By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The seditious conspiracy case in opposition to former Proud Boys chief Enrique Tarrio and 4 lieutenants went to the jury on Tuesday after dozens of witnesses over greater than three months in some of the severe circumstances to emerge from the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
The jury will start deliberating Wednesday to resolve whether or not the onetime Proud Boys nationwide chairman and 4 co-defendants are responsible of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors allege was a determined plot to maintain President Donald Trump within the White House after the Republican misplaced the 2020 election.
Prosecutors in Washington have proven jurors a whole bunch of messages exchanged by Proud Boys within the days main as much as Jan. 6 that present the far-right extremist group peddling Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and buying and selling fears over what would occur when President Joe Biden took workplace.
Defense attorneys say there was no conspiracy and no plan to assault the Capitol. They’ve sought to painting the Proud Boys as an unorganized consuming membership whose members’ participation within the riot was a spontaneous act fueled by Trump’s election rage.
A lawyer for Tarrio sought to push the blame onto Trump in his closing argument, telling jurors on Tuesday that the Justice Department is making Tarrio a scapegoat for the previous president.
Defense lawyer Nayib Hassan famous Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, having been banned from the capital after being arrested on allegations that he defaced a Black Lives Matter banner. Trump, Hassan argued, was the one in charge for extorting a crowd exterior the White House to “ fight like hell.”
“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” Hassan informed jurors. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”
Tarrio, a Miami resident, was tried alongside 4 different Proud Boys: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. They might withstand 20 years in jail if convicted of seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era cost that may be troublesome to show.
Tarrio is likely one of the high targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot, which quickly halted the certification of Biden’s election win.
Trump has denied inciting any violence on Jan. 6 and has argued that he was permitted by the First Amendment to problem his loss to Biden. The former president is going through a number of civil lawsuits over the riot and a particular counsel named by Attorney General Merrick Garland can also be overseeing investigations into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the outcomes of the election.
A prosecutor informed jurors on Monday throughout the first day of closing arguments that the Proud Boys have been prepared for “all-out war” and seen themselves as foot troopers preventing for Trump because the Republican unfold lies that Democrats stole the election from him.
“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,” mentioned the prosecutor, Conor Mulroe.
Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.
Tarrio is accused of orchestrating an assault from afar regardless that he wasn’t in Washington that day. Police arrested him two days earlier than the riot on costs that he burned a church’s Black Lives Matter banner throughout an earlier march within the metropolis. A choose ordered Tarrio to go away Washington after his arrest.
Defense attorneys have argued that there isn’t any proof of a conspiracy or a plan for the Proud Boys to assault the Capitol. Tarrio “had no plan, no objective and no understanding of an objective,” his legal professional mentioned.
Pezzola testified that he by no means spoke to any of his co-defendants earlier than they sat in the identical courtroom after their arrests. Defense legal professional Steven Metcalf mentioned Pezzola by no means knew of any plan for Jan. 6 or joined in any conspiracy with the Proud Boys leaders.
“It’s not possible. It’s fairy dust. It doesn’t exist,” Metcalf mentioned.
Mulroe, the prosecutor, informed jurors {that a} conspiracy may be an unstated and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod.”
The basis of the federal government’s case, which began with jury choice in December, is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders and members privately exchanged in encrypted chats — and publicly posted on social media — earlier than, throughout and after the lethal Jan. 6 assault.
Another prosecutor, Nadia Moore, mentioned the Proud Boys did extra than simply discuss their aim of retaining Trump in workplace. They marched to the Capitol and helped cease the certification of the Electoral College vote, she informed jurors.
“These men aren’t here because of what they said. They’re here because of what they did,” Moore mentioned Tuesday.
Norm Pattis, one among Biggs’ attorneys, described the Capitol riot as an “aberration” and informed jurors that their verdict “means so much more than January 6th itself” as a result of it’s going to ”communicate to the long run.”
“Show the world with this verdict that the rule of law is alive and well in the United States,” Pattis mentioned.
The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions in opposition to the founder and members of one other far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers. But that is the primary main trial involving leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group of self-described “Western chauvinists” that continues to be a power in mainstream Republican circles.
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This model corrects that jury choice within the trial started in December, not January.
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Follow the AP’s protection of the U.S. Capitol revolt at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”