From the witness stand, Nick Quested recounted how he began following the Proud Boys to film them and why — he was interested in documenting the rising divisions in America and their root causes.
“I was interested in how young men relate to each other in pressured situations,” Quested testified.
He first met Tarrio in December 2020. Quested met Tarrio face to face on Dec. 11, just a day before the Dec. 12 Million MAGA March. He documented the group as they attended multiple rallies for Trump that protested the outcome of the 2020 election.
Dec. 12 was a key day for Tarrio. That morning, he would go on what he described as a “public tour” of the White House. Quested said he requested to join Tarrio multiple times but the Proud Boy ringleader wouldn’t allow him to follow.
Several minutes of video footage were also shown to jurors, including clips Quested shot of Tarrio meeting with Oath Keeper founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes in an underground parking garage on the eve of the insurrection.
During that meeting, there’s a moment Quested captured where Tarrio’s voice is picked up as well as another male voice. According to prosecutors, the presently unidentified voice says, “it’s going to happen, we just have to do it strong and fast together.”
The clip was played for the judge and attorneys after jurors had left, but it was not played in the media room. (Standard when evidence is not yet officially admitted.)
The inclusion of this detail was objectionable to defense attorneys across the board and in particular, Carmen Hernandez and Norm Pattis. They represent Zachary Rehl and Joseph Biggs, respectively.
Pattis said that while earlier he didn’t object to including the video with the unidentified voice saying “it’s inevitable,” he now considered it particularly “menacing” in light of Quested’s testimony.
This is particularly offensive, Pattis argued, because Quested offered other testimony before jurors where he said he knew that Stewart Rhodes had publicly called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act so the results of the election could be overturned.
Nick Smith, an attorney for defendant Ethan Nordean, joined the objection and called for a mistrial, saying that during voir dire it was evident that some jurors knew Rhodes had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Despite Judge Kelly’s warnings about decorum in the courtroom earlier Thursday morning, when the possibility of the video coming into play started to firm up, there was an outbreak of motions for mistrial or motions to sever by defense attorneys.
Steven Metcalf, the defense attorney for Dominic Pezzola, said he would file a motion to sever if the video made it in.
Before a break was called for lunch, prosecutor Conor Mulroe said the government might be able to clear up who the speaker is in the video.