Ex Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio,
has officially been convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in
orchestrating the Proud Boys involvement of the Capitol riots on January 6th.
So the charge does carry a possible 20 years in prison.
We don't know what the judge is going to decide in the sentencing, but
a jury in Washington, DC heard from dozens of witnesses over more than three months.
So this was a lengthy trial, to say the least.
Now, Tarrio actually wasn't there on the day of the Capitol riots.
He was someplace else because he had been arrested two days earlier in
an entirely separate case and was ordered to stay away from Washington, DC.
But prosecutors argued in the trial that Tarrio was very much involved
in the planning leading up to the Capitol riots that took place.
Tarrio was also a top target of what has become the largest Justice Department
investigation in American history,
and that's according to the Associated Press's reporting.
He led the neo-fascist group known for their street fights and
all of that, to basically go to Trump's rally and
then later barge into the Capitol and do what they did.
So, according to the AP's reporting, as Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol,
Tarrio cheered them on from afar, writing on social media, do what must be done.
In a Proud Boys encrypted group chat later that day,
someone asked what they should do next, and Tarrio responded, do it again.
Make no mistake, Tarrio wrote in another message.
We did this.
Oops.
And that didn't play out so well for him in the trial, even though he later started
to cooperate with the authorities in basically writing out his friends and
getting them in trouble as well, which I'm pretty grateful for.
I'm glad he did that.
>> So two things about this.
One is that line is gold for a prosecutor.
Make no mistake, we did this.
Well, hard to come back from that, brother, okay?
Now, the second part of this is, at some point,
his defense attorney started to throw Donald Trump under the bus.
And he's like, look, he told us to do it.
He said literally on the debate stage, the whole country heard it, for
the Proud Boys, stand by, right?
And so they stood by, and they got ready and
they thought that they were Trump's army.
And the lawyer is not wrong about that.
All of that is absolutely true.
And they have the messages that they shared between each other, and
they really thought they were Trump's army.
And then when they got arrested for sedition,
do you know how much Trump helped them?
>> Zero.
>> Zero, nothing.
He raised over $200 million for a legal defense fund, and didn't give them a dime.
He's like, yeah, come on, suckers and losers, come fight for me.
Try to overthrow democracy.
Later, when he's facing up to 20 years in prison.
>> Yeah.
>> When you're facing 20 years in prison, you know what I'm gonna do for you?
Nothing.
You're an idiot, I used you.
And yet all these suckers still go along with Donald Trump.
>> Well, yes and no, right?
Remember, when Trump was set to be indicted by Alvin Bragg,
he urged his supporters to protest.
But we know what that means when Trump says it, right?
To protest in front of the prosecutor's office.
And they didn't.
And I think it's because of the fact that he refused to offer any help or
support after all these people, hundreds of people, ended up getting arrested for
their part on January 6th.
And dozens of them have already been convicted for the crimes they committed.
I do wanna just quickly give you the argument from Tarrio's lawyer.
His name is Naib Hassan, he said this.
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.
It was not Enrique Tarrio.
They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for
Donald J.Trump and those in power.
Well, that argument did not work, and Tarrio got convicted anyway.
But I do think that that mindset has seeped into the minds of Trump supporters,
which is why they didn't take the bait when he urged them to protest.
>> Right, but
those are among the most hardcore guys a lot of whom already got arrested.
Trump is still incredibly popular in the right wing.
>> Definitely, yeah.
>> Not one person, it seems, well, that's not fair,
we just told you the people that did notice, but not very many people have
noticed that Trump didn't help his most hardcore supporters at all.
He just left them out there to dry.
Now, if you're thinking, because a lot of this armish people have no idea what
the right wing actually thinks, and they think, Trump can't possibly win,
they still believe in fantasies like that.
>> They really do.
>> So if you think, well, Donald Trump didn't wanna be associated with
the January 6th people because that was an act of sedition, now people have been
convicted, including the head of the Oath Keepers, Stuart Rhodes.
This is basically treason against the country.
So Donald Trump probably doesn't wanna be associated with that.
No, whenever he sees them, he hugs them.
He plays videos before his gatherings celebrating January 6th guys.
Brian Kill Me the other day on Fox News said it was disgusting
how much Donald Trump was wrapping himself around the January 6th rioters, right?
The people who committed violence, people were killed, etc.
But he's only doing that rhetorically,
coz he just wants to take further advantage of them.
But he has, again, not helped at all as these guys might go to prison for decades,
and he didn't lift a finger to help them.