Now, the group’s leaders — Tarrio and Joe Biggs of Florida, Ethan Nordean of Seattle, Zachary Rehl of Philadelphia and Dominic Pezzola of New York — are dealing with the gravest expenses to emerge from the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
“Everybody felt very determined,” Bertino stated of the group’s more and more militant rhetoric as Jan. 6 neared, notably after the Supreme Court docket declined to take up Trump’s actions. As for Tarrio, Bertino added, “His tones have been calculated, chilly however very decided that he felt the very same approach that I did.”
Bertino didn’t journey to Washington on Jan. 6, partly as a result of he was nursing a stab wound from a skirmish throughout a Dec. 12, 2020, go to to Washington to protest Trump’s defeat. However he remained involved with the group on Jan. 6, together with Tarrio, who had been launched from jail and traveled to a Baltimore lodge. Prosecutors confirmed jurors Bertino’s excited messages, urging the Proud Boys to push farther into the Capitol and assist disrupt the counting of electoral votes supposed to certify Biden’s victory.
“I assumed I used to be watching historical past,” Bertino recalled. “I assumed it was historic. I assumed it was a revolution beginning.”
When one member of the group knowledgeable others that then-Vice President Mike Pence had resisted Trump’s entreaties to overturn the election on his personal, Bertino assured them: “Don’t fear, boys. America’s taking good care of it proper now.”
Bertino’s jubilance was fury after Trump instructed rioters to go house and legislation enforcement cleared the Capitol.
“We failed,” he instructed different Proud Boys in numerous Telegram chats, after Congress had returned to proceed certifying Biden’s victory. He lamented that the rioters triggered mayhem merely to “take selfies in Pelosi’s workplace.”
That sentiment continued into Jan. 7.
“I’m executed fellas,” Bertino stated in a voice message to the group. “In case you couldn’t fucking inform. I’m executed. I didn’t take a knife within the fucking — within the lungs to look at the facility be given proper the fuck again to those evil cocksuckers. We want fucking battle. We have to take it again. And we have to fucking get these motherfuckers. Choose, jury, executioner, we have to fucking hold traitors.”
“You able to go full fash?” requested Proud Boy chief John Stewart in response, referring to fascism. Later, Stewart blamed the “normies” — the Proud Boys’ time period for nonmembers who align with them — for having “stopped 25% of the way in which in.”
“That constructing ought to nonetheless be occupied proper now. They need to have cops caught inside that constructing … They determined to run round and take a bunch of fucking selfies. And, you realize, steal some fucking memorabilia to show that they have been in there in order that their conviction is assured.”
All through Bertino’s testimony — his second day on the stand — Prosecutors homed in on messages despatched amongst Bertino and different Proud Boys leaders discussing the prospect of violence on Jan. 6, and famous repeatedly that Tarrio and different defendants by no means pushed again or instructed violence wasn’t the objective.
Your complete trial — maybe essentially the most essential to emerge from the Jan. 6 assault — might hinge on whether or not jurors imagine Bertino’s testimony. He was in frequent contact with Tarrio and different group leaders within the weeks main as much as Jan. 6 and offered context for the group’s prolonged chats.
Protection attorneys have but to cross-examine him, however they’re more likely to press him on the contours of his plea take care of the federal government, in addition to his voluminous testimony to the Jan. 6 select committee, which omitted most of the key particulars he described to the jury on Wednesday.
For instance, Bertino described in court docket — however to not the choose committee — an in depth Telegram chat with Tarrio on Jan. 6, whereas each males have been watching the riot unfold from afar. Bertino described a sense of satisfaction at seeing the Proud Boys assist prepared the ground into the Capitol and a pang of jealousy for being absent.
“I needed to be there to witness what I believed was the subsequent American revolution,” Bertino instructed jurors.
Bertino additionally clarified an odd textual content to Tarrio that learn “They should get peloton.” It was an autocorrect for Pelosi, Bertino stated.
“She was the goal, so far as the one who had been pushing the knowledge [about the election],” Bertino recalled pondering. “She was the speaking head of the opposition. And so they wanted to take away her from energy.”