Why Did the Biden DOJ Not Arrest Anti-Trump J6er Nick Fuentes?

Is His Current Assault on the GOP a Way of Paying Back?

illustration by the Atlantic

It is hard to know what to make of influential 27-year-old political activist Nick Fuentes. What cannot be denied is that this alleged “right-wing commentator” is using his considerable influence among his “Groyper” followers to defeat the GOP in November. The real question is why.

As an aside, the term “Groyper” has an origin too convoluted to explain, but it is an insider’s term used to describe a cynical, nationalist Right. The media prefer the designation “white nationalist,” but given that Fuentes is Mexican-American and Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio Afro-Cuban, the “white” part works only in newsrooms.

White nationalist leader Enrique Tarrio

Let me suggest two possibilities as to why Fuentes is subverting the GOP, both speculative. One is that Fuentes is paying back his friends on Team Biden for allowing him to walk away from January 6 unpunished.

The second is that Fuentes did his January 6 rabble rousing at the behest of his handlers on the Left. The Soviets called the deep-cover agents they planted within the United States “illegals.” The illegals reported to “Directorate S.” If Fuentes were an “illegal” planted in the conservative movement, the “S”in his Directorate might well have been Soros or the SPLC or—why not?—Satan.

If an “illegal,” Fuentes may have been working for the Left as early as the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville which he attended as an 18-year-old. If so, as has been recently revealed, Fuentes would not have been the only paid illegal prodding the crowd.

In January 2022, the House Select Committee Investigating January 6 subpoenaed Fuentes. As related in the the Committee’s final report, “Fuentes exercised his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to provide information about his organizing activities to the Select Committee.” For all his reticence, the Committee covered his actions on January 6 and the days leading up to it with surprising detail.

As the House Committee made clear, Fuentes began protesting the 2020 election almost immediately: “On November 9, 2020, Fuentes promised, ‘GROYPERS ARE GOING TO STOP THIS COUP!’  Two days later, Fuentes organized a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally at the Michigan State Capitol. He told the crowd that they should be ‘more feral’ in their tactics to overturn the election, suggesting that they target lawmakers in their homes. On November 14th, Fuentes rallied a crowd of his followers at the Million MAGA March in Washington, DC”

On November 18, 2020, Fuentes exhorted the crowd outside the Georgia State Capitol to “storm the capitol.” On December 19, 2020, Fuentes wrote on Twitter: “I will return to Washington DC to rally for President Trump on January 6th!”  On January 4th, “Fuentes suggested that his followers kill State legislators who don’t support efforts to overturn the 2020 election.”

Again, according to the report, “Fuentes and his Groypers did return to Washington, DC for the joint session. As the attack was underway, Fuentes incited followers from his perch immediately outside of the U.S. Capitol.”

The report continues, “five individuals associated with the Nick Fuentes’s white nationalist ‘America First’ movement entered the U.S. Capitol.” Standing just outside the Capitol doors, Fuentes shouted through a bullhorn, “We just heard that Mike Pence is not going to reject any fraudulent elector votes! That’s right, you heard it here first: Mike Pence has betrayed the United States of America. Mike Pence has betrayed the President and he has betrayed the people of the United States of America—and we will never ever forget.”

On January 7, Fuentes boasted about the riot, tweeting: “The Capitol Siege was fucking awesome and I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t.” It may have been awesome for Fuentes. He walked away unscathed. The “five individuals” who accompanied him, however, were all arrested.

True, Fuentes never entered the Capitol, but neither did Enrique Tarrio. In fact, Tarrio was not even in Washington on January 6, but he was arrested nonetheless. In September 2023, Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for “having played a central role in setting the January 6th attack on our Capitol into motion.” Said FBI Director Christopher Wray, “Today’s sentencing demonstrates that those who attempted to undermine the workings of American democracy will be held criminally accountable.”

Even the notorious Ray Epps was eventually held “accountable.” More visible an agitator than Fuentes—height matters—Epps was less influential. The House Committee report did not even mention him. Like Fuentes, Epps did not enter the Capitol, but the Feds eventually arrested him and sentenced him in January 2024 to a year of probation.

Of the eight women covered in my book Ashli who survived January 6—two were killed that day—all eight were incarcerated, including a great-grandmother. None agitated or organized anything, and the worst “crime” any of them committed was to help break a window. The window breaker, a mother of eight, was sentenced to four-plus years in prison. Justice was that arbitrary.

Of the two possible explanations for Fuentes’s escape from justice, I lean toward his being a deep plant, an “illegal.” As early as 2019, Fuentes and his Groypers were attacking the more traditional Right, and no target more aggressively than “the retarded idiot” Charlie Kirk. Born in the Chicago suburbs as was Kirk, Fuentes positioned himself as something of a naughty AntiKirk.

Fuentes dedicated his career to destroying Charlie Kirk and Turning Point

In the fall of 2019 Fuentes launched the so-called “Groyper War,” a social media campaign against Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Groypers attended Turning Point events and provoked speakers for their moderation and especially for their support of Israel. Said Fuentes shortly before Kirk’s death, “My ideas are already there. I have already impregnated your organization. I took Turning Point USA, and I fucked it.”

I cannot say that Fuentes was an “illegal” planted within the Conservative movement, but I can say that he gives all the appearance of being one. If so, it is no wonder he escaped the punishment inflicted on 1600 other J6ers, only a handful of whom did more than Fuentes “to [set] the January 6th attack on our Capitol into motion.”

One other possibility, equally likely, is that the charismatic Fuentes is a self-serving narcissist who chose his anti-Semitic riff as a sure way to gain media attention and make money. Whatever his motives, whoever his handlers are, Fuentes can promise his followers little more than betrayal. Just ask the “five individuals” who listened to him on January 6.

To learn more about January 6, please see