PASSING THE BUCK

Proud Boys Leader’s Lawyer: Trump Is Responsible for Jan. 6

“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger.”

Prosecutors have been portraying former Proud Boys national chair Enrique Tarrio, who is charged with seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as one of the masterminds behind the riot. But his lawyer said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump, not Tarrio, should be the one held responsible for the attack. “It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on Jan. 6 in your amazing and beautiful city,” Nayib Hassan, Tarrio’s lawyer, said during closing arguments. Prosecutors say the Proud Boys leadership was loyal to Trump and fearful that their group could not survive without him in office, so they devised plans to keep him there. But Hassan argued that Trump’s speech the morning of Jan. 6, in which he told his supporters to “fight like hell,” actually incited the riot. “It was not Enrique Tarrio,” Hassan said. “They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald Trump and those in power.”