Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys group who received a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy related to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in 2021, has formally asked Donald Trump for a pardon.
A jury convicted Tarrio of helping to orchestrate the insurrection. At the time of the attack, Tarrio had been banned from the city by prosectors for burning a stolen banner from a historic Black church in December 2020 during a protest march against Trump’s election loss.
Prosecutors said Tarrio was the driving force for organizing hundreds of Proud Boys to participate in the attack on January 6, and several top lieutenants in the group – a far-right militant organization – were at the front lines of the violence.
US district judge Tim Kelly, a Trump appointee, sentenced Tarrio to 22 years in prison after his conviction. It is the longest sentence of any January 6 defendant.
In his pardon request, Tarrio claims he was targeted unfairly by the Biden administration. Trump has promised full pardons for January 6 rioters as soon as he takes office.
“Well, we’re going to look at each individual case,” Trump said, “and we’re going to do it very quickly, and it’s going to start in the first hour that I get into office. And a vast majority of them should not be in jail … They’ve suffered gravely.”
