Two days after being released from a federal jail after President Donald Trump granted him and more than 1,500 of the Jan. 6 rioters clemency, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarriore came home to Miami on Wednesday.
Following his landing, Tarrio was met by his loved ones, friends, and a horde of reporters while sporting a black “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.
Tarrio remarked, “I think I love my family,” before being driven out in a black SUV.
At Dallas Love Field Airport, Tarrio informed reporters prior to his trip that his conviction for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, was a “miscarriage of justice.”
He told a CBS News reporter, “I wouldn’t have been in a position where I needed a pardon if we would have had a fair trial.”
Despite not being in Washington at the time of the attack, Tarrio received the heaviest Jan. 6 sentence of 22 years in jail after being found guilty of seditious conspiracy in May 2023 along with four other members of the far-right group.
After being detained and told to avoid the capital, Tarrio was found guilty of coordinating and directing members of the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol in order to stop Joe Biden’s election as president from being certified.
On the fourth anniversary of the attack, his attorney, Nayib Hassan, wrote to Trump earlier this month requesting a total and unconditional presidential pardon.
Hassan described 42-year-old Tarrio as a young guy with a bright future who was depicted as a right-wing extremist who supported a militant neo-fascist group throughout the Government’s case.
Hassan, meanwhile, asserts that Tarrio is merely a proud American who upholds genuine conservative principles.
In addition to calling the rioters hostages, Trump, who has persisted in making unfounded allegations that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, had made pardoning them a central campaign topic.
Additionally, Trump commuted the sentences of members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were found guilty of seditious conspiracy, one of his first actions as president.
Following that, Trump granted unconditional, full, and complete pardons to everyone else found guilty of crimes connected to the January 6, 2021, events at or around the US Capitol.
Among them were those who attacked law enforcement personnel.
Following his pardon, Tarrio was freed late Monday from FCI Pollock, a medium-security federal prison in Louisiana, according to his family. The reason it took him two days to return home was not immediately apparent.