Meeting between Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders reportedly under investigation in Capitol riot probe
Federal agents are reportedly investigating a meeting between ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Elmer Stewart Rhodes, which allegedly took place at a Washington DC car park the day before the 6 January insurrection.
According to Reuters, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into Mr Rhodes and Mr Tarrio’s participation in the meeting, which reportedly took place on 5 January 2021 at a car park near the Park Phoenix Hotel, a favoured place of lodging for the pro-Trump gang led by Mr Tarrio.
Also reportedly present were Bianca Gracia, the leader of the Latinos for America First political action committee and Oath Keepers attorney Kellye SoRelle.
The meeting has attracted the interests of FBI agents because it places the leaders of the two largest, most prominent and most violent pro-Trump extremist groups together shortly before both groups participated in the worst attack on the Capitol since the 1814 Burning of Washington.
The House of Representatives select committee probing the origins of the 6 January insurrection is also looking into Mr Tarrio and Mr Rhodes, both of whom have received subpoenas to produce documents and give evidence before the panel.
Earlier this year, Mr Rhodes – a Yale-educated attorney and US Army veteran – was indicted on charges of seditious conspiracy relating to his participation in the attack on the Capitol, which a pro-Trump mob carried out in hopes of preventing Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. An attorney for Mr Rhodes told Reuters in an email that “there was no coordination” between the two leaders.
Additionally, multiple members of the Proud Boys – an all-male group which regularly antagonises antiracist and antifascist protesters and styles itself as a “western chauvinist” fraternity – have been charged in connection with the pro-Trump riot.
Members of the Oath Keepers – some of whom were captured on video moving up the Capitol steps in an infantry-style “stack” formation during the riot – have also been indicted for their alleged roles in the violence that day.
Mr Tarrio, however, has not been charged with any crime in connection with the events of 6 January. DC Metropolitan Police officers arrested him two days prior to the insurrection on charges relating to his burning a “Black Lives Matter” banner belonging to a historic Washington DC church, and he spent one night in jail before being released and catching a ride to the Phoenix Park Hotel, where he encountered Mr Rhodes.
According to Ms SoRelle, Mr Rhodes and Mr Tarrio shook hands an exchanged pleasantries during the meeting and discussed Mr Tarrio’s need for a lawyer in the case for which he’d just been arrested.
