Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, said he personally thanked President Trump on Saturday night for issuing a pardon that cut short the 22-year prison term he was serving in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Mr. Tarrio’s expression of gratitude came during a brief but extraordinary encounter with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Tarrio and his mother, Zuny Duarte, were invited to have dinner at the property by one of its members.
According to a senior administration official who was not authorized to discuss the episode publicly, the club member introduced Mr. Tarrio and his mother to Mr. Trump as the president was walking through the main room at Mar-a-Lago on his way toward a table on the patio.
Mr. Tarrio and Ms. Duarte said in interviews that they spoke with Mr. Trump for about 10 minutes, recalling that he told them he believed that his supporters who faced charges arising from the Capitol attack had been mistreated.
A White House spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Mr. Tarrio said he told Mr. Trump that the president had saved his life by including him in the blanket grant of clemency extended to all of the nearly 1,600 people who were charged in connection with Jan. 6.
“He knew the hardships me and my family faced for three long years,” Mr. Tarrio later wrote about the encounter on social media. “He knew how many times they moved me. And he said he is working on making things right. I thanked him for giving me life back. He replied with…I Love You guys.”
Mr. Tarrio’s 22-year term was the stiffest penalty faced by any Jan. 6 defendant. Since his release from custody, Mr. Tarrio has been involved in a number of ventures, including a podcast and a crypto coin with some of the other members of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, who were convicted with him of seditious conspiracy at a trial two years ago.
Hundreds of people descend each night on Mar-a-Lago for dinner. The guests all go through a screening process by the Secret Service.
Ms. Duarte said that Mr. Trump immediately recognized her son’s name when the club member introduced him, quipping, “Oh, you’re that guy.” Mr. Tarrio said that the president also knew the names of some of his co-defendants in the sedition case: Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.
Mr. Tarrio said he was not sure what Mr. Trump had meant when he declared that he was trying to make “things right” for the hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters who received his clemency.
Mr. Trump has moved aggressively over the past four years to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, describing it as a day filled with “love” and calling those convicted of storming the Capitol and assaulting police officers “political hostages.”
His encounter with Mr. Tarrio came one day after Justice Department lawyers said in court that they had reached a preliminary agreement to settle a $30 million lawsuit brought against the government during the Biden administration by the family of Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who was shot and killed on Jan. 6 by a U.S. Capitol Police officer. The details of the settlement remain unclear.
The Babbitt family sued the government in January 2024 for what it has described as her wrongful death at the hands of the officer, Michael Byrd. After a three-month investigation, prosecutors decided not to pursue criminal charges against Officer Byrd.
