Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders are free. Who are they and what are their groups?

Of the almost 1,600 people convicted in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, whose sentences were commuted or who received full pardons from President Donald Trump on Monday, arguably the two most high-profile prisoners were Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes.

Tarrio and Rhodes are, respectively, the leaders of the extremist street gang the Proud Boys and the founder and leader of the anti-government “militia” the Oath Keepers. Those two groups became synonymous with the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, and Tarrio and Rhodes received the longest sentences of anyone charged in the attack. Both men were prosecuted for helping plan the insurrection, and both were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Tarrio received a 22-year sentence. Rhodes got 18 years.

But who are these men?

What did they want?

And why are they getting so much attention now that they’ve been let out of prison?

USA TODAY has been covering Tarrio and Rhodes and investigating and writing about the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for years. Their release marks just the latest twist in a long, strange road for both extremist leaders.

‘Enrique’ Tarrio and the Proud Boys

Tarrio, whose birth name is Henry, but who goes by Enrique, is a small businessman from Florida who rose to prominence in the year or so before the Capitol insurrection as the de facto leader of the Proud Boys.

Founded in 2016 by former journalist and podcaster Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of VICE News, the Proud Boys bill themselves as a “Western Chauvinist” men’s drinking club. Members of the group, which is estimated to have chapters in dozens of states, undergo a bizarre hazing ritual to join and can rise up the ranks of the organization to become “second degree,” “third degree” and “fourth degree” members by performing tasks including getting a Proud Boys tattoo and getting into a fight with anti-fascists.

The Proud Boys espouse a vague political ideology of unfettered free speech and nationalism, expressed through offensive language, controversial memes and shocking imagery. A 2021 USA TODAY investigation of the Wisconsin chapter of the group revealed it as a den of racism and antisemitism, where moving up within the group was dependent on sadistically bullying potential members and promoting white supremacist talking points.

McInnes has long claimed the Proud Boys was never meant to be a political organization, but as Donald Trump began his political ascendance, the group became popular among conservative young and middle-aged men across the country. Throughout Trump’s first presidency, Proud Boys sporting the organization’s black-and-gold clothing regularly engaged in street fights with leftist demonstrators and counterdemonstrators, leading to dozens of arrests and prosecutions. In 2018, the FBI categorized the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalism.

Virulently pro-Trump, the Proud Boys were delighted when, during a televised debate in the 2020 election campaign the former president infamously told the group to “stand back and stand by.” After Trump lost the election, the Proud Boys helped spread falsities about election fraud and tampering on social media.

Tarrio, meanwhile, who had begun calling himself the “Chairman” of the group, was increasingly seen in political circles. He flew on private jets to events including at the White House. While he supported and promoted protests on Jan. 6 on his social media accounts, Tarrio was arrested on Jan. 4 in Washington, D.C., while on the phone with a USA TODAY journalist. He was charged with setting fire to a “Black Lives Matter” banner at a protest in December 2020.

A judge in that case barred Tarrio from the District of Columbia and he was not present at the Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6. Nonetheless, in June 2022 he and four other Proud Boys were each charged with nine counts, including seditious conspiracy, in an organized plot to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden's election. Tarrio and three of his co-defendants were found guilty in May 2023 and in September 2023 Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

At the sentencing, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly agreed with prosecutors that Tarrio's actions could be punished more harshly as "terrorism," for trying to influence the government through intimidation or coercion, but not at the level of trying to blow up buildings.

Prosecutors presented evidence saying Tarrio created a special wing of the Proud Boys called  the “Ministry of Self Defense,” which coordinated attacks on the day and celebrated them afterwards. “Make no mistake ... we did this,” Tarrio wrote at one point to the group.

After the sentencing, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tarrio played a “central role” in organizing the riot at the Capitol. Tarrio influenced many other Proud Boys to get involved in the attack, Garland said.

Throughout his incarceration, Tarrio has maintained his innocence, calling himself a “political prisoner.”

Stewart Rhodes and the Oath Keepers

If the Proud Boys are the U.S. far-right’s street brawlers, the Oath Keepers are the movement’s military vanguard, with Yale graduate, military veteran and eye-patch-wearing Elmer Stewart Rhodes serving as its general.

Jan. 6 marked for Rhodes the culmination of a long career of conspiracy spreading, self-aggrandizement and manipulation of thousands of dogged followers, many of whom saw his organization as a bulwark against an oppressive federal government.

Since founding the Oath Keepers in 2009, Rhodes has painted himself as a hero for American conservatives, creating a public image of a gun-toting revolutionary with a private army willing to die for libertarian causes.

Throughout the 2010s Rhodes built the Oath Keepers, which targets current and former law enforcement officers and military veterans, into a national brand recognized at gun fairs and even at police and sheriff’s events around the country. He was a frequent guest and commentator on conspiracy theory platform Infowars and held recruitment events and training camps for budding Oath Keepers in the years leading up to the insurrection.

Unlike Tarrio, Rhodes was present at the riot on Jan. 6. But unlike hundreds of other rioters, he didn’t enter the Capitol. Prosecutors accused him of being one of the masterminds of the insurrection, pointing out that at his command, the Oath Keepers had left a stash of weapons in a motel room across the Potomac from the Capitol.

Defiant to the end, Rhodes largely represented himself in court and launched angry tirades at the judge, who chastised him more than once.

He was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in November 2022 and sentenced to 18 years in federal prison.

What happens to the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers now?

In the four years since the insurrection, both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have been muted in their activity, researchers who study the groups told USA TODAY.

Without Rhodes at the helm, the Oath Keepers have largely disappeared, said Travis McAdam, manager of research and analysis at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. By contrast, the Proud Boys have maintained a presence across the country, said Cassie Miller, a senior manager of research and analysis on the project.

McAdam and Miller, who have monitored online and real-life activity by the two groups for close to a decade, said it’s too early to tell whether the release of Tarrio, Rhodes and other senior extremist leaders will spark new interest in them.

“It remains to be seen if they’re going to be rejuvenated,” Miller told USA TODAY about the Proud Boys. “The group is not well organized and after Jan. 6, they really retreated from large-scale national actions.”

In January 2021, Tarrio was revealed as having previously worked as a federal informant, a background that did not sit well with many members of the Proud Boys, Miller said. His “leadership” – such as it was – of the organization has been called into question throughout his incarceration, she said, though no obvious successor has come to the fore.

The Oath Keepers are similarly fragmented, if not even more so, McAdam said. An offshoot of the original group, called Oath Keepers USA, has had some success recruiting members, he said, but without the charismatic Rhodes calling the shots, the organization has gone downhill.

Rhodes, who had already begun writing online before his release, with an eye on a pardon, will likely take leadership of his group anew now that he is free, McAdam said. Unlike Tarrio, he is largely viewed as a martyr by current and former Oath Keepers and the broader anti-government “militia” movement, he said.

“Stuart Rhodes is coming out of this a hero,” McAdam said. “There are a lot of people talking about how he and others were political prisoners that were persecuted, and how Trump has righted this wrong and they're finally getting justice.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump pardoned Proud Boys, Oath Keepers leaders. Who are they?