Tag Archives: Proud Boys

Exclusive-Senate pushes FBI on intelligence “fail” on the Proud Boys

By Aram Roston

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee chair is pressing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to explain how it failed to anticipate the violence of Jan. 6, despite having contact with several members of the far right Proud Boys in the months before the insurrection.

On Monday, the committee chair, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, wrote to FBI director Christopher Wray asking whether the agency had adequately pushed its sources in the extremist group to understand their plans before the Capitol attack that sought to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president.

Durbin’s letter came after Reuters reported last week that the FBI had received information from at least four sources in the Proud Boys over the years since 2019. The Judiciary Committee has oversight of the FBI.

“Given the FBI’s apparent relationship with Proud Boys sources,” the Illinois senator asked Wray, “why did the FBI fail to detect the threat that the Proud Boys and other similar militia violent extremists posed to the Capitol on January 6?”

The FBI did not immediately respond Monday to questions about the letter.

In court filings, prosecutors have described the Proud Boys as among the instigators of the fatal riot on Jan. 6, in which extremists sought to keep Donald Trump in office despite his electoral defeat. At least 18 Proud Boys have been arrested on charges ranging from conspiracy to assaulting police officers. At least six others associated with or accompanying the group have been charged.

As Reuters reported last week, Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs declined to discuss his plans for Jan. 6 when the news agency interviewed him two days before the Capitol riot. But he said he would have told an FBI agent he knew, if he’d been asked.

Citing that report, Durbin asked Wray: “Did the FBI ask its Proud Boys sources for their plans for January 6? If not, why not?”

Biggs has said in court filings that he frequently reported information to the FBI about “Antifa,” a left-wing movement criticized by Trump and his followers. Biggs is now charged with conspiracy in the riot. He is appealing a judge’s ruling that he be detained until trial.

Proud Boys leaders maintain they never spoke with the FBI about the group itself. Instead, they say, they often shared information about Antifa members or, in other cases, told the federal agency about routes for planned marches.

Even before Jan. 6, the Proud Boys had become a well-known right-wing group that calls itself “Western chauvinist” and often engages in street fighting and violence.

(Reporting by Aram Roston in Washington. Editing by Ronnie Greene)

Proud Boys member among the latest in wave of arrests over Capitol riots

By Sarah N. Lynch and Brad Heath

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The FBI on Wednesday arrested a Florida-based member of the right-wing Proud Boys group for his alleged role in breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the Justice Department said.

Joseph Randall Biggs, 37, is due to make his initial appearance in a federal court in Orlando on charges of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding before Congress, unlawful entry, and disorderly conduct.

He is the latest person in a growing number of people with ties to the Proud Boys to face charges surrounding the attack.

According to the criminal complaint, the FBI said Biggs actively encouraged members to travel to Washington, D.C., and communicated directly with the group’s leader Enrique Tarrio. Tarrio was arrested prior to the riots on charges of destruction of property and possession of a firearm magazine.

The FBI said that Biggs and fellow Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola can be seen in video footage entering the Capitol, with Pezzola breaking a window. Later, Biggs tells the camera “this is awesome,” according to the complaint.

Pezzola, who was arrested on Jan. 15, also faces charges.

More than 100 people have been arrested so far in connection with the Capitol riots, a figure prosecutors expect will grow significantly as the FBI continues to analyze more than 200,000 photos and videos.

On Tuesday, prosecutors alleged that three members of the Oath Keepers militia had conspired to breach the Capitol, and released text messages which made reference to trapping members of Congress in the tunnels beneath the Capitol and gassing them.

Prosecutors are also focused on tracking down people who assaulted police or members of the press.

Patrick Edward McCaughey III, who was pictured in a video in which a Washington, D.C., police officer was pinned with a riot shield, is due in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday on charges of assaulting police.

McCaughey can be heard in the video telling officers to not resist the rioters, according to the criminal complaint.

“You see me. Just go home. Talk to your buddies and go home,” he allegedly said.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Brad Heath; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Police debunk social media misinformation linking Oregon wildfires to activists

By Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters) – Several Oregon police departments have aimed to debunk misinformation spreading on social media platforms this week, including Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc, blaming leftist and right-wing groups for wildfires raging in the state.

“Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON,” read a Facebook post from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon on Thursday. “THIS IS NOT TRUE!”

PolitiFact, one of Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners, wrote on Thursday on its website that dozens of posts blaming Antifa for the wildfires had been flagged by the social media company’s systems, and that collectively the posts had been shared thousands of times.

Antifa, which stands for anti-fascist, is a largely unstructured, far-left movement whose followers broadly aim to confront those they view as authoritarian or racist. U.S. President Donald Trump and some fellow Republicans have in recent months sought to blame the movement for violence at anti-racism protests, but have presented little evidence.

A Wednesday tweet from a self-described representative for conservative youth group Turning Point USA, which has been shared about 2,900 times, said the fires were “allegedly linked to Antifa and the Riots.”

Around half a million people in Oregon evacuated as dozens of extreme, wind-driven wildfires scorched the U.S. West Coast states on Friday, destroying hundreds of homes and killing at least 16 people, state and local authorities said.

Earlier this week, Medford police in Oregon also debunked a false post using the police department’s logo and name suggesting that five members of the Proud Boys had been arrested for arson.

The men-only, far-right Proud Boys group describes itself as a fraternal club of “Western chauvinists.”

“This is a made up graphic and story. We did not arrest this person for arson, nor anyone affiliated with Antifa or ‘Proud Boys’ as we’ve heard throughout the day,” the police department wrote in a Facebook post.

The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon also posted on Thursday: “We are inundated with questions about things that are FAKE stories. One example is a story circulating that varies about what group is involved as to setting fires and arrests being made.”

Climate scientists say global warming has contributed to greater extremes in wet and dry seasons, causing vegetation to flourish and then dry out in the U.S. West, creating fuel for fires.

Police have opened a criminal arson investigation into at least one Oregon blaze, the Almeda Fire, Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara said.

A Facebook spokeswoman said it had attached warning labels and reduced the distribution of posts about fires’ origins that were rated false by its fact-checking partners.

A Twitter spokeswoman said it did not seem that the rumors violated the social media site’s rules, saying in a statement: “As we have said before we will not be able to take enforcement action on every Tweet that contains incomplete or disputed information.”

(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in Birmingham, England, additional reporting by Katie Paul in San Francisco; Editing by Tom Brown)