Proud Boys could lose their name in trademark dispute with one-time leader

The Proud Boys are in disarray after the Capitol insurrection, and the resulting legal fallout could even cost the right-wing group their name.

The group's leaders have been charged in the Jan. 6 attack and their chairman has been exposed as an informant, and now former Proud Boys lawyer Jason Lee Van Dyke has released a letter revoking their right to use the name, reported The Daily Beast.

"Your license to utilize the 'Proud Boys' trademark for any purposes is terminated, effective immediately," Van Dyke wrote in the letter to chairman Enrique Tarrio.

Van Dyke holds the "Proud Boys" trademark, and he wants to prevent Tarrio from using the name due to its association with Nazi groups and the burning of a Washington, D.C., church's Black Lives Matter banner during a December march -- which the chairman was arrested for Jan. 4 after returning to the city to take part in a rally supporting then-president Donald Trump.

The attorney himself was reportedly caught on tape in 2019 attempting to join the neo-Nazi terror group The Base before he was rejected as a "huge liability," and Vice News identified him as the man who can be heard in that video praising fascist writers and discussing a crackdown on Jewish immigration.

"There're plenty of people in the Proud Boys who don't believe that Jews have a place in this country ," Van Dyke reportedly said, "and they want to put a stop to it."

Van Dyke was temporarily suspended from practicing law after allegedly threatening to kill a rival, and police say he used Proud Boys to spy on an opponent and was allegedly recorded by an informant plotting to violently terrorize that man.

The attorney declined to comment on the Proud Boys trademark or say whether he was trying to sell it back to the group, which Van Dyke briefly ran for about 36 hours in 2018 before he accidentally revealed the names of other group leaders.

"It's still an ongoing matter for what the future might hold for the organization, if it's going to have a future," Van Dyke said.