Proud Boys go to trial on sedition as Jan. 6 probe heats up

Proud Boys leader Henry "Enrique" Tarrio wears a hat that says The War Boys during a rally in Portland, Ore., Sept. 26, 2020.

Allison Dinner / Allison Dinner

As members of the Proud Boys extremist group stormed past police lines and swarmed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, their leader cheered them on from afar, prosecutors say. “Do what must be done,” Enrique Tarrio wrote on social media. “So what do we do now?” someone asked later that day in a Proud Boys encrypted group chat.

“Do it again,” Tarrio responded.

Almost two years later, Tarrio’s words are at the center of the Justice Department’s seditious conspiracy case against the former Proud Boys national chairman. Prosecutors in his trial in Washington are trying to build on their recent courtroom victory against leaders of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers.