Proud Boys did recon on weak points of Capitol during Trump's speech on Jan. 6, then went for tacos

Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested followed Proud Boys as they used the former president's speech as a distraction.

By Kelly McClure

Nights & Weekends Editor

Published June 9, 2022 10:43PM (EDT)

Pro-Trump protesters and Proud Boys march in front of the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
Pro-Trump protesters and Proud Boys march in front of the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

Many revelations were presented during the first night of the January 6th Committee Hearings, one of which came from documentary filmmaker Nick Quested who stated that on the morning of the insurrection, while Trump was giving a speech, he trailed members of the Proud Boys as they did recon on the Capitol looking for weak spots, and then he joined them for tacos.

"We took some photographs on the east side of the Capitol, and then we went for lunch. We went for tacos," Quested stated during Thursday night's hearing.

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A key witness during the testimony portion of Thursday's hearing, Quested provided a first-hand account of the inner workings of the Proud Boy's planning as he followed them over the Capitol barriers, and the ways in which Trump seemed to guide their hand in their efforts in the days leading up to the breach.


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In a report from The New York Times it's detailed that Quested was on hand to witness Proud Boys' former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, meet with Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers militia, in a parking garage near the Capitol on January 5 to plan the next day's big event, which Quested embedded himself in for the sake of documentation. 

"Why did I go over to the barriers in the first place? Look, there's two types of people in this world. There's people who walk to disturbances and people who walk away. I walk towards disturbances," Quested said in a quote pulled from The Guardian. "I didn't know there was a confrontation happening. I felt a disturbance in the crowd and I moved towards that confrontation. And that confrontation happened to be Ryan Samsel shaking the barriers. And then the weight of the crowd overwhelmed the officers at the barrier."

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By Kelly McClure

Kelly McClure is Salon's Nights and Weekends Editor covering daily news, politics and culture. Her work has been featured in Vulture, The A.V. Club, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Nylon, Vice, and elsewhere. She is the author of Something is Always Happening Somewhere.

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