January 6th sentencing 

US District Court of District of Columbia

Capitol Riot Sentencing

handout

The Washington Post

Capitol Riot Arrest Illinois

J6 rioter arrested

Image from Criminal Complaint and Arrest Warrant

Pro-Trump Protests get Violent over Electoral College Certification

Contributor

POOL

other

Capitol Riot Trial

 Kyle Fitzsimons

Image from Complaint & Statement of Facts filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in Washington

REUTERS

 Paul Lovley and Joseph Brody in J6 riot

 DOJ Statement of Facts charging documents

from Criminal Complaint filed with the US District Court for the District of Columbia

A collage with Former President Donald Trump, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Christopher A. Wray and an image from outside the Capitol in Washington, District of Columbia on January 6, 2021. 

J6Probe

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Eddie Rosario and Co. lead the Nats to an MLB-best 12th comeback win

CJ Abrams keeps getting better. It’s time to think about an extension.

Sloppy first inning dooms the Nationals in a 6-3 loss to the Blue Jays

Russia is using toxic chemical weapons, wrecking a ban it helped create

There’s still time for Congress to Trump-proof the Insurrection Act 

The Post endorses April McClain Delaney and Tom Royals for Maryland’s 6th District

Historic floods kill 83, leaving Brazil and its president shaken, angry

Missing surfers from U.S., Australia confirmed dead by Mexico

We reported for months on changes sweeping Russia. Here’s what we found.  

How TikTok changed fashion

Book excerpt: The admiral who had a mental breakdown over Fat Leonard

How Pope Francis opened the Vatican to transgender sex workers

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

Carolyn Hax: Sisters were close — then one accused the other’s husband of abuse

Miss Manners: I’m bothered by a fellow guest not touching their dessert

Ask Amy: My estranged wife is telling my son I’m an adulterer

Improper ‘shadow’ ads thriving on Facebook during India’s election

Bosses mandated them back to the office. They took legal action instead.

Election 2024 latest news: After big weekend in Palm Beach, Trump returns to N.Y. courtroom

How did we end up with a Biden-Trump matchup again?

Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge U.S. and the West 

Noem explains inclusion of story about shooting pet dog

Kim Godwin steps down suddenly as president of ABC News

The ‘Access Hollywood’ video cemented Trump’s air of invincibility

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

Trump’s vice presidential supplicants toe the line on election fraud

The Trump-Biden battle over the 2017 tax cut

Don’t be a jerk at the airport: A guide for headphones

The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip 

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

That time football legend, rig-driving eligible bachelor Biden was arrested

Trump and allies say Biden pays rent for ‘illegals’ in Michigan. Not true.

WAUKESHA, WI - MAY 1st: Former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on Wednesday May 1st, 2024.  (Photo by Sara Stathas for the Washington Post)

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

Saboteur Media

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, a longtime leader of the Proud Boys far-right group, was arrested Tuesday on charges that he conspired with followers who attacked Congress last year — a high-profile indictment unsealed the same day Jan. 6 prosecutors won their first trial conviction from a D.C. jury.

Tarrio, 38, who lives in Miami, joins Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes as the second leader of a radical group charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Neither man is accused of entering the Capitol that day, and Tarrio wasn’t even in Washington. Their arrests show that prosecutors are moving their sprawling investigation beyond the scene of the crime toward anyone may have who directed or helped plan the violence.

Prosecutors say Tarrio conspired with other Proud Boys to obstruct an official proceeding. They also charged him with other crimes related to actions allegedly committed by followers on the day Congress gathered to certify Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

Tarrio has denied wrongdoing and denied that his group planned to commit violence that day. He appeared on Tuesday in federal court in Miami, where prosecutors said they wanted him to be held in jail until trial. Tarrio spoke briefly at the hearing, saying he had little money and had only recently gotten a job printing T-shirts. A bond hearing is scheduled for Friday.

Jan. 6 committee evidence shows Trump knew he lost the election -- but kept claiming fraud anyway

Within hours of his arrest, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/08/guy-reffitt-trial-verdict/" target=_blank>federal jury in Washington convicted a Texas man, Guy Reffitt</a>, of all five counts he faced for leading part of the angry pro-Trump mob past police and barricades on Jan. 6. Reffitt’s trial featured video he took with a camera mounted on his helmet and searing testimony from his own son, who tipped the FBI to concerns about his father.

That victory for prosecutors — in the first of what could be hundreds of criminal trials of Jan. 6 defendants — came a day after a significant setback for the Justice Department. A federal judge in a different Jan. 6 case <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/08/judge-tosses-jan-6-obstruction-charge/" target=_blank>ruled that the government cannot charge defendants</a> with obstructing Congress’s certification of the 2020 election results unless they tampered with official documents or records.

The three near-simultaneous developments underscore just what a sprawling legal enterprise the Jan. 6 investigation has become — one that is likely to see arrests, trials and appeals for years to come.

In striking down the most frequently charged felony count against Jan. 6 defendants, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols broke from other U.S. trial judges in Washington who have ruled on that question in Capitol riot cases. His decision may encourage as many as 275 other defendants to fight that charge in court or on appeal, or to reject plea offers until higher courts rule on the issue (though in many cases, those individuals face other criminal counts). The obstruction charge — punishable by up to 20 years in prison — is one of the seven counts filed against Tarrio.

From the start of the Jan. 6 investigation, agents have focused on the role that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers allegedly played in driving the confrontation between supporters of President Donald Trump and police guarding the Capitol. More than 100 police officers were injured, many of them seriously, by a violent mob that falsely claimed Trump had won the election.

'Some are still suffering': Months after Capitol riot, police who fought the mob have not recovered

Tarrio’s indictment, unsealed Tuesday, accuses him of conspiring with other senior Proud Boys leaders, including Ethan Nordean and Joe Biggs, both of whom were already charged in connection with Jan. 6.

The indictment offers new details of Tarrio’s alleged role in discussions that preceded the violence at the U.S. Capitol. On Dec. 30 and 31, prosecutors charge, Tarrio exchanged messages with an individual who sent him a plan called “1776 Returns″ to occupy “crucial buildings” in Washington, including the House and Senate buildings, with “as many people as possible.” After sending the document, the individual allegedly messaged Tarrio that the “revolution is [sic] important than anything,” to which Tarrio allegedly replied: “That’s what every waking moment consists of … I’m not playing games.”

Proud Boys are known for brandishing batons at rallies and gatherings and for being eager to spar with their perceived enemies in the leftist antifa movement. During a presidential election debate in September 2020, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/30/proudboys1001/" target=_blank>Trump famously refused to denounce the Proud Boys</a>, urging them to “stand back and stand by.” The group took those words as a rallying cry, which appeared to energize members in the months leading up to Jan. 6. While the group’s leaders disavow racism, some members have ties to groups that espouse white-nationalist rhetoric common among hate groups. At times, their visits to the District have ended in street brawls.

Days before Jan. 6, Tarrio had been charged in a separate incident — the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a D.C. church in December 2020 after a different pro-Trump rally — and ordered to stay outside of Washington. He eventually pleaded guilty in that case, serving four months in jail before his release this year.

Analysis: Donald Trump, the extremists and the conspiracy to storm the Capitol

Jim Urquhart

The new <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/press-release/file/1480801/download" target=_blank>indictment </a>pointedly ties Tarrio to Rhodes, noting that even after Tarrio was ordered by a court to leave Washington, he did not do so right away. On Jan. 5, 2021, the indictment says, he met in a parking garage in the city with Rhodes and other individuals “known and unknown to the grand jury, for approximately 30 minutes. During this encounter, a participant referenced the Capitol.”

The indictment also charges that after Tarrio’s arrest over the banner, he continued to communicate electronically in a message group with other Proud Boys leaders as they coordinated their actions Jan. 6. Prosecutors say at 3 p.m. that day, as the angry crowd rampaged through the Capitol, Tarrio posted a social media message that said “1776” — a reference to the Dec. 30 plan to occupy government buildings.

Tarrio allegedly continued to direct and encourage the Proud Boys despite being ordered to leave the city, prosecutors said, and claimed credit for what had happened on social media and in an encrypted chatroom during and after the attack.

All the ways Trump tied to overturn the election -- and how it could happen again

The new indictment also charges that Dominic Pezzola, 44, of Rochester, N.Y. was part of the alleged Proud Boys conspiracy. Pezzola had been previously arrested and charged with using a stolen police riot shield to shatter the first window breached by rioters at the Capitol but had not been accused of being part of the alleged conspiracy that prosecutors claim Tarrio led.

Tarrio’s arrest comes just a few weeks after D.C. police officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/02/16/dc-police-tarrio-proud-boys-lamond/" target=_blank>placed on leave a lieutenant</a> in their own intelligence branch during an investigation into possible improper contacts with the Proud Boys leader. Officials familiar with that part of the investigation said authorities had found evidence suggesting communications between Shane Lamond, a 22-year police veteran, and Tarrio.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, would not describe the nature of the alleged contacts between Lamond and Tarrio or how the inquiry into those communications began. Tarrio has described his contacts with Lamond as professional, saying the Proud Boys would give him or other police officials advance notice when the Proud Boys planned to rally or march in the District.

But Tarrio also said that during marches, Lamond would tell him the location of counterdemonstrators. Tarrio said that was so his group could avoid conflict. After one violent night of demonstrations, however, police accused the Proud Boys of roaming the city looking for and instigating fights, targeting people they identified as antifa, or antifascists.

The federal conspiracy charges against Proud Boys members stemming from Jan. 6 are distinct from the charges filed against Rhodes and 10 other Oath Keepers or associates who were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/stewart-rhodes-arrested-jan-6/2022/01/13/558ecc42-7414-11ec-8b0a-bcfab800c430_story.html" target=_blank>accused in January</a> of seditious conspiracy, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/13/what-is-sedition/" target=_blank>a historically rare charge</a> that carries a maximum 20-year prison term. That indictment alleges that Rhodes plotted in late 2020 and early 2021 to prevent Biden from becoming president, guiding a months-long effort to unleash political violence that prosecutors say culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

“Rhodes and certain co-conspirators … planned to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power by January 20, 2021, which included multiple ways to deploy force,” his indictment says.

Rhodes, 56, remains in jail awaiting trial. He has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.

Joshua James last week <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/02/jan6-seditious-conspiracy-guilty-plea/" target=_blank>became the first defendant</a> in that case to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy. James, a 34-year-old Army veteran from Arab, Ala., admitted to helping lead a group that prosecutors say sent two teams in body armor, helmets and tactical gear into the Capitol and staged a cache of weapons in a hotel just outside the city.

Paul Duggan, Peter Hermann and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.

Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, National Emmy Award nominee, Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service, Ursula and Gilbert Farfel Prize for Excellence in Investigative Reporting, American Immigration Lawyers Association Media Leadership Award,

Harvard University, B.A. in English

Spencer S. Hsu is an investigative reporter, two-time Pulitzer finalist and national Emmy Award nominee. Hsu has covered homeland security, immigration, Virginia politics and Congress.

Spencer Hsu

Pulitzer Prize co-finalist for Feature Writing, 2017

Pulitzer Prize co-finalist for International Reporting, 2017

Part of team that won Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, 2018

Part of team that won Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, 2022

"October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election"

McGill University, BA 

Devlin Barrett writes about the FBI and the Justice Department, and is the author of "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election." He was part of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 and 2022. In 2017 he was a co-finalist for the Pulitzer for Feature Writing and the Pulitzer for International Reporting. 