FBI may have had up to 8 informants in Proud Boys around the time of the January 6 riot, The New York Times reported
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
- Five Proud Boys members, including its leader, were charged with seditious conspiracy by the DOJ.
- Their lawyers are asking to dismiss the charges based on information produced by the government.
- NYT reports that some of the information had to do with FBI informants planted inside Proud Boys.
The FBI may have had up to eight informants inside the far-right Proud Boys organization around the time of the Capitol riot, court papers suggest along with a New York Times report.
Defense lawyers for five members of the Proud Boys who face seditious conspiracy charges related to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, filed a motion last week to dismiss their indictment or delay the trial.
In court documents, the lawyers argued that hundreds of pages of records that were withheld by the government until recently pose information that may be "exculpatory" for their clients.
The New York Times reported that the filings suggest that the FBI may have had up to eight informants inside the organization and that the defense lawyers are arguing that some of the information those sources provided to the government could be helpful to fight their clients' sedition charges.
The Justice Department indicted former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola. Their trial is set for December 12.
Insider could not immediately verify the suggestions regarding FBI informants in court documents filed in the past few days by the defense lawyers.
In one filing, attorney David B. Smith, who represents Nordean, said that the government's decision to produce records "material to the defense" earlier this month does not provide sufficient time to review the records and interview "relevant witnesses (perhaps eight of them or more)" before his client's December 12 trial.
Smith and J. Daniel Hull, an attorney for Biggs did not respond to a request for comment.
The Times previously reported that a member of the Proud Boys was working as an FBI informant and that the source was present at the Capitol during the riot.
According to the report, the informant met with the Proud Boys on the morning of January 6, 2021, and sent his FBI handler live updates by text message as protestors breached the Capitol building.
There's no evidence that the FBI played a role in the attack, but many Republicans and conservative pundits, including Tucker Carlson, spread a theory that federal agents had a hand in inciting the violence at the Capitol.
With the cache of material made available to the defense, lawyers for the Proud Boys also now argue "increasing doubtfulness and high unlikelihood" of a conspiracy to obstruct the 2020 vote certification or to commit sedition by their clients, according to court documents.