OH, FLORIDA

Newly-Released Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio Weighs Run at Matt Gaetz’s Old Seat

He was pardoned by President Donald Trump just two weeks ago.

The ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who is just two weeks removed from a Donald Trump pardon, says he is weighing a run at Matt Gaetz’s old seat in Congress. Tarrio, 42, suggested to the Miami New Times that Congress would be the only place he wants to seek office. “If I do run, I want to be in that building that they accused me of trying to storm,” he told the alt-weekly. To run in Gaetz’s deep-red district, which was the most-Republican in Florida as of 2022, Tarrio would have to move nearly 10 hours away—about 650 miles by car, jumping timezones—from Miami to Florida’s 1st congressional district in the state’s panhandle. Being able to run for office at all likely did not seem possible to Tarrio a year-and-a-half ago. That’s when he was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for seditious conspiracy tied to Proud Boys’ actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—charges he was slapped with despite not being in D.C. himself that day. He told the New Times he spent Election Night in November with his ear pressed to the crack of his cell door, listening to the results of the election being broadcast outside, hoping for a Trump win.