Prosecutors Deny DOJ Planted Evidence on Enrique Tarrio to Frame Him, Other Proud Boys Defendants

Then-chairman of the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio (L), looks on while counter-protesting near the Torch of Friendship, where people gathered to remember George Floyd on the one-year anniversary of his death, on May 25, 2021. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

Federal prosecutors have denied planting manufactured evidence on Enrique Tarrio to frame him and other Proud Boys defendants for alleged Jan. 6 crimes, saying that assertions made by the defense counsel are “simply incorrect.”

“The government robustly agrees with defendant [Dominic] Pezzola that it would have been egregiously improper for a member of the U.S. intelligence community to have conducted a domestic intelligence operation targeting Enrique Tarrio, a U.S. person, and providing him with a plan to ‘storm’ (or ‘occupy’ or ‘sit in’) House and Senate office buildings on January 6,” the U.S. Department of Justice wrote in a court filing late on Feb. 13.

“Defendant Pezzola’s allegation that ‘new information reveals that the ”1776 Returns“ document were (sic) authored by the government itself’ is simply incorrect.”

Charged in the case are Tarrio, Pezzola, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, and Joseph Biggs. The Proud Boys defendants, on trial in the U.S. District Court in Washington, are accused of seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct official proceedings, obstruction of official proceedings, and conspiracy to prevent certain federal officers from performing their duties at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Tarrio, Rehl, Nordean, and Biggs face nine criminal counts, and Pezzola is charged with 10.

Did Girlfriend Set Up Tarrio?

Defense attorney Roger Roots wrote that a “damning” document titled “1776 Returns” was authored by a member of the U.S. intelligence community and passed on to former Proud Boys chairman Tarrio by Erika Flores, an “erstwhile romantic interest” of Tarrio’s.

The document—which prosecutors contend is a blueprint for the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol—was written in part or in whole by Samuel Armes, a man who, while in college, was “groomed” to work at the FBI and CIA, Roots asserted in his motion.

Armes told the now-defunct House Jan. 6 Select Committee that he has done work for the U.S. State Department and the Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Florida.

Roots asked U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly to hold an evidentiary hearing on the “1776 Returns” document and, if his allegations were substantiated, declare a mistrial with prejudice.

Department of Justice attorney Jocelyn Ballantine said Armes is not part of the intelligence community but runs a blockchain association based in Florida.

Counter-protesters wearing the yellow and black colors and insignia of the Proud Boys gather outside the National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meeting at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, on May 28, 2022. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

“Armes denied drafting the ‘1776 Returns’ document,” Ballantine wrote. “He testified in both instances that he recognized certain aspects of the document from a ‘wargaming’ exercise he had done to consider what would happen if a president refused to leave the White House and there was just ‘mad chaos in the streets because no one knows whose [sic] in charge.’”

Armes testified before the House Jan. 6 Committee in July 2022 and before a federal grand jury in October 2022.

Kelly ruled the document admissible in December 2022. He has not yet ruled on Roots’s motion for an evidentiary hearing.

“Indeed, Armes specifically testified that he was ‘horrified’ by the document because someone had taken his ideas and turned them into a tactical plan with form and structure that advocated storming the Capitol,” Ballantine wrote.

Flores told the Jan. 6 Committee that Armes wrote “1776 Returns,” but Armes denied the allegation, claiming Flores was “blame-shifting.”

Ballantine wrote that when subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in October 2022, Flores invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination “in response to more than 50 transcript pages worth of questions by the government about the ‘1776 Returns’ document.”