feds Hit Parler With Search Warrants for Enrique Tarrio and Other Proud Boys, New Court Filings Reveal
A new evidence list in the Proud Boys January 6 trial shows that feds executed search warrants on Parler, the right-wing social media site, in connection with leader Enrique Tarrio and other Proud Boys who hyped up calls for violence ahead of the Capitol attack.
Parler did not immediately return a request for comment.
Five Proud Boys—including Tarrio, the group’s former leader—are each facing nine or more charges for their alleged actions on Jan. 6. Prosecutors say the group engaged in seditious conspiracy when they allegedly plotted to storm the Capitol and prevent lawmakers from certifying President Joe Biden’s election.
New court filings a month before their case heads to trial suggest a sweeping federal investigation into the Proud Boys.
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Some of the defendants have fought to block evidence in the case, arguing that internal Proud Boys documents are irrelevant or that they paint the group in a bad light. In filings late last week, prosecutors argued that it’s the Proud Boys’ own fault if they look bad in the internal messages, pointing to a defendant who used a racist slur in his username.
The prosecution’s latest exhibit list that paints the fullest picture yet of how the trial will take shape.
Much of the evidence against the Proud Boys comes from their own phones. The exhibit list includes three of the five defendants’ phones in their entirety, plus those of three other Proud Boys accused or convicted of participating in the riot, and texts from other Proud Boys.
The phones might offer insight into the Proud Boys’ yet-unseen movements on Jan. 6. For instance, the evidence list includes 24 iPhone videos from defendant Zachary Rehl, from 12:36 to 3:11, when the Capitol break-in was underway.
Prosecutors also plan to introduce extensive evidence from apps like Telegram, where Proud Boys allegedly planned the attack. Those messages appear to range from one-on-one chats with Tarrio, to group chats with Proud Boys leadership, dating back to September 2020.
One conversation from a Proud Boys Telegram chat is previewed in the latest court filing. The messages, from Jan 1, 2021, show high-ranking group members turning against police. “Our disposition towards the police needs to be reevaluated,” one unnamed member writes. He goes on to describe “escalation” against cops as “an inevitability.”
“It’s coming to it,” another unnamed Proud Boy writes later in the conversation. “I mean how much longer are we going to let this shit continue.”
“#fucktheblue,” responds Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino, who recently pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy in the case.
“I’m ready to just be the Zamboni,” writes Joe Biggs, a Proud Boy leader standing trial in the case, “And just roll over these mother fuckers.”
Throughout the case, defendants have sought to exclude certain pieces of evidence, like a document that allegedly shows Proud Boys’ plans to occupy buildings in the Capitol complex.
The latest filings come in response to defendant Ethan “Rufio Panman” Nordean’s opposition to certain evidence, including vulgar Proud Boys messages, which he claims could unfairly bias a jury. Prosecutors argue that the messages are central to the case, and so consistently vulgar that redacting them would “in many cases render their statements practically unintelligible.”
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“Take for example the government’s evidence of video messages exchanged among MOSD Leaders during the initial moments of the riot,” prosecutors wrote of the Ministry of Self Defense, a Proud Boys chat group allegedly used in coordinating the Capitol attack. “The video is direct evidence of the MOSD leadership’s command and control of the men they led to the Capitol and includes real-time reactions from co-conspirator Charles Donohoe and directives from coconspirator Jeremy Bertino. The government can do little about the fact that the screen name assigned to Charles Donohoe in the message string was ‘Cracker Ni**er Fa**ot’:”
Some of Nordean’s public statements ahead of the rally also forecast his plans to install a government of the Proud Boys’ choosing, prosecutors say. Included in the evidence are statements Nordean made on a podcast before the riot, when he was complaining about D.C. police officers stopping him during a previous rally.
“We’ll replace you,” Nordean said on the podcast.
“We don’t care about … we care about law and order that much that we will assemble an army that will literally just replace you like that. We’ll just be like ‘I’ll take your badge. Shit’s mine now. You’re no longer sitting in office. You’re no longer the governor, this guy over here that we just voted in right now is. Goodbye.’ And it will literally be like that.”
The trial is scheduled to start in December.
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