On the first night of prime-time hearings of a House Select Committee’s investigative findings into the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection last year, it became clear the despicable role Floridians played in the attack on the Capital.
It was painful to hear witness connect the dots that culminated in the attack, down to the initial security breach.
Evidence from the Committee shows that the far right-wing rioters and their leaders, Miami’s Enrique Tarrio, former Proud Boys national chairman, and Kelly Meggs, of Dunnellon, head of the Florida chapter of another extremist group, The Oath Keepers, were largely calling the shots in the hours before and in igniting the attack on the Capital.
All to keep the loser, President Donald Trump, in power, despite the fact that Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election.
“He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir Yes Sir!!!,” Meggs wrote in a social-media post. And they did. Meggs was among the pack looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Heaven knows what would have happened if they had found her?
“Make no mistake . . . we did this,” Tarrio bragged in an encrypted chat after the insurrection. They did.
The key role the groups played was detailed to and by the Committee, which provided evidence of the Proud Boys’ actions, thanks to a documentary filmmaker who accompanied them that day.
It all begins with President Trump’s command during a televised debate with Biden: “Proud Boys. Stand back, stand by”.
From the testimony aired Thursday night by the Committee, and their leader’s own damning words, it’s clear they flaunted their unpatriotic, un-American and goonish actions.
This week, Tarrio and four of the group’s members were charged with seditious conspiracy stemming from their participation in the Jan. 6 attack.
Tarrio, along with co-defendants Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola, are accused of conspiring to use force to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power “by preventing, hindering, or delaying by force the execution of the laws governing the transfer of power,” according to a grand jury indictment.
The Proud Boys have nothing to be proud of.
