In a move certain to shake up the white nationalist community, a Proud Boys leader pleaded guilty to two felonies relating to his participation in the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress and agreed to help prosecutors with other cases, the Washington Post reports.
Thirty-four year old Charles Donohoe of Kernersville, North Carolina pleaded guilty to conspiring to help organize an attack on Congress by supporters of President Donald Trump and to assaulting law enforcement officers. He will receive a minimum sentence of 70 months unless prosecutors make a lighter recommendation based on his cooperation.
Donohoe testified that he helped plan the attack on the Capital, being named by Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio to The Ministry of Self Defense, a Proud Boys committee charged with planning an attack on January 6th.
Donohoe and two other Ministry members were responsible for recruiting for people to make the attack, and they ultimately had more than five dozen volunteers. Other members of the Ministry, called the Operations team, were responsible for planning the attack.
Donohoe’s cooperation with federal investigators gives prosecutors a first-hand account of the timetable and scope of the planning for the attack, which conservatives have claimed was a limited peaceful protest by a bunch of peaceful tourist who were invited into the Capitol by police officers and ended with a peaceful night kissing Donald Trump’s, um, ring.
Donohoe’s testimony will also be a blow to Tarrio, who is facing his own charges, and other members of the group, which claims it had 200-300 members at the attack, stationed around the Capitol as Donald Trump spoke on the Ellipse.