Daily Beast: “The far-right Proud Boys have been thrown into a tumult in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, with the group’s leaders facing criminal charges, their chairman exposed as an informant, and law enforcement investigating what role Proud Boys had in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Now, amid a brewing trademark dispute with their former lawyer, they might even lose the right to use their name. On Monday, former Proud Boys lawyer Jason Lee Van Dyke, who holds the ‘Proud Boys’ trademark, released a letter revoking Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio’s right to use the name. Van Dyke’s reasons for revoking the trademark rights included what he sees as the Proud Boys’ association with Nazi groups, as well as Proud Boys burning a church’s Black Lives Matter banner in a December march in Washington, D.C.”

“Van Dyke doesn’t fit the profile of a typical Proud Boys opponent. Van Dyke has an elaborately checkered legal history himself, including a temporary suspension from practicing law after threatening to kill one of his legal foes. Police claim Van Dyke once used Proud Boys to surveil his legal opponent, and was allegedly recorded by an informant laying out plans for a violent terror campaign against the man. Van Dyke’s complaints that the Proud Boys are too close to white supremacist groups is especially bizarre, given his own history. As recently as 2019, Van Dyke was reportedly caught on tape attempting to join The Base, a neo-Nazi terrorist group, before being rejected by its members as a ‘huge liability.’ In the membership interview, a person identified by Vice News as Van Dyke can be heard praising neo-Nazi writers and discussing a crackdown on Jewish immigration.”