What happened to the proud boys?
Executive summary
The Proud Boys went from a highly visible, violent street‑movement to a fractured, legally embattled organization: many leaders and members were arrested and convicted for their roles in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, some received presidential pardons in January 2025, and the group today is decentralized and showing both signs of decline and scattered efforts to regroup [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. How they were taken down: prosecutions, convictions, and civil judgments
Following the January 6 attack the federal government prosecuted dozens of Proud Boys members; the organization’s leadership and numerous rank‑and‑file were convicted or faced charges tied to the breach and related violent acts, and the group has also faced civil liability including a multi‑million dollar judgment that led to the loss of its trademark rights in a lawsuit brought by a Black church vandalized by the group [1] [5].
2. The legal reversal: pardons, commutations, and their impact
On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued pardons and commutations to a large number of January 6 defendants, including Enrique Tarrio and several high‑ranking Proud Boys, a move that removed criminal punishments for those individuals and sent a signal that, critics warned, could normalize or embolden political violence among adherents [2] [3].
3. Fragmentation and internal crises: jailings, informant fears, and decentralization
The arrests and convictions of leaders intensified paranoia and factionalism inside the movement; reporting documented infighting, distrust over alleged informants, and the group’s shift toward a looser, chapter‑based structure after national leaders were sidelined—factors that reduced cohesion even as local cells persisted [6] [7].
4. A partial comeback: recruitment, public appearances, and online activity
Despite setbacks, the Proud Boys have shown signs of reemergence: chapters publicly mobilized at pro‑Trump events, social‑media and messaging‑channel activity spiked after the pardons, and some local demonstrations and recruitment messaging indicated efforts to rebuild their presence as “unofficial protectors” of Trump and to engage in new causes such as anti‑LGBTQ activism and anti‑immigrant rhetoric [4] [6] [8].
5. The policy and perception shift: governments, watchdogs, and mis/disinformation
Internationally, governments such as Canada and New Zealand designated the group as a terrorist organization and Canada’s designation preceded a Canadian dissolution of the group’s chapters there, while U.S. law‑enforcement and watchdog groups have labeled the Proud Boys extremist and documented their violent tactics and ideology; at the same time, disputed claims about individual members’ ties to government agencies—most notably a viral claim that Tarrio was an ICE agent—were debunked by DHS and Reuters fact‑checking [2] [9] [10].
6. Where things stand now: weakened but not gone, and why that matters
The net effect is mixed: prosecutions and civil penalties have exacted material and organizational costs, pardons have restored status to some leaders and potentially energized adherents, and internal splits have reduced top‑down control—leaving a decentralized movement that is reduced in national cohesion but capable of local violence, recruitment, and political signaling, a reality documented across reporting from Reuters, Wired, The Atlantic, and civil‑society monitors [1] [6] [3] [4].