Latest news with #ProudBoy
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Proud Boys' $100 Million Lawsuit Puts Trump In A Lose-Lose Position
Five members of the Proud Boys pardoned by President Donald Trump for orchestrating the Capitol insurrection have turned around and sued the federal government, forcing Trump's administration into an awkward position. The lawsuit from members of the neofascist group — all of whom were convicted and given lengthy sentences for the key roles they played in the riot on Jan. 6, 2021 — claims they were the victims of 'egregious and systemic abuse of the legal system and the United States Constitution to punish and oppress political allies of President Trump.' The complaint, which seeks $100 million in restitution, compares their punishment to 'placing one's enemies' heads on a spike outside the town wall as a warning to any who would think to challenge the status quo.' Their lawsuit effectively leaves Trump's administration with two politically unappetizing options: Defend the Biden administration's prosecution after Trump pardoned them and nearly all other Jan. 6 offenders, or force American taxpayers to shell out for a settlement with them. The plaintiffs include Proud Boys leader Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio, who was convicted of plotting the attack on the Capitol and sentenced to 22 years in prison ― the longest sentence handed down to anyone tried over Jan. 6. At a press conference Friday, Tarrio called the lawsuit a chance for Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, to rectify the Biden administration's errors. 'Today, we call on her to honor her commitment to the American people, to right the wrongs of her predecessor and to hold accountable those who violated our rights,' he said. 'We trust President Trump's judgment. He doesn't make mistakes.' Three of the other men ― Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs and Zachary Rehl ― were found guilty of spearheading the attack in the absence of Tarrio, who couldn't enter Washington, D.C., due to a prior arrest. They were sentenced to 18, 17 and 15 years in prison, respectively. The final Proud Boy in the lawsuit is Dominic Pezzola, who was captured on video using police equipment to break through glass at the entrance of the building. He was given 10 years in prison. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit, which refers to the Proud Boys as a 'patriotic activist organization for young men.' The complaint says the men suffered greatly during their time in detention, where some of them endured 'solitary confinement under deplorable and unsanitary conditions' and were denied access to visits from their families and lawyers. Trump referred to them as 'hostages' when he signed his executive order pardoning riot participants in January. The Proud Boys lawsuit comes the same day Shane Lamond, the former leader of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department's intelligence division, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaking information to Tarrio ahead of the Jan. 6 attack. The Proud Boys Are Back, Thanks To Trump Pardons Corrupt Cop Who Leaked To Proud Boys Learns His Fate 'Adolescence' Is A Must-Watch For Parents Of Young Boys. But Here's What It Gets Wrong About Incel Culture.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Proud Boys Leader Has a Terrifying Plan for His Future
An ex-incarcerated organizer of the far-right Proud Boys has lofty aspirations for his future. In an interview with Newsmax's Greg Kelly, Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio pitched a run for office, boasting that he had already elevated himself from prison to Mar-a-Lago in a span of two weeks. 'Last time I was on, I told you that I was gonna take some time, and I was going to really think about what I was going to do,' said Tarrio. 'And I think my future is in politics. I think I'm gonna take a serious look at running for office at some point in 2026 or 2028, and I believe that there is a path for that because it is my passion.' Tarrio then went on to say that he had made up his mind to run for office, though he wasn't sure exactly what office that would be. 'Is it gonna be local? Is it gonna be at a federal level? I don't know, but I will tell you that I have made a decision,' he said. Tarrio received a 22-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy charges over his role in the January 6 attack. In 2021, a federal prosecutor, an FBI agent, and Tarrio's own lawyer described Tarrio as an informant for local and federal law enforcement, helping authorities nab 'more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling' before he was arrested in 2012, according to Reuters. In an interview with the network after Trump pardoned Tarrio alongside 1,500 other January 6 rioters, Tarrio said he was 'jubilant.' Trump's spontaneous decision to legally forgive his most ardent and violent supporters overrode his administration's internal debate on the issue and amounted to little more than a 'fuck it' moment for the president, according to a White House adviser who spoke with Axios. Two weeks ago, in an interview with Alex Jones, Tarrio promised 'retribution' against people who worked on prosecuting January 6 cases. 'We've got to do everything in our power to make sure that the next four years sets us up for the next 100 years,' he said.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
"Carte blanche to enact violence": Expert warns that Trump's pardons will fuel anti-LGBTQ+ extremism
President Donald Trump's first days in office have seen many Americans' freedoms rolled back at a lightning pace as he has fired off dozens of executive orders reversing Biden-era policies on everything from diversity policies to who has the right to call themselves a citizen. On Day 1, Trump unilaterally defined sex so as to exclude gender-expansive people and include references implicating fetal personhood, setting the stage for a national ban on abortion and emergency contraception. Meanwhile, a flurry of actions sought to restrict opportunities for people seeking refuge in the United States, as well as targeting their children by attempting to end birthright citizenship, suspending asylum and refugee resettlement, and sending troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to deter irregular crossings. He also began his presidency by pardoning some 1,500 far-right supporters serving sentences for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In a moment marked by levels of political violence unseen in decades — including two attempts on Trump's own life last year — the president's moves lay the foundation for such violence to flourish under his administration — and attacks on transgender people will be at the forefront of it, argues Imara Jones, CEO and founder of TransLash Media and host of "The Anti-Trans Hate Machine" podcast, which most recently chronicled the links between far-right paramilitary groups and anti-trans hate at the local level. Data makes the threat clear, she said: 2023 saw the highest number of active anti-LGBTQ+ and white nationalist groups ever recorded, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center report that documented 86 anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and 166 white nationalist chapters. The report also found that nearly 50% of white power demonstrations held in 2023 targeted LGBTQ+ people. Jones, a journalist who last year interviewed Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes, spoke with Salon about how she anticipates such political violence will manifest in the latest Trump-era, how the pardons will boost anti-trans violence — and how Americans could combat extremists' push toward authoritarianism before its too late. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. We've seen Donald Trump pardon around 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters and sign an executive order federally excluding gender-expansive Americans on government forms, etc. What impact are you seeing these actions having with respect to this rise in political violence we've seen as of late, this past year in particular? We know that we are in an era of political violence unseen since the 1970s — that's a fact. And we know from the Southern Poverty Law Center, that an increasing focus of far-right paramilitary groups is violence against trans people and LGBTQ+ writ large. In our latest investigative series in "The Anti-Trans Hate Machine," we dug deep into the obsession of paramilitary groups with trans people and enforcing the gender binary and the way in which they were using that in order to recruit and keep themselves alive during the Biden administration, and then to make common cause with local Republican politicians, to strengthen their bonds. Therefore, the release of these insurgents — many of which are highly trained both in terms of paramilitary tactics and approaches, and who served in the U.S. armed forces — radically altered the security environment in the United States and opens up to an even more heightened and dangerous period of political violence. Enrique Tarrio, who led the Proud Boys, said ... upon his release that ["success is going to be retribution"]. That means that they're coming out to settle scores, and they're coming out to target the politicians and the people that they believe should be targeted. I think among that will be members of the LGBTQ+ community and trans people. They believe that not only have they been pardoned, but they've been given a green light by this administration to do whatever they think they should do because of, for example, the nomination of Kash Patel in the FBI and even Trump saying that he's open to inviting some of them to the White House for a conversation. They believe that they now have carte blanche to enact violence and intimidation in whatever way they think is in service to their largely patriarchal vision for the country. What kind of political violence are you anticipating over the course of these next several months, next few years, and against trans and gender-expansive folks in particular? Well, I think that we can see a range of things. I am basing my response upon what we have already seen, with an anticipation that it will increase. We know that, for example, there were a series of bomb threats to gender-affirming clinics and hospitals across the country. I think that we can move from actual bomb threats to actual bombs, very similar to what we saw in the anti-abortion movement. I think that we could see the targeting of both events — Pride events and marches — and demonstrations and protests by these groups. We know that, and have seen that in the past, when there have been protests for marches about people or topics that they disagree with, they show up and those have turned violent. I think that those will now be even more violent. I think that this will encourage individuals to share the ideology and follow these groups online, to act violently in themselves, such as the person who attended a massive rally in Wadsworth, Ohio and then went and tried to firebomb a church that was supportive of trans and LGBTQ+ people. I just think that we are going to see all types of violence from physical violence and intimidation and confrontation to gun violence, individual acts of gun violence and possible bombings and more. We have to prepare ourselves for a much more turbulent and disturbing future because these groups have been given the green light. Can you break down the link you've identified between these paramilitary groups and the anti-trans ideology that they espouse, and how that's influencing their approach to brokering connections with GOP officials at all levels of government? Around the world, a lot of radical insurgent movements have a violent wing. The Sinn Féin had the [Irish Republican Army], for example. And in Nazi Germany, the party had the brownshirts. If you establish a social order, muscle is an essential ingredient in that. What we see on this particular issue is that these paramilitary groups have a political vision for the United States. It ranges in how radical it is, but all want patriarchal authoritarianism in the United States. Whether it's Blood Tribe or Proud Boys or Oath Keepers or Patriot Front, they all want that. Proud Boys would say that they want patriarchal democracy but understand that authoritarianism is a part of that. Then Blood Tribe just wants straight-up Nazism. Because they have a political vision, they are looking for the people and places who share that vision and can help bring that about. One of the things that gravitated Proud Boys, for example, to Donald Trump — and he's very aware of this — is his anti-trans rhetoric. He's chosen to pull close a group of violent people as a part of his project through his anti-trans rhetoric. And anti-trans rhetoric from some of the Proud Boys that were interviewed by the Jan. 6 committee was an important affinity point, both for their membership and for their connection to Donald Trump. Ideology in conversation is a way that both members of paramilitary groups and radical politicians are able to find each other and begin to work together — and we see that across the country. We see that in a place like Idaho that we talk about: an LGBTQ+ event in Coeur d'Alene. A radical politician in that state gave a talk in front of a paramilitary militia type of group and encouraged them to show up at this LGBTQ+ Pride event in a demonstration of force and intimidation. And they did. So there's a way in which anti-trans ideology cuts through the noise and allows both politicians at the federal level and at the state and local level to find each other and to begin to work together. And what they're doing is shifting the tone of democracy in America. You used the term earlier "patriarchal authoritarianism." Could you briefly lay out what that means? All these groups — and they share this kind of conversation with members of the Trump administration like Pete Hegseth and all these other people — they have a diagnosis that America ceased to be great when it began to move away from patriarchy. And I would say white patriarchy. The Proud Boys would dispute. They'd say, "We have Black and brown members." But essentially it's white patriarchy. That's their diagnosis: The country is in decline and declined when it began to move away from a patriarchal vision — when men ruled, when women were without rights, when we didn't accommodate people who are LGBTQ+, who have disabilities, who they believe weaken the overall country. What they took is that we need to reassert — echoing Mark Zuckerberg — masculinity. We need to reassert masculine control in the country and masculine energy, but the way that you have to do that, given the reality, is through authoritarianism. I think that they all have a patriarchal authoritarian view. What the Proud Boys would say is that you have patriarchal authoritarianism, which reasserts the role of men, and then you can have democracy because essentially men will have more rights in the democracy. Patriot Front and Blood Tribe are not interested in democracy. In the final episode of "The Anti-Trans Hate Machine" this past season, you attempt to lay out some potential ways to combat this rising tide in violence, naming education, law enforcement and individual deradicalization as a few options. But in the current climate — and the one that's being introduced by the new Trump administration — how would you say now we combat what seems to be this inevitable rise in policy rolling back individual rights and the potential for violence that comes with it? That's a really good question. Well, it's much harder. I just want to say that. A part of what we were talking about is education. We know that they intend to weaponize the Civil Rights [Office] at the Education Department and talk about discrimination against white people, against cis kids, about a whole host of things. There still is something called federalism in the United States. Schools are overwhelmingly controlled at the local level. Many states have their own version of the Justice Department and/or the FBI. Georgia has the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, for example. Other states have similar things. I don't think this could happen with Georgia, but it's just to illustrate that there are state structures that can implement some of the things that we talk about. The focus would really have to shift to the states as a possibility. But that means that the progress would be slow and uneven. And because of the very successful Republican attempts to control state legislatures, that becomes much harder. So I think it is much, much, much harder to bring about the solutions that we outlined, which means that we're on a train that's gaining momentum. What's happened is that a lot of the possibilities for the breaks to be applied have been removed. And it's hard to see how this train, which is hurtling us towards a much more violent and turbulent nation, is easily stopped. Is there any room for hope with everything that's getting harder? Are there any solutions on the table? Yes, and the hope is that people wake up. That, once it becomes clear that we are on the verge of crossing over into this era of political violence that might be unstoppable, the American people say that that's not the future that they want. That's the hope. But people haven't woken up yet. And I don't understand, overall, why they haven't, and I don't understand why people don't understand what's happening in terms of us moving into a more authoritarian era with fascism now very much on the march. And how might they go about [opposing this]? Electing different people, demanding authorities take action, putting pressure on state and local politicians and state and local public safety officials and apparatus to take action, to demand that schools teach tolerance. I think that's the hope: is that the people rise up democratically and say, "This isn't what we want, and we want you to stop it. And if you don't stop it, we are going to fire you because that's what we get to do in a democracy." Democracy — it's asleep right now in so many ways. I think that my hope is that it wakes up and awakens in the people. And if that happens, this can all go away.
