A lawyer for Enrique Tarrio told jurors that prosecutors are using him as a “scapegoat” for the former president.
Trump has loomed in the background of Tarrio’s trial, the most significant to emerge from the Jan. 6 assault on Congress. He’s charged alongside four other Proud Boys leaders — Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — with orchestrating a violent effort to derail the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden.
Hassan, though, said it was Trump pulling the strings and driving events ahead of Jan. 6 — not Tarrio. He noted that Trump contributed to a surge in Proud Boys recruitment after invoking the group — and urging members to “stand back and stand by” during a televised debate against Biden in September 2020. That membership boom harmed the group’s vetting and led to undisciplined members provoking unconstrained violence and street clashes in Washington in November and December 2020.
But Hassan emphasized that Tarrio’s role in the entire sequence of events was tenuous. He was arrested in Washington on Jan. 4, 2021, for burning a Black Lives Matter flag after the Dec. 12, 2020 pro-Trump march. After he was released from police custody, he was ordered to leave Washington and went to a hotel in Baltimore, from where he observed the events of Jan. 6.
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