New Details Emerge of Meeting Between Proud Boys and Oath Keepers

Later subpoenaed by federal prosecutors, the video showed Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Tarrio in the underground garage with a small group of others — among them, Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer for the Oath Keepers, who is facing separate criminal charges; Bianca Gracia, the leader of a group called Latinos for Trump; Joshua Macias, who helped run a group called Vets for Trump; and men who appeared to be bodyguards.

For reasons that remain unclear, the video was not played for the jury at the trial of Mr. Rhodes and four other Oath Keepers that took place in the same federal courthouse late last year. Mr. Rhodes and one of his lieutenants, Kelly Meggs, were convicted of seditious conspiracy in November.

In his turn on the witness stand, Mr. Quested said that he had initially been drawn to the Proud Boys after Mr. Trump told them to “stand back and stand by” during a presidential debate with Joseph R. Biden Jr. in September 2020. A few months later, Mr. Quested accompanied the group to Washington in advance of a pro-Trump rally on Dec. 12 and filmed Mr. Tarrio giving a speech on the National Mall a day before the demonstration.

Describing the speech as a “pep rally” of sorts, Mr. Quested recalled how Mr. Tarrio “was very candid in his desire to resist the stolen election.”

“‘If you want a war, well, you got one,’” he quoted Mr. Tarrio as saying.

After the rally on Dec. 12, a group of Proud Boys, including Mr. Tarrio, removed a Black Lives Matter banner from a local church and burned it in the streets. That same night, a few members of the Proud Boys were stabbed in a scuffle with leftist counterprotesters.

When Mr. Tarrio flew back to Washington on Jan. 4 for the events of Jan. 6, he was arrested by the local police on vandalism charges related to the banner-burning and for being in possession of two high-capacity rifle magazines emblazoned with a Proud Boys symbol.

A judge released Mr. Tarrio the following day but ordered him to leave the city at once. Mr. Quested picked him up at police headquarters in Washington and took him to the Phoenix Park Hotel, where a photographer Mr. Tarrio was romantically involved with had been staying. From there, they made their way into the underground garage, Mr. Quested said.