Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the recently pardoned leader of the Proud Boys who is now free from prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy alongside a cadre of the extremist group’s chapter leaders and allies, wants those who investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol to “pay for what they did.”
In an interview this week with right-wing radio host Alex Jones, Tarrio railed against members of the now-defunct House committee that looked into the attack, and against what he perceives as a miscarriage of justice against him and other people who were convicted of crimes connected to Jan. 6, 2021.
“They didn’t care about the evidence. They cared about putting Trump supporters in prison. Well, now it’s our turn. Now it’s our turn. I’m happy the president’s focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but I will tell you that I’m not gonna play by those rules,” Tarrio told Jones. “The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. They need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted.”
“In this country, our case proves that you could be put in prison for anything,” he added. “They need to be imprisoned. We need to find and put them behind bars for what they did. They need to pay for what they did.”
One of Donald Trump’s first actions as president was signing an executive order that pardoned anyone who had been convicted of crimes connected to the Jan. 6 attack and commuted the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Tarrio’s sentence was not commuted, and he was instead granted a full pardon.
After a months-long trial and a staggering amount of evidence, Tarrio was found guilty of seditious conspiracy and later sentenced to 22 years in prison. He served just 16 months.
Tarrio had asked Trump weeks ago for a pardon. Since then, he has been telling reporters that he doesn’t want to be called the “former” leader of the Proud Boys anymore and has referred to the group as “our organization.”
Tarrio said he wouldn’t “condone violence” but called for investigations into former Attorney General Merrick Garland and the recently resigned U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves.
Proud Boys have hosted and normalized violence with frequent street fights, often with members intimidating or attacking people at events such as school board meetings, political gatherings and drag queen story hours.
Tarrio isn’t the only leader of an extremist group suggesting he is returning to business as usual.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, appeared to accuse police of the violence that occurred on Jan. 6. He claimed he was simply expressing frustration.
In an interview with the BBC posted in a video on Wednesday from the U.S. Capitol, Rhodes appeared to accuse police on Jan. 6 of being responsible for the violence. When confronted with his own words laid out in letters, texts and statements, including his remark that he wanted to “hang Nancy Pelosi from a light Post,” Rhodes said he was expressing his frustration.
“I was frustrated that President Trump had not invoked the Insurrection Act,” Rhodes said.
“I wanted him to use his unrestricted and plenary power to declassify any of the secrets held by the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc, of their corruption. That’s how they protect the people in the establishment.”
This is a refrain Rhodes often invokes: He used it in public letters to Trump ahead of Jan. 6, urging him to raise Oath Keepers to his side and use the militia group as needed to expose what he claimed was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
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There was no such widespread voter fraud.
Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy in 2023. “My goal will be to be an American Solzhenitsyn,” he said, referring to the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author and dissident who, in some ways, has been credited for destroying an empire.
Rhodes visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday — the same day Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson announced a new committee to investigate “false narratives” about the Jan. 6 attack.