Should Enrique Tarrio, former Proud Boys chair, get a presidential pardon? Here's what his attorney has to say
MIAMI — Former Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio is asking President-elect Donald Trump for a full and complete pardon for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection and his attorney joined "Facing South Florida" on Sunday to talk about why he thinks he should receive one.
In May 2023, Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy surrounding the Capitol Hill riot. Now, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tarrio played a central role in the efforts to storm the capitol in hopes of preventing Joe Biden from becoming president.
Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison — the longest term for any of the Jan. 6 defendants. After Tarrio's attorney Nayib Hassan sent a letter to the president-elect to pardon his client, CBS News Miami's Najahe Sherman spoke to Tarrio's mother, who argued that her son was turned into a scapegoat.
"I don't think that anybody that actually realistically thinks that there's a doubt about the government using him, using his face, using his organization, [and] using him as a chairman of the Proud Boys," said Zuny Duarte.
Trump has repeatedly refused to acknowledge that the violence occurred on Jan. 6, 2021, or his role in fermenting it. Instead, he referred to it as a "day of love" and vowed to pardon most, if not all, the over 1,500 people who have been charged or convicted in the attack.
Tarrio's mother told CBS News Miami she expects Trump to pardon her son.
"Well as a mother, I'm extremely confident," Duarte said. "And as an American citizen, I'm extremely confident that President Trump is going to keep his word."
On Sunday, Hassan discussed why he thinks Tarrio deserves the pardon.
"President Trump has made statements to the effect of non-violent offenders being pardoned, and you have an individual like Enrique Tarrio, who wasn't even present on January 6. He had been instructed by another judge to remove himself from the area and relocate himself -- and he did just that," he said. "He relocated himself and went to Baltimore and he watched the event unfold, what transpired on January 6."
Hassan said when you take Trump's statements in of themselves and what he believes was "incorrectly done" during Tarrio's trial and everything leading up to it: "That's where we are, right there."
Hassan told "Facing South Florida" that his team has yet to receive the documentation required by Trump to supply to the U.S. Office of Pardon Attorney, but they have supplied the president-elect with the letter that states their arguments as to why Tarrio deserves clemency because he "doesn't bare any responsibility for what transpired on January 6."
When questioned about what Tarrio said to supporters in text messages, social media and encrypted group chats that suggested he and other Jan. 6 defendants were taking responsibility for the attack, Hassan said he wasn't going to deny what Tarrio said was "inflammatory" but called the government's argument that there was organized planning in the attack a "fallacy."
"There was no planning. There was nothing showing any organizational structure for what happened on January 6," he said. "Nothing whatsoever, nothing leading up to January 6. There were no statements. There was nothing in what you call 'encrypted messaging'... We all have the same database. I have them, you have them, and we all communicate with individuals in foreign countries with those. So, it's not like if the private text messaging — no, these are just not your normal 'Apple text' that we're getting. This is just a WhatsApp messaging database."
Despite what is considered to be "damning evidence," Hassan only reiterated that the messaging is "very inflammatory."
During the closing arguments of Tarrio's trial, Hassan and his team shared the same sentiment as Duarte in that Tarrio was a "scapegoat" and it was really Trump's words and anger that motivated what happened on Jan. 6. When asked whether he still believes his argument, Hassan told "Facing South Florida" he does.
"I still believe, to the effect, that they want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat, and that's why he was sentenced to 22 years for what transpired on January 6," he said.
Though he believes that Trump's statements may have led some people to attack Capitol Hill, Hassan questioned whether it was "solely his fault."
He argued that the crowd might have already been "heated up" by the inception of that day from what went on during the 2020 elections leading up to Jan. 6, calling on a statement made by his colleague that compared it to when a football team wins a championship game and the fans storm the field.
However, "Facing South Florida" pushed back against the analogy, calling it "insensitive" and minimizing what actually happened. Hassan then clarified his statements, saying that they don't take away from the actions that occurred. He then said that on the day of his sentencing, Tarrio apologized and reached out to the police officers who were on the front lines of the riot: "We absolutely feel for those individuals."
"I don't want to take away from the officers," Hassan said. "And to this day, I still feel bad for those officers, as I basically — during our trial — told those officers and apologized for what happened to them on January 6."
If Tarrio were to be pardoned, Hassan gave a glimpse at what his future would be going forward.
"Enrique Tarrio is not a part of the Proud Boys anymore. Before he was even arrested, he had already removed himself from the Proud Boys and of itself," he said. "And, Enrique Tarrio would be going back home, where he would be a working young man that has a bright future ahead of him. He had two jobs, two businesses, before going into custody and he would go back to running businesses and try going back to be a working, productive member of society."
From his understanding, Hassan said that Tarrio wouldn't be interested in going into politics if he were to be pardoned.