Disgraced Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz defended the Proud Boys and the extremist shithole militia group’s former leader Enrique Tarrio, who was just granted clemency by Donald, along with 1,500 lawbreakers. When Donald unleashed pardons for members of the neo-fascist militant organization, it’s almost as if he sent them a ‘stand back but stand by’ message again.
Unsurprisingly, Gaetz used a segment on his OAN show to defend the radical group, even though Tarrio celebrated his release from prison on Tuesday by calling into conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show and calling for retribution. Who does he want to retaliate against — the jury of his peers who found him guilty of seditious conspiracy, thus leading to his 22-year sentence?
Gaetz is trying to sanewash the Proud Boys.
“The Proud Boys. You’ve probably heard the media describe this organization as militants, insurrectionists, and dangerous,” Gaetz said, Media Matters reports. “I’ve met a few Proud Boys, and they mostly seem like a lonely group of young men who sought association with fellow misfits and rejected social mores.”
“Not all, but most. Every group of humans that reaches a certain size probably has some bad people, among them, even Congress or the Catholic Church,” he added. “More on both of those organizations later in the show. The Proud Boys, though. They even took center stage in a presidential debate.”
Yeah, that part where they took center stage at a presidential debate is a big problem. It wasn’t just Tarrio, but Proud Boys members Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl were convicted of seditious conspiracy — a plot to oppose the government with force — under a Civil War-era law. But Gaetz paints them in a sweet picture, petting dogs while just hanging out with “a lonely group of men.”
