US

Jan. 6 Attorney Straight Up Asked DOJ Lawyers If More Witnesses Were FBI Informants. They Said ‘Nothing’

MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Trevor Schakohl Legal Reporter
Font Size:
  • The Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed Wednesday that a witness who Jan. 6 defendant Enrique Tarrio’s lawyer Sabino Jauregui planned to call for testimony had been an FBI informant, based on a court filing American Greatness’ Julie Kelly obtained.
  • Jauregui said DOJ attorneys would not tell him whether two other planned witnesses were FBI informants, a hearing transcript shows.
  • “My biggest concern is the fact that we still have confidential human sources who are unknown to us,” defendant Zachary Rehl’s lawyer Carmen Hernandez said Thursday.

A Jan. 6 defendant’s lawyer said Justice Department (DOJ) attorneys would not tell him Wednesday whether planned witnesses in the case were FBI informants, shortly after the government revealed a different planned witness to have been an informant herself, according to a hearing transcript obtained by American Greatness’ Julie Kelly.

Former Proud Boys National Chairman Enrique Tarrio and members Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola are standing federal trial in Washington, D.C., for allegedly conspiring to oppose the transfer of presidential power in January 2021, and the government said Wednesday that a defense witness Tarrio’s lawyers meant to call had served as an FBI confidential human source from April 2021 to January 2023, court filings show. Tarrio’s attorney, Sabino Jauregui, said in a Thursday hearing that he subsequently asked the DOJ whether his next two witnesses were FBI sources as well, the transcript provided by Kelly indicates.

“You know what they told me?” Jauregui said. “Nothing. They don’t know.” (RELATED: Employees Fired For Refusing COVID Vaccine Labeled With ‘Problem Codes’ That Were Sent To FBI, Legal Group Says)

“All of our responses are made through the court,” the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuting the case told Daily Caller News Foundation.

The New York Times Friday identified the female source as Jen Loh, a former official of “Latinos for Trump.”

Loh had 20 to 30 communications with Biggs when she was an FBI confidential source, Biggs’ attorney, Norman Pattis, said in the Thursday hearing. Pattis told presiding Judge Timothy Kelly that the defense was “very close to a stipulation on as many as eight or nine other” FBI sources and would argue “that there was a complex network of confidential human sources at the government’s disposal.”

“My biggest concern is the fact that we still have confidential human sources who are unknown to us, ” Rehl’s lawyer, Carmen Hernandez, said, asking the court to prevent a similar issue from arising again. Tarrio separately gave the FBI information more than ten years ago, according to the NYT.

Judge Kelly quashed a defense subpoena Tuesday for Proud Boys member Kenneth Lizardo, saying Lizardo had “a reporting relationship with the FBI” and had declared his intention to plead the Fifth if called to testify, the outlet reported. Lizardo had gone with Tarrio to a Jan. 5, 2021 meeting in Washington, D.C., with Oath Keepers militia group founder Stewart Rhodes, who was ultimately convicted of Jan. 6-related seditious conspiracy in November 2022.

Court filings reported in November suggested the FBI had up to eight informants within the Proud Boys in the months surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to the NYT. Former Tennessee Proud Boys chapter leader Matthew Walter told the outlet in February that he and up to 20 other group members had FBI relationships around that time.

Loh had given the FBI information as far back as fall 2019, FBI San Antonio Special Agent Kristina Spindel swore in a Thursday statement. Loh said during a Friday interview that she originally provided what she considered “useful information” about leftist protestors to the FBI, later informing the bureau about “any type of domestic terrorism — on the right or the left,” according to the NYT.

The government claims she has since helped Jan. 6 defendants through “fund-raising efforts and protesting against their conditions of confinement,” the outlet reported.

Loh communicated with one or more defense lawyers, participated in prayer meetings with one or more defendant’s family and talked with one of the defendant’s family members about replacing one of the defense counsel, Hernandez said in a Wednesday motion demanding the release of any FBI or DOJ reports, recordings and memoranda about “reporting on and recordings of the defense team.”

The DOJ’s Thursday response to Hernandez’s motion denied that any such reports existed, but admitted that Loh told the FBI around Jan. 9 that she had been subpoenaed to testify in the case and participated in a deposition, with Spindel saying her source relationship with the FBI ended around Jan. 18. At the Thursday hearing, Nordean’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, claimed that, in around April 2022, Loh had started asking him detailed questions about matters like evidence in the case.

“It looks like this informant was active in discussing information with their [FBI] handler at approximately the same time,” Smith said, referencing reporting that the government had given him. Spindel had sworn the FBI did not task Loh with collecting information about the defendants in the case, saying the bureau was never given any information about contact she had with them or their lawyers on the matter.

“It’s hard to see people calling me a rat and a fed and things like that,” Loh said Friday, claiming she never spied on the defendants or their lawyers, the NYT reported. “I think it’s sad that we’ve gotten so polarized in this country.”

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel