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“No quarter. Raise the black flag.”

Enrique Tarrio is raging online about President Joe Biden’s election victory. It’s November 2020, a couple of months before the January 6 insurrection.

But Tarrio isn’t just an angry Donald Trump supporter posting on the internet. He’s the leader of the right-wing Proud Boys group with perhaps thousands of members ultimately reporting to him.

He wanted Mr Trump to remain in office, warning of a second civil war. So he and others hatched a plan, one that culminated in the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021.

A series of documents and messages, revealed by prosecutors at trial, shows the lengths they went to: from secret text chains to planning 50-man teams to occupy buildings in the capital.

Tarrio and his associate Ethan Nordean, another senior Proud Boy, will now be sentenced today after being found guilty of seditious conspiracy, a rare charge carrying up to 20 years in prison.

Two others – Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl – will be sentenced tomorrow for the same charge.

The sentencing comes the same month as Mr Trump was charged in the US state of Georgia with trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election.

Sky News reveals below exactly how the four men planned to overthrow democracy and asks a key question: are the Proud Boys still a threat?

FILE - Rioters stand outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021.  A new poll shows that about half of Americans say former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in what happened on Jan. 6. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that 48% of U.S. adults believe Trump should be held accountable for what happened during the deadly Capitol attack.(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
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Rioters outside the US Capitol on January 6. Pic: AP

Trump: ‘Proud Boys, stand back, and stand by’

Formed during the alt-right explosion of 2016, the exclusively-male Proud Boys regard themselves as “Western chauvinists” who “refuse to apologise for creating the modern world”.

Variously described as a street gang, a hate group or “kids who were picked last at kickball”, the Proud Boys have been designated as a terror group in two countries – Canada and New Zealand.

The group’s roots are as a “boys drinking club”, Katherine Keneally, an expert on political violence at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, tells Sky News.

“But what we saw, especially with the emergence of Trump, is this shifted from it being a drinking club to them going out on the streets, particularly at COVID-related protests, racial justice protests, and engaging in violence with protesters.”

As the movement grew, dozens of chapters of the Proud Boys sprang up in the majority of US states.

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Trump to Proud Boys: ‘Stand back, and stand by’

The watershed moment came in September 2020, and the infamous line from Trump live on television: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

This caused an immediate shift in their behaviour, Ms Keneally says, with the group emboldened by the belief that they had support from the President.

“They had already been garnering public support leading up to January 6, and that helped them translate to them actually directing people unaffiliated with the Proud Boys during the insurrection.”

“They viewed themselves as the president’s own military in some respects,” she added.

WASHINGTON D.C., NOVEMBER 14- Enrique Tarrio and the Proud Boys demonstrate near Freedom Plaza during the Million Maga March protest regarding election results on November 14, 2020 in Washington D.C. Photo: Chris Tuite/imageSPACE/MediaPunch /IPX
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A Proud Boys jacket at a demonstration near Freedom Plaza in DC. Pic: AP

The plan for January 6

“Fill the buildings with patriots and communicate our demands,” the plan says.

This is the incendiary ‘1776 Returns’ document, a secret Proud Boys internal plan prosecutors say was sent to Tarrio.

Its stated goals include maintaining control “over a select few, but crucial buildings in the DC area for a set period of time” and getting as “many people as possible inside these buildings”.

“These are OUR buildings, they are just renting space,” the document reads. “We must show our politicians We the People are in charge.”

FILE - Proud Boys members Zachary Rehl, left, and Ethan Nordean, right, walk toward the U.S. Capitol in Washington, in support of President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right extremist group were convicted Thursday of a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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Zachary Rehl (left) and Ethan Nordean (right) on January 6. Pic: AP

The document set out plans in detail for how Proud Boys would occupy buildings, with specialist roles given to leads (“covert sleeper”), “hypeman” and “recruiter”.

“Have leads and seconds open the doors for the crowd to enter,” it says. “This might include causing trouble near the front doors to distract guards who may be holding the doors off.”

Readers are instructed to use COVID-19 to their advantage by wearing face coverings to protect their identities.

Prosecutors say that Tarrio was sent the 1776 Returns document by an unnamed individual, who told him: “The revolution is more important than anything.”

Tarrio responded: “That’s what every waking moment consists of… I’m not playing games.”

FILE - Proud Boys members Joseph Biggs, left, and Ethan Nordean, right with megaphone, walk toward the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right extremist group have been convicted of a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump in power after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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Proud Boys members Joseph Biggs (left) and Ethan Nordean (right) walk toward the Capitol. Pic: AP

What happened at the Proud Boys trial?

Tarrio, Nordean, Biggs and Rehl along with a fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, were put on trial charged with conspiring to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force (seditious conspiracy) and a number of other charges in relation to January 6.

In his 80-minute opening statement, assistant US attorney Jason McCullough said in the days after the 2020 election the defendants had started “calling for action, calling for war, if their favoured candidate was not elected.”

Alluding to Mr Trump’s remark, the prosecutor added: “They did not stand back. They did not stand by. Instead, they mobilised.”

The indictment laid out how Tarrio, enraged at President Biden’s victory, posted on social media in November 2020: “F*** unity. No quarter. Raise the black flag.”

Associated with military conflict, the phrase ‘no quarter’ suggests that enemy combatants should be killed rather than taken prisoner.

FILE - Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio rallies in Portland, Ore., Aug. 17, 2019. Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Shane Lamond has been arrested on charges that he lied about leaking confidential information to a leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group and obstructed an investigation after group members destroyed a Black Lives Matter banner in Washington, D.C. Lamond is scheduled to make his initial court appearance on Friday. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
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Enrique Tarrio at a rally in Portland, Oregon in 2019. Pic: AP

The jury heard how after the election Tarrio posted on social media that the presidency was being stolen and vowed his group wouldn’t “go quietly”.

Mr McCullough also cited messages from Tarrio on January 6, including: “Make no mistake… We did this.”

“Those are his words, his thoughts, just minutes after Congress had been forced to stop its work,” McCullough said. “They did what they’d set out to do.”

And while Tarrio himself wasn’t at the Capitol on the day of the insurrection, he messaged with members throughout the riot, prosecutors said.

‘Their commander-in-chief sold them a lie’

Defence lawyers denied their clients planned or led an attack on the Capitol and suggested they were being targeted for their political beliefs.

Tarrio’s attorney, Sabino Jauregui, told jurors his client was being made a scapegoat because he “wrote and sent a lot of offensive things”.

“Speaking what you think is not illegal in this country yet,” he continued, before he closed with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Rehl’s lawyer, Carmen Hernandez, said her client came to the nation’s capital simply to protest. “I submit to you that Mr Rehl came to DC to exercise his First Amendment rights,” she told the jury.

Nick Smith, a lawyer for Nordean, who led a Proud Boys chapter in Washington state, told jurors they would see no evidence of a “complicated, long-running plot”.

“What you will see in the Telegram chats is a bunch of text messages that are tempting you to find guilt based on your dislike of these people,” he said. “Do not take the bait.”

In this Jan. 6, 2021, photo, Proud Boys members Ethan Nordean, left, Zachary Rehl and Joseph Biggs walk toward the U.S. Capitol in Washington, in support of President Donald Trump. Four men described by prosecutors as leaders of the far-right Proud Boys have been indicted on charges that they planned and carried out a coordinated attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's electoral victory. Nordean and Biggs, two of the four defendants charged in the latest
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Proud Boys members Ethan Nordean (left), Zachary Rehl and Joseph Biggs walk toward the US Capitol on January 6. Pic: AP

Norm Pattis, a lawyer for Joe Biggs, said the defendants came to Washington because their “commander-in-chief” told them it would “be wild”, referring to Mr Trump’s infamous tweet that called on supporters to come to Washington on January 6.

“Their commander-in-chief sold them a lie,” he said.

Pezzola’s lawyer, Roger Roots, downplayed the attack on the Capitol, which temporarily halted the counting of Electoral College ballots.

“Believe it or not, this entire case is about a six-hour delay of Congress,” Roots told the jury. “The government makes a big deal out of this six-hour recess.”

Guilty of seditious conspiracy

Tarrio, Biggs, Nordean and Rehl were found guilty of seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

Pezzola was cleared of seditious conspiracy and a jury could not reach an agreement on the charge of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

Pezzola, who was caught on video smashing in a window with a Capitol Police shield during the riot, was separately charged with stealing the police shield and found guilty.

He was also convicted of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers, while the four other defendants were acquitted on that charge.

The judge declared a mistrial in respect of various other counts in the trial upon which the jury did not reach conclusions.

FILE - Rioters, including Dominic Pezzola, center with police shield, are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. A federal jury is scheduled to hear a second day of attorneys... closing arguments in the landmark trial for former Proud Boys extremist group leaders charged with plotting to violently stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election.(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
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Rioters, including Dominic Pezzola (centre) with police shield, inside the Capitol. Pic: AP

How big are the Proud Boys now?

With the next US presidential election barely a year away some are asking if we are likely to see a repeat of the violent scenes of January 6… or another attempt to overturn the result if Mr Trump is not the victor.

Are the Proud Boys still a threat to American democracy?

Their numbers have grown dramatically since 2020, reaching 78 chapters in 2022, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center organisation.

But that may not tell the whole story, as it does not necessarily mean that the number of Proud Boys members has increased, experts say.

“I think many would have expected the Proud Boys to kind of fade away by now,” Colin P Clarke, director of research and an expert on domestic terrorism at the Soufan Group, tells Sky News.

“But there seems to be a real sense of pride in pushing forward with all their different activities, and they’ve positioned themselves as a player in the culture wars more broadly.”

However Colin Beck, a professor at Pomona College and an expert in social movements, said that while the Proud Boys brand may have continued to spread, the amount of support may have decreased.

“There’s now a real cost,” he tells Sky News. “If you go to a Proud Boys event you might end up in jail.

“The US federal government is very good at suppressing protests when it chooses to do so.”

Trump ‘abandoned’ the Proud Boys

Another factor, Katherine Keneally says, is the Proud Boys have in many ways distanced themselves from Mr Trump and feel “betrayed” by him.

She pointed to fears of Proud Boys protests over the indictment of the former president which did not come to pass.

“He wasn’t helping fund their legal efforts. He just sort of abandoned them,” she said. “So there has been this distrust that’s been happening with Trump.”

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Watch US Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s statement here.

Asked about the future, she doubts there will be a repeat of January 6 as Proud Boys are now focussing much more on local action and running for local office.

“I’m not actually worried about the Proud Boys,” Ms Beck says. “In some ways they’re like the has-beens.”

“It’s who the Proud Boys become next…what is the group that emerges?

“Because all the people who are adherents or sympathetic, they don’t go away. They just move on to something else.”

Mr Clarke raised the idea the Proud Boys could act as a “feeder” or “preparatory school” for more extreme groups.

Asked how likely a repeat of the Capitol insurrection is if a Democrat wins in 2024, Mr Clarke said: “We have to learn from January 6 that when these guys say that they’re going to do something, we have to take them seriously and prepare for it.”

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Trump wants to emulate Putin and govern US in ‘a similar fashion’, his former national security adviser says

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Trump wants to emulate Putin and govern US in 'a similar fashion', his former national security adviser says

Donald Trump wants to emulate Vladimir Putin and “govern his own country in a similar fashion”, his former national security adviser has said.

Fiona Hill told Sky News’ The World with Yalda Hakim that the US and Russian presidents both share the same view of the world as being “divided up among three major powers; Russia, the US and China, with very clear spheres of influence”.

She said the two leaders “have shockingly similar world views”.

Ukraine war latest: Trump hits out at Zelenskyy

Pic: Reuters
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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Pic: Reuters

“This is the first time we’ve had a US president who wants to emulate the Russian leader in some way, who wants to create a hyper-personalised presidency, who wants to basically govern his own country in a very similar fashion, very top down without any checks and balances,” she said.

Ms Hill added Mr Trump wants to “regularise, normalise and reset” the relationship between the US and Russia.

“That’s very clear, it’s been clear since the first presidency of Trump,” she said.

“He’s always wanted to sit down with Vladimir Putin and sort out all of the difficulties in the bilateral relationship, everything from nuclear issues and nuclear arms reduction – there’s all kinds of economic and business deals that Trump himself and his immediate circle are very interested in.

“That was not the direction of travel of other US presidents. So in actual fact there’s probably more chance under Trump of a close relationship between the US and Putin.”

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Ms Hill said Mr Trump has an interest in forging a “personal relationship” beyond what he already has with Mr Putin.

“He wants to extricate the United States from its support for Ukraine, he’s said that very clearly,” she said.

“He also wants to pull back from the underpinning of European security and get the Europeans to pick up not just support for Ukraine, but also much more involvement and much more in-depth payment for all of their own security, that’s also very clear.

“So there is a strategic perspective there and I think part of the US strategy and the Trump administration strategy is to push the Europeans to go off essentially on their owns in terms of framing what they want in European security and making it very clear to the Ukrainians that they can’t expect much more future support from the United States.”

It comes as Mr Trump claimed a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine is “very close”.

Hours after US secretary of state Marco Rubio withdrew from high-level talks in London aimed at ending the conflict, the American president heaped pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “get it done”.

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Depth of Trump’s frustration revealed in comments on Zelenskyy – and there was one notable absence in his Truth Social post

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Depth of Trump's frustration revealed in comments on Zelenskyy - and there was one notable absence in his Truth Social post

The White House is desperate for a breakthrough.

Donald Trump vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of assuming office.

This is day 94 of his second presidency.

Ukraine war latest: ‘We are very close to deal’, Trump claims

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Ukraine war Q&A: Could Trump walk away?

Last Friday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that America was ready to “move on” if there wasn’t a deal soon.

If that comment, reinforced by President Trump, was designed to put pressure on Ukraine, it didn’t have the desired effect.

That became clear when Rubio pulled out of peace negotiations in London, a summit downgraded to technical talks.

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It’s not that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy won’t back down, it’s that he can’t.

The US plan to recognise Russia‘s claim to Ukrainian territory it has seized effectively legitimises Moscow’s decision to invade.

To concede that would be a breach of Ukraine’s constitution.

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Ukraine has not hinted at recognising Crimea as Russian ‘for even a day’

The country’s economy minister Yuliia Svyrydenko says they’re “ready to negotiate, not ready to surrender”.

US vice president JD Vance has now stepped into Marco Rubio’s shoes, warning that America will “walk away” if there isn’t a “yes” from both sides.

But President Trump is only talking about one side: Ukraine.

The absence of any reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his lengthy post online will not have gone unnoticed.

He claimed no one was asking Zelenskyy to recognise Crimea as Russian, but contradicted that by asking why Ukraine hadn’t fought for Crimea 11 years ago.

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President Trump blamed the loss of Crimea on one of his predecessors, his reference to “President Barack Hussein Obama” revealing the depth of his frustration.

He claims he is “very close” to a deal, but the signals from Washington, London, Moscow and Kyiv suggest otherwise.

Right now, it feels like he’s much closer to throwing in the towel and throwing Zelenskyy under the bus. Again.

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Trade war: Stock markets rally as Trump rows back on Fed and China threats

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Trade war: Stock markets rally as Trump rows back on Fed and China threats

Global stock markets and the dollar have rallied on hopes of two significant climbdowns by the Trump administration on issues blamed for a slump in values.

Remarks by the US Treasury secretary on punitive tariffs against China lifted the mood on Wall Street initially before the president himself moved to calm market trade war worries and also end speculation he could fire the head of the country’s central bank.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and tech-focused Nasdaq Composite both ended Tuesday trading 2.7% up, erasing losses of the previous day.

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Asian markets later followed that lead, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gaining 2.4%.

European indices also saw a strong opening, with the FTSE 100 up by more than 1.2%. It was led higher by Asia-focused banks HSBC and Standard Chartered.

US futures suggested Wall Street would pick up where it left off, with further strong gains expected.

More on Tariffs

The US dollar – badly hit by trade war implications in recent weeks – was at least a cent higher than a day earlier against many rival currencies including the pound.

The rally gathered steam on Tuesday evening when US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told a private JPMorgan event that he expected a “de-escalation” in the spiralling spat with China.

It’s a fight that has seen US tariffs hit 145% and China responding with duties of 125%.

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Trump: Tariffs are making US ‘rich’

According to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press news agency, he told the audience: “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable”, but he added that peace talks were yet to start in earnest and could take time to bear fruit.

His boss later struck a similar tone in remarks to reporters when he said the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%.

“It won’t be that high, not going to be that high,” Mr Trump said, adding: “We’re doing fine with China… we’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together.”

He gave no hint that he plans to ease wider tariffs on trading partners, including the UK which is currently subject to 25% tariffs on car, steel and aluminium imports and a wider 10% “baseline” tariff.

But the president did row back on an apparent threat, made last week, to sack the chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell in revenge for the US central bank holding off on interest rate cuts that could provide some stimulus to the tariff-hit economy.

Mr Powell has said the Trump administration’s protectionist policies have created uncertainty over growth and the threat of higher inflation.

The president has dismissed those arguments but told reporters: “I have no intention of firing him”.

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell speaks at the DealBook Summit in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell was nominated for the role by Donald Trump in 2017. File pic: AP

His comments were widely seen as an attempt to calm financial market concerns that the independence of the country’s central bank was under threat.

Analysts cautioned there was a long way to go to recover values seen before the start of the trade war, with the Nasdaq remaining almost 16% down in the year to date alone.

US government borrowing costs also remain elevated.

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What IMF said about the UK economy

Not helping sentiment were big downgrades to global growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday.

Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said of the investor mood: “Participants understandably remain jittery, not only as the haven value of both Treasuries and the USD (US dollar) continue to be called into question, but also as a huge degree of trade uncertainty continues to linger.

“As a reminder, the whole concept of ’90 deals in 90 days’ is currently running at ‘0 deals in 14 days’ which, to be frank, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.”

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