Proud Boys leader throws pals under the bus for attacking Capitol during CNN interview
In an interview with CNN's Sara Sidner, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio admitted that, although he encouraged members of his far-right group to attend the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan 6th that led to a riot at the Capitol building, he doesn't believe the election was stolen from Donald Trump -- and then added that members of the Proud Boys who entered the building broke the law.
Tarrio, who has been accused of being an FBI informant and was not on the Capitol grounds the day of the insurrection because he was in jail, stated that he had no sympathy for the terrorized lawmakers, telling Sidner, "I'm not gonna cry about people who don't give a crap about their constituents. I'm not going to sympathize with them."
"They [lawmakers] are doing the job that the people put them there to do, and if they don't like it, they can vote them out," the CNN correspondent asked. "They are still Americans, they are still human beings who felt that their lives were in danger. How can you not feel any sympathy or any empathy towards them like that?"
"I'm not going to worry about people that their only worry in life is to be re-elected," he replied which led Sidner to report that eight friends of his within the Proud Boys-- which has been designated a terrorist organization by the Canadian government -- have been taken into custody so far.
With Sidner reporting that Tarrio encouraged the Proud Boys to "show up in record numbers," she asked about the close associates of the leader -- including one in particular --who have been taken into custody.
"I condemn the actions," he replied. "I don't think that he should have done that. I think it was completely wrong, but the other seven individuals were trespassing. I think that they got caught up with the entire -- like the entire crowd, and they made a poor decision to go in there."
"Members of the Proud Boys didn't appear to just be getting caught up in this, some of them were leading this attack," the CNN correspondent pressed. "You had people removing barriers who were Proud Boys. You had someone threatening an officer, breaking the Capitol window. They weren't just following in this insurrection, it appears that some of them were leading the charge."
"Now, those three accusations, I do want to touch on those," he replied. "The breaking of the window, we've already hit."
"You think that's wrong?" Sidner interjected.
"Yeah, definitely, unequivocally, I think that's wrong. But the threatening of police officers, I didn't -- I didn't see that," he attempted.
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