Proud Boys leader joins Trump fans to watch him visit golf course on Presidents Day

Posted by author February 18, 2025 Golf

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A pardoned seditionist and leader of a group that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 joined fellow Donald Trump supporters Monday across the street from the president’s golf course on Summit Boulevard, waiting at the main Palm Beach County library to catch sight of him.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, 41, a leader of the Proud Boys, gave interviews to news outlets Monday afternoon and hung out with fellow Proud Boys leaders who had also been convicted on insurrection charges against the U.S. government due to their involvement before and during the Jan. 6 attack. Trump on Jan. 20 pardoned Tarrio and at least two other Proud Boys members, Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs, who also attended the Monday afternoon Trump rally.

As Trump’s motorcade approached before 3 p.m., Secret Service patted down and waved attendees, including the Proud Boys, with metal-detecting wands, and did not find weapons. The dozens of Trump supporters at the rally in the library’s yard ate hot dogs and potato chips, which they said the president supplied, while he golfed, far out of view.

They waited for hours to catch a glimpse of him. As Trump’s SUV pulled onto the Trump International Golf Club driveway, the SUV stopped, he got out and waved, giving thumbs up to his supporters.

The day he was released from federal prison, Tarrio said in a news interview, “was the end of tyranny for me and for everybody standing here.” Tarrio was sentenced in September 2023 to 22 years for his part in the plot to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a violent attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Nordean got 18 years, and Biggs, 17.

Nordean and Biggs marched on the Capitol, leading a group of about 200 people, eventually breaking past police barricades, invading the building and threatening members of Congress as they voted to certify Biden’s electoral victory.

Tarrio wasn’t at Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; he’d already been arrested

Tarrio cheered them on from afar, prosecutors said, commanding Proud Boys to “Do what must be done” as they attacked. He had been arrested two days prior on charges of burning a church’s Black Lives Matter banner. A judge barred him from entering Washington, D.C., except to go to court or meet with his lawyer.

Pro-Trump rioters assaulted more than 100 Capitol Hill officers. One who was trampled later died from her injuries. Four others died by suicide in the months following the attack.

When asked at the Monday rally what his group will do next, Tarrio responded, “You can look back at the things we’ve done in the previous eight years, and that will tell you what is up for the future of the Proud Boys.”

Before Jan. 6, Proud Boys’ members had been arrested and convicted of attacking, harassing or threatening civilians or political groups they disagreed with.

The organization raised money for a Trump supporter who was arrested on charges of beating an anti-Trump protester at a February 2017 rally for the president. Proud Boys members were arrested in October 2018 after getting in a fight with anti-Trump protesters outside the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan.

Tarrio: Proud Boys want better men, fathers

Proud Boys members were arrested and convicted in the summer and fall of 2020 on charges of beating Black Lives Matter marchers. One from Texas ruined a man’s eye by shooting him with a paintball gun. Another, from Washington state, was convicted on charges of beating a protester so badly they had a concussion and needed stitches.

In general, Tarrio said at Monday’s rally, the Proud Boys’ goal is “to make better fathers and make better men.” He would not say if he has children. When asked how to become a better man, he replied, “Join the Proud Boys.”

Before joining the Proud Boys, Tarrio agreed to be an FBI informant from 2012 to 2014 after being charged with his role in reselling stolen diabetic test strips, according to a former prosecutor and a 2014 federal court proceeding’s transcript, Reuters reported in 2021. His lawyer described him as a “prolific” cooperator with federal and local law enforcement, helping them bust a gambling ring and marijuana growhouses in the Miami area, where he lives.

When Reuters asked him about his previous informant work, he claimed not to know about it, the news outlet reported. Tarrio on Monday claimed he no longer works with the FBI or any other law enforcement agency.

Staff photographer Greg Lovett contributed to the reporting of this article.

Chris Persaud is a staff reporter for The Palm Beach Post.