- Reaction score
- 3,956
- Location
- Upper US
Two newly freed leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups called for investigations into the prosecution of people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, assailing judges, jurors and prosecutors as they sought “retribution” after being granted clemency from President Donald Trump. The statements by Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, released from sentences of 22 years and 18 years for seditious conspiracy, came before House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on Wednesday announced formation of a new Judiciary subcommittee led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) to investigate the House’s own investigation of the Capitol riot four years ago.
The moves underscored how the punishments of Jan. 6 defendants have become a rallying cry for parts of Trump’s base, and how his — including, controversially, those convicted of political and — have fed into GOP efforts to punish Democrats for what they call the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
They also mark a deeper fight over how the history of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach will ultimately be written.
On Wednesday, several federal judges granted the Justice Department’s pardon-based requests to dismiss cases while saying in their rulings that the true story of Jan. 6 could not be whitewashed.
“Dismissal of charges, pardons after convictions, and commutations of sentences will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in dismissing one riot defendant’s case.
The record in these cases — thousands of videos, trial transcripts, verdicts and legal opinions analyzing the evidence through a neutral lens — “are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies,” the judge said.
The clash came as newly pardoned defendants and their allies used their freedom to flood airwaves and lobby Capitol Hill. Tarrio addressed reporters upon returning home to Miami after serving 34 months of a 22-year prison term for seditious conspiracy.
“Now it’s our turn,” said Tarrio, who received the longest sentence in the riot for his to keep Trump in power through violence as Congress met to confirm the 2020 election. Trial evidence showed that he and his lieutenants, inspired by Trump’s directive to “stand by” during a 2020 presidential debate and join a “wild” protest on Jan. 6, drew scores of followers to Washington who helped instigate the mob at the Capitol.
Tarrio called into , the web stream hosted by hours after his Tuesday release and claimed to be the victim of a campaign to put Trump supporters in prison. He called for imprisoning Biden attorney general Merrick Garland for “corruption” to “give him a taste of his own medicine.”
“The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. They need to be put behind bars and they need to be prosecuted,” Tarrio said. “Success is going to be retribution.
“We’ve got to do everything in our power to make sure that the next four years sets us up for the next hundred years.”
Rhodes, whose 18-year term was commuted after he served 2½ years, on Wednesday said he met with three GOP lawmakers at the Capitol, seeking to win a full pardon for himself and 13 others who received only commutations. He also sought relief from post-release supervision requirements and the loss of veteran disability payments.
“I want all 14 of the guys who received commutations to receive pardons,” Rhodes said. “And then after that, I want reform.”
Rhodes and his followers were convicted of stashing a “mini-arsenal” of firearms in hotels surrounding Washington for use at Rhodes’s call, hoping that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act and deputize them in charge of private militia to keep him in office.
After his release the previous day, Rhodes maintained that the 2020 election was “stolen” and the Capitol riot the work of what one person who interviewed him described as “a Jan. 6 fed-surrection coverup.”
Asked outside the D.C. jail Tuesday if he would serve as Trump’s “secretary of retribution,” Rhodes outlined a plan to investigate police witnesses and prosecutors “on up the chain.”