
By Khadeeja Safdar, Shalini Ramachandran, Vera Bergengruen and Tawnell D. Hobbs
Enrique Tarrio thought he would be in prison until 2040. As he waited to board a plane to Miami, now a free man thanks to President Trump, the Proud Boys leader wasn’t certain what was next for him except for one thing: retaliation.
The 40-year-old Tarrio was among the roughly 1,500 individuals who received pardons for their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. “I was innocent of the charges,” he said in an interview before his flight but alleged the legal system was “weaponized” against him and others. Now, he said, it’s time to turn the tables and prosecute the prosecutors, including former Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“The name of the game for some of these people is to take the other opponent’s pieces off the board,” he said. “We can play that game.”
Trump’s sweeping pardons mark a dramatic turnaround for the far-right groups involved in the Jan. 6 attack. Some resorted to violence to try to prevent the certification of Trump’s 2020 electoral loss. The rampage led to the largest prosecution in Justice Department history. Former President Joe Biden vowed to defeat domestic extremism, launching a national effort to refocus U.S. national security agencies from foreign terrorism to what he said was the more pressing threat back home.
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