FBI informant testifies for Proud Boys

WASHINGTON — An FBI informant who marched to the U.S. Capitol with fellow Proud Boys members on Jan. 6 testified on Wednesday that he didn’t know of any plans for the far-right extremist group to invade the building and didn’t think they inspired the violence that day.

The informant, who was identified in court and in a court record only as “Aaron,” was a defense witness at the trial of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a plot to keep Donald Trump in the White House after the 2020 presidential election.

The informant was communicating with his FBI handler as the mob of Trump supporters swarmed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, writing in a text message that police barriers were down and the crowd was almost at the building. He also told his handler that the Proud Boys “did not do it, nor inspire.”

“The crowd did as a herd mentality. Not organized,” he wrote. The handler’s response was redacted from a screenshot that a defense attorney showed to jurors.

A prosecutor later suggested that the informant sent that text only after it became clear that he and other members could be in serious trouble. The prosecutor also suggested that the informant wasn’t a mere observer to the riot, showing video that captured him helping another Proud Boy use a podium to block a security gate from closing.

The presence of government informants in the far-right group has repeatedly come up in the lengthy trial, as defense lawyers seek to undermine prosecutors’ claim that the Proud Boys plotted to attack the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

“Aaron,” who was allowed to withhold a last name when he testified, is one of several Proud Boys associates who were informants before or after the Jan. 6 attack. He is the first to testify at the trial, one of the most important to emerge from the Justice Department’s massive investigation of the Capitol riot.

Revelations about the informants have raised fresh questions about intelligence failures before the riot. A U.S. Senate report examining security failures surrounding the riot found that law enforcement had intelligence leading up to Jan. 6 that some Trump supporters were threatening violence and planning a siege to stop the certification of Biden’s victory.