Live: Follow along for Day 24 of the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial

Jeremy Bertino appears in foreground carrying a megaphone.

Jeremy Bertino, the former Proud Boy who already pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, will continue his testimony on behalf of the government on Wednesday. Catch up here.

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 8:36:07 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

I’m going to end live-updates for the day but I will have a recap up later tonight. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 8:33:45 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Kenerson also asked Bertino why he pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy if he didn’t know that an explicit plan was in place to stop the certification. 

This triggered a wave of objections from the defense as Bertino said there didn’t have to be a specific plan in place for an objective to exist. 

“I looked at everything I said,” Bertino testified before he was stopped with a sidebar called by the defense. 

After the sidebar, Kenerson asked Bertino if any leader in the Proud Boys ever expressed a different opinion to him about the state of the country and what, in their view, needed to be done. 

“No, I didn’t. I was never told of anyone feeling any differently. No one ever told me that’s not the right way to feel. Everyone I spoke with pretty much agreed with every single sentiment I spit out,” he said. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 8:22:45 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Bertino also testified on Wednesday that when he visited Tarrio in Miami, Florida after Jan. 6, they spoke of what happened at the Capitol. 

Tarrio wasn’t in D.C., but he told Bertino if he was there, he would have told everyone to “go, go, go, go” and used his hand to make a motion suggesting he would tell people to move forward.

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 8:01:43 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

After the lunch hour, Bertino resumed his testimony under prosecutor Erik Kenerson. 

Bertino started to feel “less patriotic” during the evening of Jan. 6, because he felt what had happened at the Capitol was a “complete waste of time and a failure.” 

Once they gave that building up, he testified, “we were giving up our country.” 

While assessing his communications with fellow Proud Boys, Bertino described to jurors how “normies” only got so far into the Capitol and how he believed then that this has hampered “the revolution” and, he added, this meant Ashli Babbit had “died for nothing.” 

“They had given up all the ground they gained by walking back out of the building,” Bertino said. 

Other Proud Boys, like John Stewart aka Johnny Blackbeard, were less deflated. It “put fear” in the “swamp creatures” inside the Capitol, even if rioters were eventually cleared from the building.  

But for Bertino, “half measures meant nothing,” he said in court on Wednesday. 

“Going halfway into the Capitol and then relinquishing it did nothing but cause a lot of problems for people in the country and people that went in there. It didn't accomplish anything,” he said. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 6:03:58 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Jurors also saw a series of text messages between Bertino and Tarrio where they appear to be discussing defendant Dominic Pezzola. 

Bertino sent a video to Tarrio of Pezzola smashing apart a Capitol window before entering. They played coy about whether they recognized the man in the video. 

“Recognize anyone? lmfao” Bertino wrote. 

“Nopeeee,” Tarrio replied. 

This was Tarrio being sarcastic, Bertino said. 

Then Tarrio told Bertino the man looked like George Washington, maybe Benjamin Franklin or even, Sam Adams. 

In court Wednesday, Kenerson asked Bertino: Did Mr. Tarrio condemn Mr. Pezzola’s actions to you?

“No,” Bertino said. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 5:59:32 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Another notable detail — in Jan.6 chat Bertino told Proud Boys, “They need to get peloton.” 

Peloton, Bertino testified, was code for Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House. 

“She was the talking head of the opposition, they needed to remove her from power,” Bertino said. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 5:58:25 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Here are some more key details to emerge in the last bit of testimony from Jeremy Bertino before the jury broke for lunch:

• Bertino said that Proud Boy leadership did not discourage discussion in MOSD chat that veered into alleged ops for Jan. 6 though this is what the defense has insisted defined that channel 
• By the time Tarrio was arrested on Jan. 4, 2021, a Proud Boy under the handle BrotherHunter Jake Philips tells the group, “what would they do if a million patriots stormed the Capitol building. Shoot into the crowd? I think not.” When another Proud Boy John Stewart, said “they would do nothing because they can do nothing,” Bertino said this talk also wasn’t discouraged by other leaders 

What did this mean?
Bertino: This was go time. It was show time. It was just time to go.
Kenerson again asks for him to elaborate:
Bertino: "Like all other options were pretty much exhausted and felt like it was time to make whatever move we had to make to save the country."

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) February 22, 2023

• On the morning of Jan. 6, Proud Boy Aaron Wolkind wrote in the new MOSD chat that had been set up in light of Tarrio’s arrest: “I want to see thousands of normies burn that city to ash today.” Bertino said the city was D.C. and there would be no other reason to believe Wolkind was referencing anything else. Bertino testified that he agreed with Wolkind. D.C. was the “center of what we thought was the corruption.” 
• “Fuck these commie traitors,” Bertino wrote on the morning of the Capitol attack. Those “traitors,” he said were democrats, bureaucrats, anyone who he felt was “going along with the election's “fraudulent results.” When Kenerson asked Bertino if that applied to the police as well, Bertino affirmed that it did. “Yes, if they sided with the incoming administration, then yeah, they were part of it too”
• Bertino said Proud Boys were in front of the “normies” on Jan. 6 as they breached barriers because the “normies were always behind us.” He said Proud Boys made a wedge formation as they descended on the Capitol because it made it easier to drive through people. The Proud Boys were the ‘tip of the spear” and “leading the way, leading by example,” Bertino said. 
• When news broke that Pence was not going to overturn the results of the election unilaterally, Bertino said he didn’t want fellow Proud Boys to worry because “America’s taking care of it right now.” Then, when news broke that a federal building on Capitol Hill (The Madison Building) was being evacuated, Bertino and Wolkind were thrilled:

Wolkind, 1:41: Keep pushing fuck those pigs, throw shit at them
Bertino replies: God damnit I wanna be there
If he could watch it on the feeds, why did Bertino want to be there?
He testifies: "I wanted to be there to witness what I believed was the next American revolution"

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) February 22, 2023

• Kenerson also brought out a series of text messages between Tarrio and Bertino from Jan. 6. In them, Bertino told Tarrio, “Brother you know we made this happen.” The “we” he was referring to, Bertino said from the stand Tuesday, was the Proud Boys. “I meant that we influenced people, the normies, enough to make them stand up for themselves and take their country and their freedom back,” Bertino told the jury. 

When Bertino wrote: "We did it," on 1/6, Tarrio replied "love you too brig" and then later, Tarrio says, "this is it" and Bertino replies "1776 motherfucker." Then Tarrio replies: the winter palace
Bertino says 1776 was ref. to America declaring independence from England

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) February 22, 2023

Bertino said he didn’t know what Tarrio was referring to when he wrote “winter palace.” The term was referred to in the “1776 Returns” memo that Tarrio received that outlined a plan to occupy federal buildings.

It is also a reference to an integral moment in the Russian Revolution. Prosecutors think “winter palace” also referenced occupying the U.S. Capitol. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 4:19:47 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

After Henry Tarrio was arrested on Jan. 4, 2021 (for burning a BLM banner in DC), defendant Zachary Rehl sent a message to a newly established MOSD chat (Tarrio started the first one) and told them they would have to manually delete messages in chats after Tarrio’s arrest. 

DId Bertino think this was a good idea?

“I did,” he said. 

When Kenerson asked Bertino why, the 43-year-old former Proud Boy remarked from thee witness stand: “This is kind of why right here.” 

“it was my belief that if anybody got ahold of the chats, something in there might be used against us for legal purposes and we could get in trouble,” Bertino said. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 4:17:24 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Kenerson also had Bertino testify about the evolving position Proud Boys had towards law enforcement after the Dec. 12, 2020 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally. Bertino was stabbed at this rally. 

On Jan. 1, texts showed Proud Boy Aaron Wolkind aka Aaron of the Bloody East telling members that they had to “reevaluate” their relationship with police. 

“Did this surprise you?” Kenerson asked. 

“No, I felt it coming. It was disturbing but I wasn’t surprised. A lot of people had been chatting the same way,” Bertino said.

“After my stabbing, the way it was handled [by police] everything I was seeing, we had a big fight on our hands. It was going to be an uphill battle and everyone had turned against us,” he added. 

And there was no dissent from MOSD leaders on this point either, Bertino said. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 4:12:50 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Bertino testified that he felt desperate when the U.S. Supreme Court wouldn’t take up Trump’s lawsuit claiming election fraud. 

And Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, felt the same way, Bertino said. It was a common feeling among all members of the organization, he added and if there was any dissent on this piece, it would have been aired out. 

“If Proud Boys had a problem with something, they never had any difficulty expressing that,” he testified. 

Anger had already been surging through the group after the election and once the Supreme Court shot Trump down, any hope the group had evaporated. 

“The general tone of every conversation I had was, the country was over if we didn’t stop this,” Bertino said. 

Kenerson elicited that Bertino knew what Congress was doing on Jan. 6. Ignorance to this fact has been relied on in this case and others involving Proud Boys or Oath Keepers facing similar charges. 

“What, in your view, was the role the Proud Boys should play once the Supreme Court had rejected Trump’s legal challenges?” Kenerson asked. 

“My belief was that we had to take the reins and pretty much be the leaders that we had been building ourselves up to be,” Bertino said. “We would have to take the reins and lead the people to freedom. Freedom [meant] in opposition of a tyrannical government we felt was being installed, as opposed to voted in.” 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 4:07:58 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Did Proud Boys know there would be media on Jan. 6?

Oh, there was definitely going to be media, I knew that, Bertino testifies.

In chat when PBs refer to "our guys" what did that mean?

Bertino: It always referred to Proud Boys. 

In a Dec. 30, 2020 chat among members of the Ministry of Self Defense, Johnny Blackbeard aka John Stewart says: We could have a fucking riot

Kenerson asked Bertino if he shared that sentiment and why.

Bertino: “I did, at that point. I felt like everything was a powderkeg and one little thing could set it off.”

Something “big” was about to happen, Bertino said. 

When Kenerson asked him what that “big” thing might be, Bertino did not hesitate from the witness stand. 

‘”An all-out revolution,” he said. 

There was “constant talk, constant videos” on this subject and there was a “constant sense from everyone that we were on the precipice.” 

And it wasn’t just Proud Boys Bertino heard this from; it was from “normies” or everyday people who supported Trump or leaned right politically, too. 

But of course, the feelings were mutual among defendants Joseph Biggs and Ethan Nordean too, Bertino said. There were often discussions about it. 

When Trump announced that he would be speaking at the rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, Bertino said he changed his mind then about going. He was still recovering from being stabbed in December and didn’t want to “stand in a crowd like that.” 

If he had gone, Bertino said the plan was to speak on stage at one of the events. Kenerson did not ask him what he would said. 

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 3:11:30 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Prosecutor Erik Kenerson begins. Today, he wants to begin with questions about NYE 2020 going into 2021. Yesterday, Bertino said he hadn't met Dominic Pezzola prior to the 12/12 Stop the Steal rally.

Bertino met Pezzola first time when he was delivering a commemorative shield that was meant to get down to Miami to be delivered to Enrique Tarrio; Bertino was living just outside Charlotte, NC at the time. Bertino says the mtg with Pezzola was "pretty friendly.”

They talked about Bertino's stabbing and Pezzola wanted to know how his recovery was going. Was Pezzola excited to meet Bertino?Yeah, Bertino says, just like any brother meeting another for the first time, there was a genuine love there, you could feel it.

Bertino then invited Pezzola to join MOSD. Pezzola told Bertino he was in the scrum with the guy who stabbed him, Bertino said that made him feel Pezzola was a "good match" for the "Ministry of Self Defense.”

Kenerson pulls up a chat from MOSD from Dec 30. 7:15 Tarrio says "Im pushing for that"What did that mean? Bertino: I believe it was about what the charge was going to be (for Tarrio's burning of BLM flag) if it was going to be a hate crime

Kenerson then asked Bertino: How does Mr. Tarrio use the media?

“It always seemed like he was trying to use it to build the club, get a positive spin on club,” Bertino said.

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 · 2:56:29 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

We got a bit of a late start this morning since Judge Kelly had to review motions submitted to him overnight by the defense and then handle some remaining issues this morning. Importantly, he ruled that the prosecution could admit evidence that shows Bertino telling fellow Proud Boys “We failed” around the time the Capitol was cleared of rioters. 

Bertino is now on the stand. He wears a gray suit, has a very long dark-colored beard and his head appears shaved.