By ALAN FEUER NYTimes News Service
Share this story

Five members of the Proud Boys who were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges in connection with the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, sued the government for $100 million Friday, claiming that federal officials had subjected them to “political persecution” as “allies of President Trump.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Orlando, Florida, came nearly six months after President Donald Trump offered an expansive grant of clemency to all of the more than 1,500 people who had taken part in the attack. It was another attempt by rioters to flip the script about Jan. 6 and blame the Justice Department and the FBI for engaging in what the complaint called “a corrupt and politically motivated” prosecution.

ADVERTISING

In the years since Jan. 6, Trump has repeatedly sought to rewrite the history of the riot, claiming it was a “day of love” despite the fact that more than 140 police officers were injured by the mob. Since his return to the White House, he has also claimed that the Biden administration unfairly prosecuted him and many of his allies — even while setting up a special task force inside the Justice Department designed to pursue retributive investigations against his own adversaries.

Much of the lawsuit submitted by the five Proud Boys — Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — sought to relitigate legal questions that had not gone their way during a lengthy pretrial period and a multiweek trial in U.S. District Court in Washington that ended in May 2023 with guilty verdicts against all of them.

The men complained, for instance, about the ways in which they were arrested and then denied bail, accused the FBI of using paid informants to spy on their defense team and claimed that federal agents had altered what they claimed was exculpatory evidence. All of this, the suit said, amounted to the government having deprived them of their constitutional rights.

During a news conference near the White House on Friday, Tarrio described himself and other Proud Boys members who had been convicted as “hostages of a lawless regime,” reiterating his claim that the prosecution against him had been politically motivated.

The conference abruptly ended after being interrupted by a protester yelling into a megaphone.

“You organized the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6!” the protester shouted. “Traitor!”

Over the past several months, there have been a handful of other lawsuits filed by Jan. 6 defendants — or discussed by lawyers representing them — to wrest financial damages from the government over claims of mistreatment or abuse of power.

But the suit brought by the Proud Boys was arguably the most prominent so far, if only because the men had faced the most serious charge — seditious conspiracy — levied against any of the rioters who took part in the Capitol attack.

The men also faced stiff punishment after their convictions. Tarrio, who once led the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years — the highest penalty imposed on any of the rioters. Nordean and Biggs were sentenced to 18 and 17 years.

On Trump’s first day back in office, he issued a full pardon to Tarrio, who was not in Washington on Jan. 6 but was found guilty of helping plan the movements of scores of Proud Boys that day. The president did not grant pardons to the other men, but commuted their sentences, immediately freeing them from prison.

Even if the lawsuit by the men does not succeed at trial, it is in theory possible that they could get payments from the Trump administration.

Ed Martin, the lawyer chosen by Trump to run the Justice Department’s so-called weaponization working group, has said that the rioters deserve some form of compensation for what he has described as mistreatment by the government.

And last month, the Justice Department said it was discussing paying the relatives of Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran killed by police on Jan. 6, about $5 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit they brought against the government last year.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2025 The New York Times Company