Proud Boys trial update: Informant contact, acquittal, and defense testimony.

Attorneys for five Proud Boys on trial on charges of seditious conspiracy said on Wednesday that the Justice Department had informed them that a witness one of them had been prepared to call as part of the defense this week has been a government informant since 2021. The informant had contact with the defense team, defendants, and attended “prayer meetings” with at least one of the defendants’ families. Defense attorneys have repeatedly raised questions about the presence of informants within the Proud Boys and how they might have been deployed by the FBI to track the group ahead of Jan. 6.