September 05, 2023 04:53 PM UTC

Proud Boys Ringleader Gets 22 Years For January 6th

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Washington Post reports, the longest sentence yet handed out to anyone involved in the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election by swindle or thuggery came today against former Proud Boys Oberfuhrer Enrique Tarrio, who will have 22 years to cool his neofascist jets in federal prison and contemplate how things went so terribly wrong in life:

Tarrio, of Miami, was arrested and convicted even though he wasn’t in D.C. on Jan. 6. He had been arrested in December 2020 after he burned a “Black Lives Matter” flag torn down from a D.C. church during a protest in the city following President Donald Trump’s defeat. He was banned from the city as a result.

But prosecutors said he recruited people to join in a violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in power and messaged them “Don’t f—ing leave” as they led the storming of the building, causing the electoral vote count to stop for about six hours. Kelly cited that message Tuesday in ruling that Tarrio still had a leadership role on Jan. 6, even if he wasn’t in D.C. Tarrio denied planning an incursion into the Capitol and gave interviews after the riot saying he did not endorse that move by multiple Proud Boys, some of whom were among the first to enter the building.

Tarrio was defiant just prior to his conviction in May, claiming that he was being prosecuted by sinister forces “trying to manipulate the 2024 election.” But in court today for sentencing, the once-proud leader of the militia group President Donald Trump told to “stand back and stand by” could not have been more sorry:

Tarrio says at first he was concerned the DC jurors would be biased. Tarrio says now he knows that *he* was the one who was biased. He says the people of DC “deserve better”

“What happened on January 6 was a national embarrassment”

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 5, 2023

Tarrio apologized for his actions and those of the Proud Boys, saying the police who defended the Capitol, some of whom were in the audience Tuesday, “deserve nothing but praise, respect and to be honored as the heroes they are. I am extremely ashamed and disappointed they were caused grief and suffering.” He also said he had early doubts about whether the election was stolen, but kept them to himself. “Every medium I turned to told me my anger was justified,” Tarrio said. “It wasn’t…I do not think what happened that day was acceptable.”

On that last point, all we can say is more of Tarrio’s fellow MAGA conservatives should agree than do–and we can only hope this sentence gets their attention, since no amount of factual evidence has proven able to. Tarrio’s remorse probably did knock a few years off his sentence, but the message his case sends ending with this harsh sentence is (we hope) resounding and unmistakable. Attempts to overthrow the United States government by force will not end well for the perpetrators.

Tarrio’s remorse is even more important now that we know the accountability is not going to end with the leader of the Proud Boys. His case is a sentencing frame of reference for the much bigger fish yet to fry. And it should make Trump’s jilted co-conspirators think very carefully about their next move.