The first Proud Boys leader accused of seditious conspiracy to testify in his own defense said he and other members of the far-right group were just following the “rowdy” crowd that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and they had no plan to disrupt Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 election.
“I wasn’t in the position of telling anybody else what to do,” said Zachary Rehl, 37, who led the Proud Boys’ Philadelphia chapter until his arrest. “I think what ultimately unfolded, all the violence, was a disgrace.”
Over weeks of trial, prosecutors have highlighted how close Rehl and other members of the far-right group were to the violence on Jan. 6. Along with former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and others, Rehl is accused of mobilizing the crowd to attack the Capitol as part of a seditious plot to keep Donald Trump in power after his electoral loss to Joe Biden. Rehl had been put in charge of organization for the Proud Boys’ “Ministry of Self Defense” or MOSD, which the Justice Department alleges was an ironic title for a force that fomented violence.
Speaking in rapid, emphatic bursts, Rehl testified Wednesday that there was no plan for Jan. 6 beyond trying not to get hurt. At an earlier rally in D.C. in December, four Proud Boys were stabbed in a street fight.
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“All there was going to be was a march, which is all we ever do,” Rehl said. “The purpose of the MOSD was to reduce violence, protect our members, and that’s it.” Rehl said he told other Proud Boys to use handheld radios on Jan. 6, because the devices helped save the life of one of his chapter members who suffered a heart attack at the December rally: “There was nothing nefarious about it.”
He cast as “ridiculous” the testimony of Jeremy Bertino, another leader in the group, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and testified that the Proud Boys came to D.C. with the understanding “that we had to do anything that was necessary to save the country.”
Bertino was “the aggressor” in the December incident, Rehl said, and “that’s the kind of behavior we were trying to prevent.”
Rehl was in various text chats where Proud Boys, including Tarrio, discussed the possibility of taking the Capitol building. He said he did not read all those messages, never spoke to Tarrio on Jan. 6 and never saw a “1776” document prosecutors describe as evidence of Tarrio’s plan for occupying the government.
Rehl marched with scores of other Proud Boys to the Capitol complex on Jan. 6, led by co-defendants Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs. They arrived just before protesters broke down bike rack barriers and swarmed police. But rather than provoking the mayhem, as prosecutors argued, Rehl said the Proud Boys were joining an already-agitated crowd.
“That crowd was really rowdy,” Rehl testified. He said when he saw people shaking the barricades, he assumed they were waiting for a legal protest on the grounds to begin: “At the time what was going through my head is, ‘these people must know where these stages are.’”
He said he followed the crowd toward the building “to investigate” but couldn’t see much of what was happening or even what he recorded by holding up his cellphone. “I saw a couple of scuffles,” he said, “nothing out of the ordinary for a big protest.”
Prosecutors say the video recorded Rehl saying, “F— them, storm the Capitol.” Rehl has denied saying that, and his wife testified that it did not sound like him.
Rehl testified that he separated from Nordean and Biggs by 1:18 p.m. — nearly an hour before the building was breached — and did not see the pair again until a month before trial. He said he didn’t know Dominic Pezzola, the final defendant at this trial, and didn’t see him break a window to the building. Pezzola is also expected to testify in his own defense.
While all of them went into the Capitol building, Rehl said he only did so when he knew lawmakers were gone.
“I didn’t want anything to affect the proceeding going on inside. I wanted the legal process to play out. It’s the process our country was founded on,” he testified. Once the building was evacuated, he said, “I thought it was fair game to go in.”
Prosecutors will not cross-examine Rehl until trial resumes next week, giving him a chance to try to explain some comments that appear to be endorsing the violent Capitol occupation.
On Jan. 7, according to evidence at trial, Rehl said protesters should have refused to leave the building without a vote to reopen the 2020 presidential election.
“I was hung over, my anxiety was high,” he testified in defense of the message. “I vented a bit, I said a lot of ‘shoulda coulda woulda’ crap.”
He said when he “chilled out a little bit,” he told others to accept Biden’s victory while adding that he was “proud … of what we accomplished.”
He testified that he meant the protest, not the riot.