Why did you call me the C-Word?

• Rep. Zoe Lofgren interjected the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio’s Capitolriot deposition.
• Tarrio was asked why he used to call her a slur for female Telegram users by the California Democrat.
• This exchange is just one of many strange moments in Tarrio’s newly released transcript from deposition.

According to the transcript of Enrique Tarrio’s deposition before House select committee investigating January 6, 20,21, Rep. Zoe Lofgren only had one question for Enrique Tarrio.

Why, California Democrat, wanted to know: Did you call me a C-word on your Telegram channel, or did you call me a “C” word?

Their brief exchange — Tarrio would claim ignorance of the slur, and Lofgren would hop right back out of the virtual deposition — is just one of several bizarre moments from a newly released transcript of Tarrio’s lengthy grilling in spring before the House committee.

Tarrio is being tried at the US District Court in Washington, DC. He is defending himself against seditious-conspiracy chargesIn connection with the attack. Opening statements and the commencement of testimony are both expected to take place in the first week January.

The 231-page transcriptTarrio’s defense will be revealed Wednesday night, according to a release.

It shows him portraying the Proud Boys — defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and an extremist group by the FBI — as something of a haphazard, decentralized Rotary Club.

Members — Tarrio said he couldn’t tell the committee how many there were, even roughly — rose to the highest ranks through “good works,” he testified, such as “a bicycle and toy drive for Christmas.” 

“The Proud Boys didn’t do an insurrection. They don’t do that. They drink,” Tarrio’s lawyer Dan Hull stated at one point during deposition, calling them “a satirical type of goofy group.”

After reading the transcript, Jon Lewis, a research associate at the Program on Extremism, George Washington University, said to Insider, “It’s almost like, ‘Don’t believe your lying eyes’.”

Lewis stated, “It’s like, ‘You couldn’t really have seen us do the same thing on January 6 because, we are a great organization, just a bunch a guys who like to get along and drink beer,” 

Federal prosecutors have a different view on the Proud Boys. They claim that the five defendants and the 200+ members who showed up that day were the brutal spear tip to the attack.

Dominic “Spaz”, Tarrio’s codefendant, is a Proud Boys lieutenant out of Rochester, New York. He is accused, among other things, of being the first to breach Capitol.

Pezzola boasted that he would have killed Mike Pence, the feds claim.

There are 160 chapters in the country. extremist hate groupEmily Kaufman, an Anti-Defamation League researcher, told Insider that the Anti-Defamation League is still active. 

They were active during the summer’s Pride Month. particularly the Drag Queen Story Hours hosted at schools and librariesShe said.

Kaufman spoke out about the more than 40 Proud Boys who were arrested in the Capitol attack. They have found this niche instead.

Lofgren, a vocal member of the January 6 committeeTarrio’s deposition is on Page 51.

“I see that Ms. Lofgren is on video,” a redacted committee lawyer is recorded saying. “Ms. Lofgren, do you have a question?”

“Well, I did have one question,” the congresswoman replied.

She said to him, “Mr. Tarrio.” “I have received a copy of a post from you, and it’s ‘Enrique’s House of Propaganda’ from your — ‘Tarrio’s Telegram.'”

Lewis of George Washington University stated that the House of Propaganda channel was taken down.

“And it’s a picture of me holding a piece of paper at a microphone in the Judiciary Committee, and the caption from you is, ‘This — I’m going to spell it out, c-u-n-t — is blind in one eye.'”

“I’m just wondering,” she said. “What did you mean by that?” 

Tarrio responded, “I wish I could reference the post, Ms. — how do you pronounce your name? I’m sorry.”

“Lofgren,” replied the congresswoman.

“Lofgren,” Tarrio repeated. “I wish I could — I wish I had that in front of me where I could see it.” 

He promised to take a look and return to the committee.

He said that he did not know whether he had written the post. 

He stated, “There are many people that run Telegram channels. I am one of them.”

“Alright,” Lofgren said. “I yield back.”

At that point, she apparently walked out of the video deposition. However, the lawyer for the committee returned her call several pages later.

“So you called Ms. Lofgren that slur?” The lawyer asked.

“No,” Tarrio answered. “I don’t even recall typing that.” 

“So someone using your account called Ms. Lofgren?” The slur. The lawyer for the committee was asked.

“Like, I — I mean, I stated this previously. This account’s managed by many people. 

Tarrio’s lawyer intervened at this point. 

“What’s the significance to being called that word?” He asked.

“That’s a word which has been around since the 1300s in London. It’s not a particularly nice word for a lot of people, but —” 

Tarrio, his client cut him off. He was apparently very interested in the history of the word. 

The lawyer stated to his client that he did.

There followed a brief back and forth in which both Tarrio and his lawyer complained about the lack of “context” in Lofgren’s inquiry into the word’s use by — someone.

“Does context matter?” The lawyer for the committee was asked.

“I don’t get why that’s so big,” Tarrio’s lawyer stated, dismissing Telegram’s “just kinda nasty Irish bar scene”.

Tarrio also testified that there was nothing criminal about Donald Trump’s response to being asked by the committee, “Proud Boys,” during the September 2020 presidential election.

Tarrio suggested that Trump was encouraging the Proud Boys prepare for the election by nonviolent actions, “Like ‘Let’s go rally!'”

Tarrio stated to the committee members, “I took it as, like, ‘Hey! The election’s coming up. Please stand by.

Lewis countered that members of the extremist group saw “stand back and stand by” as “a call to arms.” One Proud Boy member testified before the committee that membership “tripled”As a result of Trump’s remark.

“They didn’t view this as, “Oh, hi, we got a shoutout on TV.” Lewis said to Insider that we should vote.

The transcript shows Tarrio switching between pleading for the Fifth, which he did more that a dozen times, as well as offering detailed tangential observations.

These included that he was not a big Obama supporter because of the socialized healthcare system and that Trump was a “great president” who “said things how he felt” without threatening to give us more wars.

Tarrio stated, “I don’t believe that January 6th should’ve happened.”

“I wish I can take — I wish I could get in a time machine and stand in front of the police line and speak to those people in front of that line, and say, ‘Don’t do it.’

Tarrio, who stated that he still considered himself to be a Proud Boy, said “I wish” that he could do it. “I can’t.”

Federal prosecutors are not so sure. Tarrio has been quoted as saying, “Make no mistake. We did this,” during an encrypted chat channel just moments after Pezzola is accused by the FBI of breaking the Capitol window at 2:24 p.m., January 6. 

Tarrio said, “Do it again,” according to the feds. Tarrio then chatted for two hours when his lieutenants asked what he should do next.

Tarrio’s February 4, deposition was just three days after his spring. a Washington, DC, jailFor burning the Black Lives Matter banner at a historic church. It was one month prior to his March arrest in connection to the Capitol attack.

The Proud Boys’ seditious conspiracy trial follows the November conspiracy trial conviction of the Oath Keepers founder Stewart RhodesIt is expected that it will last for approximately six weeks.