WASHINGTON (AP) — A former member of the Proud Boys who pleaded guilty to conspiring with the group’s leaders to stop the transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden told jurors Tuesday that he viewed the far-right extremist organization as the “tip of the spear” after the 2020 election.
Jeremy Bertino, who testified against the former national leader of the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants as part of a cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors, remembers the surprise and then the joy when Trump told the Proud Boys to “stop and stand” the first time. debate with Biden.
After the election, Bertino saw the Proud Boys as leaders of the conservative movement, a perspective fueled by regular viewers of the Infowars website that promotes conspiracy theories.
“I believe that we should be leading the country, the right wing,” Bertino said. “The tip of the spear.”
Bertino, 43, of North Carolina, is the only member of the far-right extremist group to plead guilty to conspiracy charges that led to a mass attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Five members of the Proud Boys are in court charged with the same felony count, a War-era offense Civilian punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday with more testimony by Bertino. Court recessed Tuesday before prosecutors began questioning Bertino about the January 6 attack.
Bertino is the second former Proud Boys member to testify in court. The first, Matthew Greene, testified in January that members of the group were increasingly angry about the results of the 2020 presidential election and expected a “civil war”.
Jurors have heard over a month of testimony by government witnesses in the trial of Tarrio, a Miami resident, and co-defendants Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.
Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, is president of the Proud Boys chapter and a member of the national “Council of Elders.” Biggs, from Ormond Beach, Florida, is a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl is president of the Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola is a member of the Proud Boys from Rochester, New York.
Bertino said he believes the election was stolen from Trump and hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the election results. He was not in Washington when the Capitol riots broke out. He was stabbed during an altercation in downtown Washington after the Proud Boys march on December 12, 2021, and was still recovering from his injuries on January 6.
Bertino said he became even more angry after hearing that his attacker had been released on bail. He directed his anger at the police, feeling they had “abandoned” the Proud Boys.
“I think it’s not on our side anymore,” he testified. “And basically if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”
Bertino said Tarrio, Nordean and Biggs became angry with police after the stabbing. Bertino added that many Proud Boys have started referring to the police as “coptifa,” a twist on the term “antifa,” which refers to antifascist activists.
The indictment in the Tarrio case states that the Proud Boys held meetings and communicated through encrypted messages to plan the attack in the days leading up to January 6. and mobilized, directed and led members of the crowd into the building, according to prosecutors.
Tarrio was not in Washington on January 6, either. Police arrested him in Washington two days before the Capitol riots and charged him with destroying a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic black church during a December 2020 protest. Tarrio obeyed a judge’s order to leave the city after his arrest.
Bertino joined the Proud Boys’ Charlotte chapter in 2018 after seeing a video of group members fighting with antifascist activists. He said he likes his friends who have right-wing political views. He considered his opponents “quite a few who didn’t vote the same way.”
Bertino said he became “very close” to Tarrio and was friendly with Biggs, Nordean and Rehl, but he only remembers meeting Pezzola once. He met Tarrio in person at the Proud Boys convention in Las Vegas and later at a gun rights rally in January 2020 in Virginia, where he said they escaped a confrontation with “armed opposition.”
Proud Boys members describe the group as a politically incorrect men’s club for “Western chauvinists.” Bertino said there is tension in the ranks of the Proud Boys between “rally boys” who like to fight with antifa in public forums and “party boys” who like to drink together.
Bertino remembers growing anger in the summer of 2020, as protests erupted across the country in response to the killing of George Floyd in police custody. He blamed the violence and riots on antifa, calling them “left-wing warriors.”
“I thought we should have gone out there and stopped them, to restore order,” he said.
Bertino pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy in October 2022 and agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation into the role played by Proud Boys leaders in the mass attack on the Capitol. He has not been punished.
The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection presented video testimony by Bertino in its first hearing last year. The committee showed a clip of Bertino saying the group’s membership may have tripled after President Trump’s comments during a debate with Biden that the Proud Boys should “stop and stand up”.
In trial testimony, Bertino recalled being shocked and then excited by Trump’s comments. “I can’t believe the president is talking about our club,” he said. “I thought it would grow the club exponentially at that time.”
Bertino joined Tarrio at a bar in Washington on the eve of the 2020 presidential election. He said he was a “level four” member of the Proud Boys – the highest rank in the group – after he intervened in a bloody altercation that night.
Jurors saw text messages Bertino and Tarrio exchanged four days after the election, as news outlets declared victory for Biden.
“He called it. Now we have to mobilize. Should we go to the country house?” asked Bertino.
“Yes,” answered Tarrio.