Trump granted pardons to far-right leaders on January 6

Fresh from being freed by President Trump’s pardon, two of the far-right’s most prominent leaders – Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the an oath-keeping militia.

While the men avoided revealing the future of their battered organization, they unrepentantly asserted that they wanted revenge on Mr. Trump on their behalf for impeaching him for the attack on the Capitol in on January 6, 2021.

Before Mr. Trump pardoned them on Monday night, both men — 22-year-old Mr. Tarrio and 18-year-old Mr. Rhodes — were serving life sentences on conspiracy charges stemming from their roles in the attack on the Capitol. The charges they faced and the sentences they received were among the harshest of the nearly 1,600 people charged on January 6.

Perhaps for this reason, their remarks, intended for a generally friendly audience, were laced with a cautious war tone.

They are worried about the kind of profile of the organization that they once led in the second Trump administration. But statements by the president and some of his allies echoed clearly that those seeking to hold Mr. Trump and the Jan. 6 rioters accountable should face some kind of punishment.

“Success,” said Mr. Tarrio, “will be revenge.”

Mr. Tarrio made the comments to Alex Jones, the pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and owner of the news outlet Infowars. Mr Jones called into the show just hours after he was released from a federal prison in Louisiana and immediately thanked Mr Trump “for helping us through this difficult time and setting me free”.

“Twenty-two years – this is not a short sentence,” he said. “That’s the rest of my life. So Trump literally gave me my life back. “

Mr. Tarrio then began an onslaught of criminal trials in Federal District Court in Washington, where he and three of his deputies were found guilty of conspiracy — a crime that requires prosecutors to prove they used The defendants committed violence against the government.

He said that the judges are biased and that the trial in Washington is unfair.

“I think they ignored the evidence,” he said of the jurors who convicted him. “They organized to put Trump supporters in jail.”

The Proud Boys played a key role on January 6 in confronting the police at the Capitol and in encouraging other rioters to breach the police cordon. While Mr. Tarrio was not in Washington that day, prosecutors said he helped prepare his compatriots for the street fight and contacted them while the mob stormed the Capitol — with the Proud Boys.

In the first hours of his freedom, he also focused on seeking revenge against those who investigated and prosecuted the events of January 6. “This is our turn,” said Mr. Tarrio.

“The people who did it need to feel the heat,” he said. “They need to be put in jail and they need to be prosecuted.”

During a White House press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Trump was asked whether far-right groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath have a place in politics. Keepers for their great efforts to pardon their members or commute their sentences.

“Well, we’ll have to see,” Mr Trump replied. “They were given amnesty. I thought their sentence was ridiculous and excessive.”

Mr. Rhodes also said he was seeking restitution when he appeared Tuesday afternoon at the local jail in Washington that has held several of the Jan. 6 defendants for years and has become the center of emotional protests. -po against federal prosecution of the United States. troublemakers.

He said, for example, that he hoped Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s pick to run the FBI, would “come in and clean house” in the office. He also accused the people in charge of his trial of breaking the law.

“The first thing that needs to happen,” Mr. Rhodes said, “is that prosecutors who have committed perjury — that’s a crime — need to be prosecuted for their crimes.”

At his sentencing in 2023, Mr Rhodes confidently declared that he was a “political prisoner”, comparing himself to the Soviet-era dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the story’s captured protagonist Kafka’s story “The Court”.

Outside the DC jail, he showed no remorse either. When asked how history should remember Jan. 6, he said, “Patriots Day — because we stood up for our country because we knew the election was stolen.”

Of all the regrets, he said he had none, adding, “Because we did the right thing.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Rhodes was seen at the Dunkin’ Donuts in the Longworth House Office Building near the Capitol.

Prosecutions devastated the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers on Jan. 6 when federal agents across the country arrested scores of people from both groups and prosecutors tried and convicted dozens of their members — often for assistance of fraudsters and informants from within the organizations.

Private Oath Keepers can hardly be said to exist as a viable business anymore. And while the Proud Boys disbanded its national leadership group — known as the Elder Chapter — under the weight of the investigation on Jan. 6, many local chapters remain active.

Indeed, on Inauguration Day, the Proud Boys descended on Washington for the first time since January 6, marching with banners congratulating Mr. Trump on his return to the White House. Showing a presence on the streets – especially Washington Street – suggested that some inside the Proud Boys wanted to appear in public.

However, Mr. Tarrio kept a close eye on the future of the group, giving the usual answers about the organization.

“I think the future of the club is going to be the same,” he said, “just a bunch of people who love America, going out and drinking beer and protecting Trump supporters from being attacked.”

As for his own role in the group, he gave a typical response.

“I have a suggestion for the mainstream media,” he said. “You should stop calling me the leader of the old Proud Boys.”

Mr. Rhodes also got away with it – though not by much.

He said he doesn’t know what the future holds for Oath Keepers, admitting that “I might decide to hang up my spurs.”

Anyway, he said, he had other things to think about right now. When a reporter outside the DC jail asked him what the first thing he planned to do when he got home, his answer was quick and simple.

“I’ll report to my probation officer,” he said.