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Over the sounds of protesters screaming into bullhorns and labelling them insurrectionists and Nazis, members of the neo-fascist Proud Boys gang and Oath Keepers militia reunited at the Capitol to rewrite the history of the January 6 attack and cast themselves as victims of a government-led conspiracy.
Moments later, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio — who was convicted of seditious conspiracy by a jury in Washington, D.C., before he was pardoned by Donald Trump in his first day in office — was arrested after allegedly swatting a phone out of a protesters’s hand.
U.S. Capitol Police officers said they witnessed Tarrio striking a woman’s arm after she held her phone to his face following a press conference on Friday where Tarrio announced a potential lawsuit against the Department of Justice and the debut of a Proud Boys-themed cryptocurrency.
He faces a charge of simple assault, according to a statement from police.
Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in organizing a mob to attack the Capitol on January 6, 2021, where Proud Boys and other rioters dismantled barricades and broke windows to breach the halls of Congress, then bragged about their actions on social media and in group chat messages that were later shared with jurors.
The Proud Boys leader had previously been arrested in Washington, D.C., in the days before the attack after admitting to burning a Black Lives Matter banner from a historically Black church.
On Friday, he was joined by Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and other members of the Proud Boys who were recently released from jail after Trump’s sweeping pardons and commutations for hundreds of defendants charged in connection with a riot fueled by the president’s bogus narrative of widespread election fraud.
The men accused the press of amplifying “spoonfed narratives” about their cases, which are supported by thousands of court filings and hours of testimony, and are seeking to publicly recast themselves as family men who are now focused on criminal justice reform to help bail out other January 6 defendants and people they believe are wrongly incarcerated.
“Get over it. We’re here,” said Joe Biggs, a member of the Proud Boys who was initially sentenced to 17 years in prison for seditious conspiracy.
“We gather at the base of the Capitol building where peaceful protesters were fired upon,” Tarrio told reporters at the event, which was drowned out by the sounds of bullhorns and a protester screaming out “f*** you” and “insurrectionist bastards.”
“We will not allow the government to rewrite history. We will not allow them to control the narrative,” Tarrio said.
He said the group is considering suing the Justice Department for $150 million.
Ethan Nordean, who used the alias Rufio Panman, said the group intends to roll out a “proudcoin” cryptocurrency to raise money for the group’s legal campaign and for other Proud Boys members who are re-entering society after Trump’s pardons.
Nordean was initially sentenced to 18 years in prison, after federal prosecutors argued that Nordean and his co-defendants “directed, mobilized and led” a crowd of 200 supporters that broke into the Capitol. After leading Proud Boys and other members of the mob around and into the building, Nordean posted a picture of a Capitol Police officer, writing that “if you feel bad for the police, you are part of the problem.”
