![]() Epps,” a spokesperson for the committee told CNN in a statement on Tuesday after the hearing. “The Select Committee has interviewed Mr. Two GOP senators referred to Epps while questioning a top FBI official about whether FBI agents infiltrated or incited the pro-Trump mob. The aide provided details about the man, Ray Epps, and his cooperation with the panel, after his name came up at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.The Arizona man that some right-wing figures baselessly claim was part of secret FBI plot to orchestrate the January 6 insurrection told the House panel investigating the attack that he has no ties to the FBI or law enforcement, a committee aide told CNN. Rehl was president of the Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter leader. "We did this."Īlso on trial with Tarrio are Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. In another message, Tarrio urged the Proud Boys to stay at the Capitol on Jan. Later that day, someone asked in an encrypted group chat what they should do next. "Do what must be done," Tarrio wrote on social media as the mob stormed the Capitol. The messages also show the Proud Boys celebrating the attack on the Capitol and their role in it. Hundreds of privately exchanged messages shown to jurors over the course of the trial show how the Proud Boys became increasingly agitated as Trump's legal challenges failed in the weeks leading up to Jan. Those government witnesses, Matthew Greene and Jeremy Bertino, both testified they didn't know of any specific plan to storm the Capitol.īut Bertino, a regional leader for the group from North Carolina who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, told jurors that the far-right group plotted to violently prevent Biden from taking office because they were trying to "save the country" from what they feared would be a tyrannical government. Jurors have also heard testimony from two other former Proud Boys members who agreed to cooperate with the government after they were charged with riot-related crimes. Tarrio had been arrested in a separate case days earlier, but authorities say he helped put into motion the violence that day. Tarrio, a Miami resident who served as national chairman of the group, and the other Proud Boys could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of seditious conspiracy. "I didn't know the specific purpose other than just being on the streets and being seen," he said. The informant told jurors that marching from the Washington Monument to the Capitol appeared to be a photo opportunity for the Proud Boys. "If there was any violence and all that, they would have wanted to know," he said of the FBI. 6 because he saw it as an "emergency situation." He said he reached out to his handler on Jan. 6 or march with the Proud Boys that day, he said. The FBI didn't ask him to go to Washington on Jan. The informant told jurors that he planned his travel to Washington with members of a Kansas City chapter of the Proud Boys, including at least four who were charged with conspiring to impede the Electoral College vote on Jan. He said the FBI didn't ask him to join the Proud Boys or direct him to gather information about the group. The informant said his relationship with the FBI began around 2008, roughly eight years before Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes formed the Proud Boys. He was not in any of the Telegram chats the Proud Boys leaders on trial are accused of using to plot in the days leading up to Jan. The informant, however, who joined the Proud Boys in 2019, said he wasn't a group leader and didn't know any Tarrio or any of the other leaders on trial. He is the first to testify at the trial, one of the most important to come out of the Justice Department's massive investigation of the Capitol riot. "Aaron," who was allowed to withhold a last name when he testified, is one of several Proud Boys associates who were FBI informants before or after the Jan. 6 that some Trump supporters were threatening violence and planning a siege to stop the certification of Biden's victory. Senate report examining security failures surrounding the riot found that law enforcement had intelligence leading up to Jan. The presence of government informants in the far-right group has repeatedly come up in the lengthy trial, raising fresh questions about intelligence failures in the days before the riot. Defense attorneys are trying to undermine prosecutors' claim that the Proud Boys plotted to attack the Capitol and stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's electoral victory during a joint session on Jan.
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