The leader of the Capitol looting: “Trump has returned my life”

Tarrio is not just one more assistant in the event, he is treated as all A rising star Within this new order where those convicted of sedition are treated as battered patriots. “Trump has returned my life,” he says. He jokes: “We have entered the multiverse, what you see is no longer the extreme right.”

They do not run away from justice or hidden between enraged crowds. They return emboldened, rehabilitated by the president, acclaimed by a part of the movement that made them martyrs.

Indults and released, walk free through the capital and, far from showing regret, celebrate their return as a victory. The president even acclaimed them in the closing speech of this Congress, between cheers. “They were hostages, just because they protested against rigged elections,” said the president.

What was previously a crime is presented as heroism. Disputed for three years, convicted of sedicious conspiracy, crossed out of extremists by the court January 6, 2021.

Hours after his return to Washington, Tarrio was arrested again. This time, for allegedly assaulting a woman who recorded him in front of the Capitol. “It’s nothing more than an idiot,” Tarrio tells ABC, dismissing the incident. “I was harassing me.”

There are no apologies, there are no signals from Mable. Tarrio, the man who fulfilled a sentence of almost 22 years for having orchestrated the incursion to Congress, again challenges the limits of the law, knowing that, in this new context, his role as antagonist gives him even more relevance. The Prosecutor’s Office showed that he had tried to torpedo American democracy.

According to the fact that he was prosecutor for the district of Columbia, Matthew M. Graves: «The leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who conspired before, during and after the siege of the Capitol to use the force against their own government and avoid The peaceful transfer of power have now been responsible ».

Although Washington did not stepped on January 6, prosecutors showed that Tarrio was the brain of the operation, the man who, from a distance, directed his followers in an attack designed to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory. Justice considered it a threat to democracy. Trump, on the other hand, has become a resistance symbol.

“I owe life to the president,” says Tarrio about the former president. “Having recovered it.” His loyalty to Trump is now unwavering. He does not hide his gratitude, nor does he hide his conviction that his release is proof that history will prove him right.

“I have not yet been able to catch up with all its decrees, but surely I am doing very well, better than we expect,” he says with a smile, clearly enjoying his rehabilitation.

Washington, the city of which it was expelled after burning a flag of the Black Lives Matter racial movement, is its stage again. Advanza with a firm step between the halls of this CPAC Congresssurrounded by followers and journalists, posing for photos, smiling behind their glasses, shaking hands like a candidate in a kind of political campaign.

The change is evident: Before a sentence for sedition, today a flag bearer of the new Trumpist wave. When Trump spoke from the stage, he smiled, without detaching himself from his sunglasses.

A few meters from him, another emblematic figure of January 6: Stewart Rhodes, Founder of the Oath Keepers. His 18 -year -old sentence also prevented his return. Prosecutors showed that Rhodes coordinated an armed plan to take the Capitol, establishing weapons deposits and deploying their militia with tactical equipment. Although he did not enter the building, his role as organizer of the revolt was key to his sentence. It refuses to make statements, only poses for photos with fans.

With his black felt hat and his patch in the left eye, Rhodes does not need a presentation. His image is iconic within the movement. Like Tarrio, he has been pardoned by Trump. Like Tarrio, his criminal past has been erased by a single gesture of the former president. And like Tarrio, he returns to Washington without fear, or apologies.

The consensus on January 6 has exploded in pieces. What in 2021 was clearly an act of insurrection, today is celebrated by a part of the conservative movement as an act of resistance. Trump has given a blow of effect with his massive pardons, eliminating the sentences of more than 1,600 people from a stroke, including the most visible faces of the assault on the Capitol.

Five dead. Three police officers who committed suicide after the facts. More than 140 wounded agents. For many, on January 6 it was an attack against democracy. For the pardons, it was a great operation of the deep state to catch them, something they maintain without evidence.

They have gone from being criminals to political figuresof fugitive to symbols of a cause that has found in Trump its greatest benefactor. They deny the insurrection. They deny violence. They claim that they were victims of political persecution, they are sold as martyrs of a system that, they say, wanted to silence them.

They reject the label of extremists. «The Proud Boys make the best men. Best brothers, better husbands, best neighbors, best children. That’s it, ”says Tarrio naturally. In practice, his group rejects diversity policies, fights feminism and defends an unrestricted right to possession of weapons.

Washington is its territory again. This time, not with the shadow of a conviction about his heads, but with the protection of Trump, who has decided to return this prominence, taking them out of prison. The history of January 6 has been rewritten, from the oval office. The insurgents walk free, and in their version of the facts, they were not the attackers. They were persecuted. And now, according to them, they have won.