Four members of the far-right group Proud Boys were found guilty of seditious conspiracy on May 5, 2022, for their involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. The former national chairman of the neo-fascist group, Enrique Tarrio, was among those convicted, along with his lieutenants Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, and Zachary Rehl. Tarrio was not present in Washington on January 6 but was accused of directing the storming of the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s election victory over former President Donald Trump.
Dominic Pezzola, another Proud Boy, was found not guilty, while all five defendants were convicted of lesser charges, including obstruction of the proceedings of Congress, impeding law enforcement, and destruction of government property. Pezzola was also found guilty of robbery of US property after he was seen in widely viewed video footage from January 6 using a stolen police riot shield to break a window at the Capitol.
The success of federal prosecutors in obtaining sedition convictions among the January 6 rioters could raise the stakes for Trump and his aides in the probe by a special counsel into whether they plotted or fomented the Capitol attack. More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the storming of Congress by Trump supporters, and more than 600 have been convicted, but only about a dozen have faced the rarely-used charge of sedition.
The assault on Congress left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured and followed a fiery speech by Trump to thousands of his supporters near the White House. Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House of Representatives after the Capitol riot, charged with inciting an insurrection, but was acquitted by the Senate.
A House committee that investigated the Capitol riot recommended that the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against Trump. Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel to oversee the probe into the January 6 assault and the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result. Three weeks before the violence, Trump urged his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6, tweeting, “Be there, will be wild.” Trump is also facing possible indictment in Georgia for allegedly pressuring local officials to change the election results in the southern state. The special counsel is also looking into a cache of classified documents that the FBI seized in a raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence last year.
