Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio claimed federal prosecutors tried to “coerce” him into implicating former President Donald Trump in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Tarrio to a record-high 22 years in prison despite not being in Washington, DC, on January 6.
“I don’t know what instructions I would give somebody at that point … I’m not speaking. I have no function. So there was no communication,” Tarrio said in a phone interview with the Washington Post.
Tarrio revealed that federal prosecutors tried to “coerce” him into implicating Trump during a phone interview from the D.C. jail.
“I was looking and seeking what the plea offer would look like, right?” Tarrio told the Washington Post. “They didn’t want to give me a number. I need a number. To me, the most important thing is when I get home to my family.”
As the Post reported:
Instead, Tarrio said, the prosecutors asked him what role then-President Donald Trump played in getting the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol. He said the prosecutors, accompanied by FBI agents in the Miami jail where Tarrio was being held at the time, showed him messages that he exchanged with a second person, who in turn was connected to a third person who was connected to Trump. Tarrio said he told the investigators that he didn’t know the third person. He refused to name the people who prosecutors said allegedly connected him to Trump.
“They weren’t trying to get the truth,” Tarrio continued. “They were trying to coerce me into signing something that’s not true.”
Support of President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Tarrio said, “there was never an open-ended question after” federal prosecutors tried to implicate Trump.
The Post further detailed:
Tarrio said prosecutors in Miami last fall did not ask him about Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant who was an acquaintance of Tarrio’s, or Ali Alexander, a promoter of the “Stop the Steal” rally. He said the federal visitors did not ask him questions about his knowledge of Jan. 6 beyond the theorized connection to Trump. “There was never an open-ended question after that,” Tarrio said.
Prosecutors did later offer Tarrio a deal: nine to 11 years in prison if he pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, according to court records. Tarrio declined.
During Tarrio’s sentencing hearing, Judge Kelly called him “the ultimate leader, the ultimate person who organized, who was motivated by revolutionary zeal.”
Tarrio offered his apologies to law enforcement officials who responded to the Capitol riot before the judge handed down the 22-year sentence.
“To the men and women of law enforcement who answered the call that day, I’m sorry,” Tarrio said. “I have always tried to hold myself to a higher standard, and I failed. I failed miserably. I thought of myself morally above others, and this trial has humbled me.”
“I am not a political zealot,” Tarrio added. “When I get back home, I want nothing to do with politics, groups, activism or rallies.”
Tarrio is one of the 1,100 individuals who have been charged in connection with the Capitol riot and one of the 370 who have been sentenced to prison.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.
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