Proud Boys' main Telegram account warns against going to rally in support of MAGA rioters: 'You're an idiot if you go'

According to reports, the Proud Boys and the right-wing militia group Oath Keepers are planning to show up at a rally in support of those jailed for participating in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But as The Washingtonian points out, a post on the Proud Boys' main Telegram account is warning its members that attending the rally is a bad idea.

"If you rally in DC right now, you're an idiot and you're going to get people thrown in jail or worse," one post reads.

"We aren't going and you shouldn't either because errbody (sic) going to jail. Sounds like bait," the group said, later adding that the event is a "guaranteed disaster."

"It does strike me that they're earnestly trying to discourage attendance at the event," says Jared Holt, a resident fellow who studies domestic extremism at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, told The Washingtonian. The Proud Boys he says, are "not the most reliable bunch, but I can't think of any high-profile incidents like that where they just straight-up lied."

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Michael Edison Hayden, it's "too early to say exactly whether they will mount something on that date but it's certainly possible that there's too much heat on them to get such a thing off the ground."