repeated Matt Gaetz Donald Trump‘s infamous comments about the far-right Proud Boys on Thursday, as the Republican congressman from Florida and other right-wing supporters of the former US president attended his criminal trial in Manhattan.
“Take a step back and stay with it, Mr. President,” Gaetz wrote on social mediawith a photo of his group of supporters standing behind Trump outside the courthouse where Trump is on trial on election subversion charges stemming from hush money payments to an adult film star during the 2016 campaign.
The Proud Boys, a “Western chauvinist” group, were involved in street violence and clashes with left-wing protesters during Trump’s years in power.
Recognizable by their black and yellow colors, they took part in the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, when Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell” to block the certification of his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, in the service of Trump’s lie about voter fraud.
Proud Boys leaders convicted of crimes including seditious conspiracy are among hundreds of rioters jailed over the attack.
Trump himself faces prison time if convicted in New York, where he faces 34 charges, or in three other cases with another 54 criminal counts, related to election subversion and keeping classified information.
Gaetz offered a form of a famous Trump statement. In a debate with Biden in September 2020, the then-president was asked whether he would condemn white supremacist and militia groups that clashed with social justice protesters that summer, following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Trump said: “Proud boys, take a step back and stick with it. But I’ll tell you what: someone has to do something about Antifa [anti-fascist groups] and left.”
Amid an uproar over an apparent support for violent extremists, Trump said: “I don’t know who the Proud Boys are” and: “Whoever they are, they need to resign. Let the police do their job.”
But Proud Boys celebrated. Membership “probably tripled,” one member, Jeremy Joseph Bertino, told the House committee on Jan. 6. Bertino pleaded guilty to conspiring with other Proud Boys to stop the transition of power by force.
In the current campaign, Proud Boys are present at Trump rallies. At some rallies, Trump featured a choir of Jan. 6 inmates singing the national anthem. He vowed to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters, calling such prisoners “hostages.”
Gaetz, of Florida, was part of the last contingent of right-wing lawmakers to show up in Manhattan in support of Trump.
Asked whether Gaetz deliberately used the Proud Boys’ verbiage, a spokesman, Joel Valdez, told the Associated Press: “The tweet speaks for itself.”
Outside the court, Gaetz told reporters: “We are here of our own volition, because we can say things that President Trump is wrongly not allowed to say.”
That was a reference to a silence order that Trump repeatedly violated, paying a $1,000 fine until a judge threatened to detain him.
Tuesday, a court reporter said said Trump appeared to edit comments that surrogates could make in his place.
Gaetz followed Trump supporters, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, as he stood outside the court to mock the charges against Trump.
Referring to a famous children’s toy, Gaetz said prosecutors had invented “the Mr. Potato Head of Crimes” to bring Trump to justice.
Another pop culture reference came up when Lauren Boebert tried to speak.
The Colorado extremist was subjected to shouts of “Beetlejuice!” – a reference by hecklers to her expulsion from a Denver theater in September for lewd and disruptive behavior during a performance of a musical based on a Hollywood film.
To post In footage of the bickering, Boebert said, “I will never stop standing up for President Trump, even if I’m the last one standing.”
Republicans control the U.S. House by a narrow margin, 217 seats to 213. The House was open for business Thursday, but six more GOP members were nevertheless seen at the courthouse in Manhattan.
The others were Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Mike Waltz of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia and Ralph Norman of South Carolina.
