WASHINGTON — Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, currently serving 22 years in prison on charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, sparred with a federal prosecutor and judge and refused to answer questions related to Jan. 6 on Thursday during combative testimony in the trial of the former head of intel for the Metropolitan Police Department in the nation’s capital.
Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison following his conviction on seditious conspiracy charges, testified for the defense during the trial of Shane Lamond, who is charged with tipping off Tarrio that there was a warrant out for his arrest because of a prior incident as Tarrio traveled to Washington ahead of the attack. Lamond was indicted last year on one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements to law enforcement about his communications with Tarrio, who was arrested when he arrived in Washington on Jan. 4, 2021, over a separate incident involving the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner during Tarrio’s prior trip to the city.
Prosecutors said Lamond became a “double agent” for the far-right group. FBI Special Agent Elizabeth Hadley testified Tuesday that Lamond had lied to his law enforcement colleagues about his relationship with Tarrio, writing in one message shortly before the Jan. 6 attack that he had met Tarrio just over a year earlier, in July 2019, and had only spoken to him 5-6 times. In fact, records show, Lamond and Tarrio had shared at least 24 calls that lasted more than a minute, 15 calls that lasted under a minute, and exchanged more than 432 messages over an encrypted platform.
The story Tarrio told on the stand Thursday was that he was contemporaneously lying to his fellow Proud Boys about his communications with an MPD source and that — even though he was, in fact, messaging with the MPD’s Lamond on an encrypted platform at the time — that he was just making things up in his chats with others. Tarrio said he knew there was an investigation into the burning of the Black Lives Matter banner and planned to get arrested to draw attention to himself and the Proud Boys.
Tarrio said he booked his Jan. 4 flight to Washington because he knew that the city doesn’t have bail, and thought that he would be released on Jan. 5 and be able to participate in the pro-Trump events during the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.
Tarrio said he knew he was under investigation because police in Miami had reached out to him, and that he was “dead set on getting arrested for burning the banner,” claiming that he planned to show up to a police station and turn himself in. Instead, Tarrio was arrested after he hoped in an Uber at the airport, and he said he had clocked a man he thought was an undercover law enforcement officer who was following him when he landed at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia, just outside of the District.
“I can’t tell you I wanted to go to DC to get arrested, that sounds weird,” Tarrio said, but explained he wanted to travel to DC to “get this over with” and to set up a “circus tent” and use it as a “marketing ploy.”
Tarrio said he “messaged a million people on the plane” but said “that one right there” — Lamond — was not one of the people he messaged.
“I can say with 100 percent certainty, Shane Lamond did not tell me anything on that plane,” Tarrio said.
But prosecutors played a documentary video which showed Tarrio, when talking about when he found out a warrant had been signed for his arrest, saying “he texted me in the air.” After seeing that video, Tarrio said he was “pretty sure” he “sent a message to various places” during the flight.
Asked how people could believe that he was telling the truth now when he admitted lying to members of his own organization, Tarrio said he did not “want to be in jail any longer” and that lying to his fellow Proud Boys as part of a marketing ploy was different from lying on the stand, under oath. Given Tarrio’s sentence, holding the former Proud Boys chairman in contempt would not necessarily have much of a deterrent effect.
Tarrio, who is now in the custody of the U.S. Marshals until he is returned to the federal Bureau of Prisons, was wearing a green jumpsuit from a local jail in Alexandria, Virginia. A far-right website that frequently posts interviews and links to crowdfunding websites for Jan. 6 defendants posted an interview with Tarrio on Wednesday, but it was not clear where Tarrio was located when that interview took place.
Tarrio repeatedly denied directly confessing to Lamond — or any MPD officer — about having any involvement in the BLM banner burning. He did, however, confess on his podcast and Parlor account. “I confessed” and challenged law enforcement to “come arrest me,” Tarrio testified, denying it was a hate crime. Tarrio also said he sent a screenshot of his Parlor post to Lamond, explaining that communicating with law enforcement was key to his objective of keeping his fellow Proud Boys safe, and that he had a similar relationship with law enforcement in other cities.
Tarrio, who missed his initial flight to DC on Jan. 4 after he said he partied too much the night before, said he communicated “multiple times” with Lamond about his flight plans. “I was odd to me he kept asking me over and over again,” Tarrio testified.
Tarrio testified Lamond was not a member of the Proud Boys, but he couldn’t remember if Lamond told him he supported the group. “I have no idea whether he did or didn’t,” Tarrio said, even though prosecutors presented a message sent after the attack in which Lamond allegedly wrote “Of course I can’t say it officially, but personally I support you all and don’t want to see your group’s name or reputation dragged through the mud.”
When he was questioned by the prosecution, Tarrio refused to confirm the authenticity of messages prosecutors said were exchanged between Tarrio and Lamond.
“Truly, I don’t want to be an a-hole about this,” Tarrio said before saying he did not trust prosecutors to present accurate evidence and that he would not “under any circumstance” verify what was shown on screen. Tarrio also said he would not speak about the Proud Boys being in DC on Jan. 6.
“Oh, you will here,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson said. Tarrio then said he would assert his Fifth Amendment rights. “I’m not answering anything for Jan. 6, it’s just not happening,” he said.
“You do not get to pick and choose,” Jackson said as she ordered him to answer all questions. Tarrio argued that he had a “pending appeal,” and Jackson said it’s up to her, not Tarrio, what questions are relevant.
“We’ll agree to disagree,” Tarrio said with a smirk.
“You’re not in charge,” Jackson said before calling prosecutors and defense lawyers up to the bench to discuss how to move his testimony forward.
Tarrio eventually conceded that he was sure Proud Boys were in DC, and confirmed that he had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Tarrio said that when he and Lamond met for beers at The Dubliner near Union Station in December 2020, that they didn’t discuss their personal lives, and said his focus was mostly on security during protests the next month, since members of the Proud Boys had been stabbed, rather than on the burning of the banner.
“The banner was not as important as three of my guys getting stabbed,” Tarrio said. “Those days were really, really intense,” he testified, adding his anxiety had “peaked” because he couldn’t control the crowds. He claimed he wanted a smaller group of Proud Boys for the inauguration since they had a lot of new members since the election who were “unruly.”
Lamond is expected to testify in his own defense at 1 p.m. on Friday.
