By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — An imprisoned far-right extremist group leader who was the top target of the federal investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol balked at answering a prosecutor’s questions about the attack when he testified on Thursday at the trial of a police officer accused of leaking him confidential information.
A federal judge warned former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio that he could face consequences, including an order holding him in contempt of court, if he continued to refuse to answer the prosecutor’s questions. Tarrio completed his testimony without incurring any sanctions from the judge.
Tarrio, who is serving a 22-year prison sentence for a plot to keep Donald Trump in the White House after the 2020 election, waived his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when he agreed to testify as a defense witness at the bench trial of retired Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Shane Lamond.
“What that means is you have to answer all the questions. You don’t get to pick and choose,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Tarrio after he initially refused to answer whether Proud Boys were at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Dozens of Proud Boys, including Tarrio, are among the 1,500 people who have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol siege. A jury convicted Tarrio and three lieutenants of seditious conspiracy and other crimes last year after a months-long trial in the same courthouse where Lamond is on trial this week.
Tarrio complained that the prosecutor, Rebecca Ross, shouldn’t have “free reign” to ask him questions about Jan. 6. Lamond is on trial for charges that he lied about providing Tarrio with confidential information about a police investigation of Proud Boys who burned a Black Lives Matter banner in December 2020.
“This case is not a Jan. 6 case,” he told the judge, arguing that he didn’t “completely” waive his Fifth Amendment rights.
“There is not a half of a Fifth Amendment privilege,” the judge responded.
When Tarrio told her, “We’ll agree to disagree,” the judge chuckled and replied, “Well, I’ll just say, ‘You’re not in charge.’”
Tarrio was the first witness to testify for Lamond’s defense against charges that he obstructed justice and made false statements about his communications with Tarrio. The judge will decide the case against Lamond after hearing testimony without a jury.
On Monday, the judge said Tarrio was waiting for the outcome of last month’s presidential election before deciding whether to testify at Lamond’s trial. President-elect Trump, who repeatedly has vowed to pardon people convicted of Capitol riot charges, suggested he would consider pardoning Tarrio.
Tarrio was sentenced to more than five months in jail for burning the banner that was stolen in December 2020 from a historic Black church in downtown Washington, and for bringing two high-capacity firearm magazines into the district.
Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the Jan. 6 siege. The Miami resident wasn’t at the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building and interrupted the congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
During the trial’s opening statements on Monday, a prosecutor said Lamond was a “Proud Boys sympathizer” who warned Tarrio about his impending arrest for the banner’s destruction and later lied to investigators about their communications.
Police officers who investigated the banner’s destruction testified that it would have helped them to know that Tarrio had privately confessed to Lamond that he burned the banner. The Proud Boys leader also publicly admitted on social media and on a podcast that he had burned the banner.
Tarrio testified on Thursday that he didn’t confess to Lamond or receive any confidential information from him. Tarrio said he came to Washington two days before Jan. 6 because he wanted to be arrested for the banner burning but released in time to attend then-President Trump’s Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally.
“I wanted to get this over with,” Tarrio said.
He also said he thought that his arrest before the rally would help “put up a circus tent” and generate publicity for his group’s message.
“I wanted to show what the Department of Justice was, and I was dedicated to that cause with everything in me,” he said.
Lamond, who met Tarrio in 2019, had supervised the intelligence branch of the police department’s Homeland Security Bureau. He was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys when they came to Washington.
Lamond’s indictment accuses him of lying to and misleading federal investigators when they questioned him in June 2021 about his contacts with Tarrio.
Lamond, of Stafford, Virginia, was arrested in May 2023. He retired from the police department that same month.
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