Prosecutor: Proud Boys attacked 'heart' of democracy on 1/6

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants charged with seditious conspiracy in the Capitol attack “took aim at the heart of our democracy” on Jan. 6, 2021, a federal prosecutor told jurors on Thursday as their high-profile trial opened in Washington.

Jurors began hearing attorneys’ opening statements more than two years after members of the far-right extremist group joined a pro-Donald Trump mob in attacking the Capitol.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough said the Proud Boys knew that the prospects of a second term in office for Trump were quickly fading as Jan. 6 approached. So the group leaders assembled a “fighting force” to stop the transfer of power to Joe Biden, McCullough said. Tarrio saw a Biden presidency as a “threat to the Proud Boys’ existence," the prosecutor said.

“These men did not stand back. They did not stand by. Instead, they mobilized,” McCullough told jurors, invoking the words of Trump when he infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 presidential debate with Biden.

The trial comes on the heels of the seditious conspiracy convictions of two leaders of the Oath Keepers, another far-right extremist group. Several other Oath Keepers members were charged with plotting to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump, a Republican, to Biden, a Democrat.

The case against Tarrio and his four associates is one of the most consequential to emerge from the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The trial will provide an in-depth look at a group that has become an influential force in mainstream Republican politics.

Defense lawyers have said there was never any plan to go into the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of the electoral vote won by Biden. And they have accused...