Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio expects "tens of millions" from anti-weaponization fund

Enrique Tarrio, the former national head of the Proud Boys, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, says he will seek millions of dollars from the fund President Trump created to pay his supporters who believe they have been politically persecuted.

"Look, people don't have to like me, but to say that I got 22 years correctly, is wrong," Tarrio told CBS News Miami. "I was targeted and I do believe that this fund does apply to me."

Tarrio said since President Trump announced the formation of the $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund, he has been inundated with calls from others convicted for January 6 related activities.

"I've gotten probably a million calls in the past three days from J-6ers that are like, okay, how does this work?" Tarrio told CBS Miami's Jim DeFede. "And I'm like, look, I'm not, I'm not a guru. I don't I don't know how this works. I can only speculate."

The fund has drawn widespread outrage from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has offered no clear guidance on who would qualify for the money, or how it will be distributed. Blanche refused to rule out the notion that individuals convicted of assaulting police officers would be eligible to obtain money.

"Look, I get the argument that, 'Oh, well, do these people that assault police officers get it?'" Tarrio responded "And the truth is If they were weaponized against that, that is the parameter, if they were weaponized. It doesn't mean we're compensating these people just because they assaulted police officers, it's because of the system that they were in."

"I get it," Tarrio said. "People that did bad things, you don't want to give money from the government to. But it doesn't matter because the baseline of this is weaponization. Were you persecuted?" 

Tarrio was convicted in May 2023 by a jury in Washington that found he helped orchestrate the attack on the Capitol from a hotel room in Baltimore. Prosecutors presented evidence showing Tarrio created a special chapter of the Proud Boys known as the "Ministry of Self-Defense." The group's goal was to prevent the certification of the 2020 election in which Trump lost to Joe Biden. Prosecutors also revealed private messages to from Tarrio to senior leaders of the Proud Boys taking credit for the insurrection.

According to the Justice Department, at least 140 law enforcement officers were injured during the attack, which went on for hours. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly found that Tarrio's conduct was so egregious, it qualified as an act of terrorism and sentenced him to 22 years in prison.

Tarrio served three years before Trump granted him, and the other 1,600 people convicted in the January 6 attack, a full pardon.

Exactly how much - if anything - Tarrio will receive is unclear.

Tarrio, who said he is currently the president of the South Florida chapter of the Proud Boys, said if he was looking for "some type of restitution for the things that, like, I went through and my family was put through, yeah, I think it might be in the tens of millions." But he added he does not know how the money will be divided and the $1.8 billion might not be enough.

Tarrio predicted many of the January 6 individuals will be "philanthropic" with their payouts from the fund.

"I think you're going to see a lot of philanthropic endeavors come from this money when it comes to J-6ers," Tarrio said. "J-6ers are very adamant on creating changes. And I think that you'll see people start, you know, maybe some of them will use it to run for office. You know, local offices don't require a lot of money raised in order to campaign."

Tarrio said he would also like to run for office someday in South Florida. He said his ultimate goal it be elected to Congress.

Tarrio said he was grateful to President Trump.

"I won't say I expected it to happen," he said. "I think this is a campaign promise, making our lives whole. I think these are promises made, promises kept. I'm very thankful to the President for everything he's done."