WASHINGTON – Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chairman who is serving 22 years in federal prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, is asking President-elect Donald Trump for a presidential pardon .
Nayib Hassan, Tarrio’s lawyer, wrote a letter to Trump on the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, asking for “a full presidential pardon” from the president-elect, who has pledged to pardon some rioters after he came to power on January 6. 20.
In the letter, Hassan called Tarrio, 42, a “young man with an ambitious future ahead of him” who was “portrayed throughout the government as a right-wing extremist promoting a neo-fascist militant organization” when, Hassan claimed that Tarrio “is nothing more than a proud American who believes in true conservative values.”
Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio wears a hat that reads The War Boys during a rally in Portland, Oregon, on September 26, 2020.
Tarrio was one of four members of the far-right Proud Boys group found guilty of seditious conspiracy in May 2023. He received 22 years in prison, the longest Jan. 6 sentence to date, although he was not in Washington for the attack itself. He was arrested and ordered to stay away from the nation’s capital and was convicted of planning and organizing Proud Boys members to attack the Capitol ahead of Jan. 6.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said after their sentencing that Tarrio and his fellow Proud Boys played a “central role” in leading the Jan. 6 mob to breach the Capitol.
During Tarrio’s trial, Hassan had blamed Trump for the actions of his client and other Proud Boys, reminding jurors that Trump said his supporters had to “fight like crazy” or they would “not get a country anymore” ‘. He also argued that Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back” during a 2020 presidential debate, bringing so much attention to the group that “vetting became difficult.”
Tarrio was arrested in connection with a separate event — the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner in December 2020 — just before the Jan. 6 attack. The top intelligence official of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington was convicted two weeks ago of leaking information to Tarrio, telling him just before January 6, 2021 that there was a warrant for his arrest in Washington.
As a result, Tarrio watched January 6 unfold from, as Hassan said at the trial, a “hotel in Baltimore.”
More than 1,580 suspects have been charged and 1,270 suspects have been convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump has not provided details on how many or which categories of defendants he plans to pardon. In a December interview with NBC News’ Meet the Press, Trump did not rule out pardoning rioters who had attacked law enforcement.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tarrio’s request for a pardon.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
