At its first public hearing Thursday night, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol unveiled harrowing new accounts of the day’s events, including never-before-seen footage and vivid testimony from officers who were overrun as the mob stormed the Capitol.
The panel produced new details about the alleged involvement of two right wing groups in carrying out the attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. One of those groups, the Proud Boys, saw five of its members charged earlier this week with seditious conspiracy for their role in the assault.
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Who are the Proud Boys?
The Proud Boys are a far-right extremist group founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes, a right-wing media personality who co-founded VICE media (McInnes is no longer affiliated with the company).
The group describes itself as “Western chauvinists” or “men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world,” according to the Department of Justice.
The Southern Poverty Law Center designates the Proud Boys a hate group, citing white supremacist and racist rhetoric from many of its members.
In 2020, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio told USA TODAY through a spokesperson that the group “has longstanding regulations prohibiting racist, white supremacist, or violent activity.”
There were at least 72 Proud Boys chapters across the nation in 2021, according to a report by the SPLC. The exact number of members is unknown, according to Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, but it is estimated to be in the thousands. Members carry different status levels within the group, with the highest status or degree obtained when a member commits violence in the group’s name, according to the CISC.
Proud Boys members have been a fixture at violent demonstrations across the country in recent years.
One of its members helped organize the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charleston that left a counter-protester dead, though McInnes, who left the group in 2018, denied at the time the group’s official involvement in the demonstration or that it was part of the “alt-right” groups that participated.
And the Proud Boys have clashed repeatedly with left-wing counter-protesters in the Pacific Northwest and were involved in confrontations with Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.
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Tarrio, who was handed additional conspiracy charges this week in connection to Jan. 6, was sentenced to five months in jail last year for burning a Black Lives Matter flag in December 2020.
Proud Boys leader’s first Jan 6. charge:Enrique Tarrio charged with conspiracy in US Capitol insurrection
The Proud Boys were first thrust into the political spotlight during the September 2020 presidential debate when Donald Trump was asked to condemn violence from white supremacist groups and instead delivered a cryptic message.
“Proud Boys stand back and stand by,” Trump said.
On Thursday, the panel presented depositions from Proud Boys members who said that the former president’s comment led to an increase in the group’s membership.
“Exponentially, I’d say it tripled probably,” one Proud Boys member said in his deposition.
Footage of Proud Boys breaching the capitol and the excerpts from the Justice Department’s indictment alleging that the Proud Boys planned the assault weeks in advance were also shown at the first hearing.
Who is the Proud Boys founder?
McInnes is a Canadian right-wing news personality who helped found VICE media in the 1990s. He left the company in 2008, according to VICE. He left the Proud Boys in 2018 and now hosts a right wing podcast. McInness sued the SLPC in 2019 for defamation after it labeled the Proud Boys a hate group, USA TODAY reported.
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