The first public hearing of the House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack shed light on two far-right extremist groups whose members have been accused of planning for weeks to halt a peaceful transfer of power.
Senior leaders and members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been accused of rebellious conspiracy in what authorities describe as an organized effort to undermine election results and retain the presidency of former President Donald Trump.
Here is a look at the two groups and the charges against them:
WHO ARE THEY?
The Proud Boys are described as a politically incorrect men’s club for “Western chauvinists”. Prior to the January 6 uprising, members of the Proud Boys were best known for fighting with anti-fascist activists at rallies and protests.
Less than two months before the 2020 election, members of the group celebrated when Trump refused to directly condemn the group during his first debate with Democrat Joe Biden. Instead, Trump said the Proud Boys should “step back and stay away.”
The Oath Keepers were founded in 2009 by Stuart Rhodes, a former U.S. Army paratrooper and a graduate of Yale Law School. The anti-government group is recruiting current and former military, police and first aid officers. Its members undertake to “fulfill the oath that all military and police oaths to” protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic “and to defend the Constitution, according to its website.
WHAT ARE THEY ACCUSING OF DOING?
Social media reports and publications, detailed in court documents, show how members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers discussed back in November 2020 the need to fight to keep Trump in office.
Days after the election, Henry “Enrique” Tario, then chairman of the Proud Boys, posted messages online, urging his followers to fight the results.
“Without a quarter. Raise the black flag, “Tario said in a post. In another, he wrote that the Proud Boys would become “political prisoners” if Biden “stole the election”, warning that the group “will not go quietly”.
“The media constantly accuses us of wanting to start a civil war,” Tario wrote in another statement. “Watch what the hell… you want, we don’t want to start one… but we’ll be sure… – finish one.”
Shortly before the riot, an unnamed man sent Tario a document outlining plans to occupy several “important buildings” in Washington on January 6, including the House and Senate office buildings around the Capitol, authorities said. The document, entitled “Return of 1776”, called for “as many people as possible” to “show our politicians that we humans are responsible”.
Tario was arrested in Washington two days before the uprising and charged with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic black church during a protest in December 2020. He was ordered to stay away from Washington and was not in the Capitol on January 6.
However, other Proud Boys met in front of the Washington Monument in the morning of the riot and headed for the Capitol before Trump finished his speech near the White House. As the angry mob stormed the Capitol, Proud Boys members dismantled metal barricades and directed and led members of the crowd into the building, authorities said.
Guardians of the oath also spent weeks discussing attempts to overturn election results, display battle plans and buy weapons, authorities said. Two days after the election, Rhodes told his followers in an encrypted group chat to prepare his mind, body and spirit for a “civil war.”
Rhodes called on members to go to Washington to inform Trump “that the people are behind him” and expressed hope that Trump would call the police to help him stay in power, authorities said. Guardians of the oath have repeatedly written in chats about the prospect of violence and the need, as Rhodes claims to have written in a text, “to scare x – from” Congress.
The group hid weapons at a hotel outside Washington as part of a “rapid reaction force” that will come to their aid if needed, prosecutors said. Days before January 6, a defendant offered to take a boat to carry “heavy weapons” across the Potomac River in their “waiting weapons”, according to prosecutors.
On January 6, the Guardians of the Oath, clad in camouflage uniforms, were spotted on camera making their way through the crowd to the Capitol in a military-style formation. Rhodes was not accused of entering the Capitol building, but was seen gathered outside with several bodyguards after the riot, authorities said.
WHAT WAS REVEALED IN THE HEARING?
A House hearing in the House of Representatives on Thursday highlighted how proud the Proud Boys were of Trump’s comment to “step back and stay away.”
The committee also showed how members of the Proud Boys were among those leading the attack on the Capitol after marching there while Trump was still talking to Ellipse.
The video, shown during the hearing, shows that Dominic Petzola, a former Marine known as the Spaz in Rochester, New York, used a stolen Capitol riot shield to break a window, allowing the first rebels to enter the building. Petzola is accused of rebellious conspiracy in the attack.
A documentary filmmaker who was with the Proud Boys on Jan. 6 testified that he witnessed a meeting the day before the Rhodes-Tario riot in an underground garage.
No new details were revealed during the hearing about what the two leaders of the extremist groups said, and prosecutors said only that one of the participants in the meeting “mentions the Capitol.” The publicly released video of the meeting did not reveal much about their discussion.
Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been charged on separate charges and the Justice Department has not accused them of conspiring with each other.
But prosecutors said there was at least some communication between the two groups. In a statement, a man described by authorities as the leader of the Florida head of the Guardians of the Oath was discussing forming an “alliance” and coordinating with the Proud Boys before the riot, authorities said in court documents.
WHAT DID THE DEFENSE LEADERS SAY?
Rhodes said in interviews with right-wing hosts that there was no plan to storm the Capitol and that the members who did it were fraudsters. But he continued to impose the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, while publications on the Oath Keepers website portrayed the group as a victim of political persecution.
Oath Keeper’s defendants say in court that the only plan was to provide security for the rally before the uprising or to protect themselves from possible attacks by far-left antifa activists. The text reports revealed in court documents show that the oath keepers are discussing security plans around January 6 for Trump’s longtime political confidant Roger Stone and Stop Theft organizer Ali Alexander.
Defense attorney Naib Hassan said Tario never instructed or encouraged anyone to enter the Capitol or engage in violence or destruction on Jan. 6. Hassan also described prosecutors’ arguments about the garage meeting with Rhodes as “frivolous at best.” Tario went to a nearby hotel to get information about a potential lawyer to represent him in the vandalism case, Hassan said in a court file.
The trial of Tario and four other Proud Boys accused of rebellion is scheduled to begin on August 8. The trial against Rhodes and four other members and associates of the Guardians of the Oath is scheduled to begin on September 26. up to 20 years in prison.
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