Donald Trump central to Proud Boys trial as DOJ, defense attorneys blame him for Jan. 6 attack
As the seditious conspiracy trial of five Proud Boys comes to an end, both prosecutors and defense attorneys have made it clear there's an elephant not in the courtroom: former President Donald Trump.
Prosecutors are accusing the defendants of acting like "Donald Trump's army," motivated to keep Trump in power after what they viewed as a fraudulent presidential election in 2020.
Defense attorneys for the Proud Boys on trial agree Trump is to blame, but for different reasons; they say that the former president's rhetoric inflamed the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — not members of the right-wing extremist group.
"It was Donald Trump’s words, it was his motivation, it was his anger that caused what occurred on Jan. 6," Tarrio attorney Nayib Hassan said in his closing remarks. "They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald Trump and those in power."
Longtime Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants — Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — face trial for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Civil War-era charge is rarely alleged and even more rarely convicted. They face an array of other serious charges.
Closing remarks began Monday in the historic trial. In its 15 weeks, Trump has been central to the cases built by both the government and the Proud Boys' attorneys.
“The most interesting thing to me is the idea of Trump as the empty chair in these trials,” said Jill Huntley Taylor, CEO of Taylor Trial Consulting. “On both sides, both sides are pointing to Trump.”
DOJ portrays Trump as Jan. 6 instigator
Violent Trump mob storms the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Government prosecutors have portrayed Trump as an instigator who boosted the Proud Boys' credibility and their resolve in the months leading up to Jan. 6.
After Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" during a September 2020 presidential debate, members of the right-wing extremist group celebrated and expressed an increased sense of importance in private Telegram messages, according to evidence introduced in court.
They sent a flurry of messages to a group chat called "Official Presidents Chat," which prosecutors say was populated by Proud Boys chapter presidents across the country. Tarrio, Nordean and Rehl were in the chat.
"PROUD BOYS"
"SHOUT OUT"
"Wouldn't condemn us," said the messages from different Proud Boys, pouring in within milliseconds of each other.
Once it became clear Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and Joe Biden would become president, the Proud Boys mobilized to keep him in the White House, prosecutors argued.
"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," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe.
Proud Boys defense attorneys blame Trump for Jan. 6Defense attorneys have directed fire toward the former president for entirely different reasons. They say Trump's incendiary rhetoric and false claims of election fraud inflamed the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, not the Proud Boys.
On Dec. 19, 2020, Trump tweeted that a "big protest" would take place on Jan. 6, the same day as the joint session of Congress where the 2020 presidential election votes would be certified and Biden would officially be named president-elect. He told his followers: “Be there, will be wild!”
In February, Biggs attorney Norman Pattis raised the possibility of subpoenaing Trump as a witness in the high-profile trial, but the long-shot bid to put Trump on the witness stand was not taken up by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, who is presiding over the case.
Experts in extremism told USA TODAY that Trump acted as a uniting force for the disparate group of Americans that descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
"When we look at January 6, you kind of have that perfect storm," said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. "You have the mob. You have the 'Stop the Steal' influencers...You have your extremist groups — your Proud Boys, your Oath Keepers. And then you have Trump who in that moment acted as that focusing lens."
"He gave them the time, the place and the enemy," Lewis added.
House Jan. 6 committee also blamed TrumpThe House Jan. 6 committee that investigated the Capitol attack in March said it had gathered evidence indicating that former President Donald Trump and others "engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States."
"The evidence supports an inference that President Trump and members of his campaign knew he had not won enough legitimate state electoral votes to be declared the winner of the 2020 Presidential election during the January 6 Joint Session of Congress," the committee disclosed in court documents. "But the President nevertheless sought to use the Vice President to manipulate the results in his favor."
Trump has not faced any charges tied to the Capitol attack, though Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is investigating Trump's role in the events of that day.
After closing remarks in Proud Boys trial, the jury decidesClosing remarks are still ongoing in the Proud Boys trial. But the jury will soon get the chance to decide whether the blame for the defendants' actions fall on them alone.
"The jurors want to get it right; they will pay a lot of attention to all of the evidence that's coming in and try to block out whatever noise is associated with the trial," Taylor said. "I do think that they may be extraordinarily careful about what decisions they make...all jurors do, but maybe to a greater degree under these circumstances."
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