As the testimony of Jeremy Bertino, the government\u2019s star witness in the Proud Boys sedition trial, came to an end this week, there was a moment that crystallized the challenges the prosecution has faced throughout the marathon proceeding.<\/p>\n
For five days, Mr. Bertino \u2014 a former Proud Boy from North Carolina \u2014 told the jury how the far-right group fell into a kind of collective panic after the 2020 election and ultimately sought to keep Joseph R. Biden Jr. from taking power by serving as the \u201ctip of the spear\u201d in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday evening, prosecutors sought to punctuate his testimony by asking his final thoughts on the chief allegation in the case: that the five Proud Boys on trial had reached an agreement to use physical force to stop the transfer of presidential power.<\/p>\n
Over the course of several questions, Mr. Bertino \u2014 who was at home in North Carolina on the day of the attack \u2014 acknowledged that he was never privy to the Proud Boys\u2019 plans for Jan. 6. And yet he said he knew the group\u2019s objective: to stop Mr. Biden from becoming president. He arrived at this conclusion, he went on, not through any specific dealings with his compatriots, but rather through \u201ccumulative conversations\u201d leading up to the attack.<\/p>\n
While the answers he provided were some of the best evidence the government had introduced in nearly seven weeks of trial, they were also an unusual description of a criminal conspiracy. Immediately raising an objection, Norm Pattis, one of the defense lawyers in the case, called the amorphous agreement described by Mr. Bertino \u201ca neo-Freudian kind of unconscious\u201d version of conspiracy.<\/p>\n
Mr. Bertino\u2019s time on the stand provided the jury with several things, including a primer on the uniquely violent culture of the Proud Boys. But it also underscored what will surely emerge as the most important question in the case: Can the prosecution prove that the defendants \u2014 Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola \u2014 reached an agreement to violently disrupt the election certification that was taking place inside the Capitol on Jan. 6?<\/p>\n
The trial, in Federal District Court in Washington, began in January as federal prosecutors accused Mr. Tarrio, who once led the Proud Boys, and the other four defendants of launching an attack against \u201cthe heart of our democracy\u201d\u2014 the lawful transfer of presidential power. The defense has argued all along that there is little or no evidence that the five men conspired to do anything, let alone to stop lawmakers from certifying the results of the election.<\/p>\n
Long before the trial began, prosecutors understood that they were going to have to get somewhat creative in proving a conspiracy. That is because despite the vast amount of evidence the government collected in the case \u2014 including more than 500,000 encrypted text messages \u2014 investigators never found a smoking gun that conclusively showed the Proud Boys plotted to help President Donald J. Trump remain in office.<\/p>\n
Instead, the prosecution found Mr. Bertino, a bald and bearded former Proud Boy and the only member of the group so far who has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges and is cooperating with prosecutors in the hopes of getting a lighter sentence. By interpreting the messages for the jury and by offering his insights on the Proud Boys, Mr. Bertino helped make an inferential case that the five defendants worked together to violently subvert the democratic process.<\/p>\n
He testified that the Proud Boys\u2019 culture of violence and increasing desperation after the election came together with cataclysmic results. Even if there were no explicit orders to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, he said, members of the group felt there was an implicit agreement to band together that day and to take the lead in stopping Mr. Biden from entering the White House.<\/p>\n
How Times reporters cover politics.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI expected them to save the country by any means necessary, up to and including violence,\u201d Mr. Bertino said.<\/p>\n The prosecution used a similar strategy at the trial of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, who was convicted of sedition in November along with one of his top lieutenants. Even though the government\u2019s witnesses repeatedly testified that the Oath Keepers had no plan to storm the Capitol, prosecutors convinced the jury that Mr. Rhodes reached an unspoken agreement with his co-defendants in launching the attack.<\/p>\n In some respects, the evidence against the Proud Boys has been stronger than it was against the Oath Keepers.<\/p>\n Early in his testimony, Mr. Bertino told the jury that physical violence was baked into the fabric of the Proud Boys, describing how the group would often provoke its adversaries into acts of aggression and then retaliate and claim the moral high ground.<\/p>\n He also said that as Mr. Biden\u2019s victory moved closer toward its final certification, the group\u2019s top leaders were increasingly concerned that \u201ctime was running out to save the country.\u201d The Proud Boys, he explained, would have to take the lead in galvanizing Mr. Trump\u2019s supporters into carrying out what he described as an \u201call-out revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n On Jan. 6 itself, Mr. Bertino \u2014 recovering from stab wounds suffered during an earlier pro-Trump rally \u2014 was frenetically swapping texts with Mr. Tarrio while a mob overran the Capitol with the Proud Boys in the lead. Mr. Bertino expressed both pride and amazement to Mr. Tarrio, openly hoping that the rioters would track down Speaker Nancy Pelosi.<\/p>\n \u201cBrother, You know we made this happen,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI\u2019m so proud of my country today.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know,\u201d Mr. Tarrio responded.<\/p>\n But Mr. Bertino was far from an ideal prosecution witness. On cross-examination, the defense revealed that in previous interviews with the government, he repeatedly told investigators that the Proud Boys never had an explicit plan to stop the election certification and that he himself never fully expected violence to erupt on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n Under follow-up questions from the government, Mr. Bertino sought to explain his earlier statements by saying he was lying at the time and was seeking \u201cto protect myself and protect everyone else from getting in any trouble.\u201d At first, he told the jury, he was \u201ctrying to shape things so we looked innocent\u201d and wanted to bolster \u201cthe narrative\u201d that the Capitol attack \u201cwas all spontaneous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what we were putting out to everyone,\u201d he said. \u201cBut looking back at it, I know that\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n The truth, he finally claimed, was that Mr. Tarrio often played things close to the vest, so it was not surprising that lower-level Proud Boys like him were unaware of what the group\u2019s top leaders had been planning.<\/p>\n He also said he believed that he and the defendants had in fact entered into an agreement \u2014 albeit an implicit one \u2014 to forcefully stop the certification of the election.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was common knowledge that if everything else failed, there was no other option than to go into a civil war, a revolution,\u201d Mr. Bertino said. \u201cThis was a common topic of conversation in all of the chats I was in.\u201d<\/p>\n