NY Capitol riot suspect records podcast, manages TV network from jail cell in D.C.
A New Yorker charged with battling cops outside the U.S. Capitol for more than two hours on Jan. 6, 2021, has become a MAGA media mogul from his jail cell during his long wait for a trial.
For prosecutors, Sullivan County native Edward Jacob Lang was in a "category all his own" among the hundreds arrested since the pro-Trump riot, both for the ferocity of his alleged assaults and how long he fought. They claim that videos used as evidence in his case show him punching and kicking officers, hitting them with a baseball bat and "crowd-surfacing" over his compatriots at one point to continue the assaults.
Lang, 28, sees things very differently. He claims police were the aggressors that day and casts himself as a "political prisoner," unjustly detained in the "D.C. gulag" for more than 970 days without being convicted.
And he has used his time behind bars to spin a web of media ventures, all portraying the storming of the Capitol as a righteous cause and defendants like himself as heroes and martyrs.
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Podcast, TV show, fundraising: What's Lang up to in jail?
Lang, who goes by Jake, has a podcast in which he interviews MAGA luminaries and fellow "January Sixers" from his cell. He has a website with pro-Jan. 6 documentaries. He has online accounts to field donations for Jan. 6 defendants' legal costs and hawk his book, "Patriot Prisoner." And he started a streaming TV network called "Blessed News Network," which he describes as a "Christian conservative" channel bolder than other right-wing outlets.
How does he do it? With a jail-supplied computer tablet and the help of assistants and others on the outside.
"Between those two things, I've been just thrilled to be busy," Lang said of the defense fund and his TV channel in a recent "Political Prisoner" podcast. "I'm on the phone in my jail cell, by God's grace. We've got these little tablets they give us, and I can text and call people, which is sometimes pretty expensive on the phone all day. But I've been able to be on the phone about 10, 12, 14 hours a day, some days."
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What's next for Lang in court?
Lang, who turned down a plea offer in 2021 that may have meant up to eight years in prison, was supposed to stand trial in January. But his trial was rescheduled twice and most recently was set for Oct. 10 — next Tuesday.
That date was canceled, though, because of Lang's pending Supreme Court appeal.
His lawyers are seeking the dismissal of his most serious charge, arguing that prosecutors have misused the charge of "obstructing an official proceeding" against Lang and other Jan. 6 defendants to stiffen their sentences and deter protest. (The "official proceeding" that the rampage temporarily stopped was the certification of President Joe Biden's election victory by Congress.)
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"A statute intended to combat financial fraud has been transformed into a blatant political instrument to crush dissent," Lang's attorneys, Norman Pattis and Steven Metcalf II, wrote.
The Supreme Court hasn't decided whether to hear the appeal, and won't do so until after prosecutors file their counter-argument by Oct. 30. In the meantime, no new trial date has been set.
Lang posted photos of Jan. 6 riot, arrested at Newburgh apartment
Lang faces 13 charges in all, including assaulting police officers. He has been in jail since his arrest 10 days after the riot, when FBI agents picked him up at a Newburgh apartment where he had been living.
He had left an extensive trail for authorities on the internet, boasting of clashing with police and posting pictures of himself at the riot in a string of internet posts.
Lang's jailhouse media ventures are an incarcerated version of his pre-riot life as a "serial entrepreneur," as he had described himself on his LinkedIn page. After dropping out of Hunter College in New York City, he launched a series of online businesses in which he sold "Harlem Pusher" hats and vaping products, ran a modeling agency and started a "free speech" social media site called Liberty Centric.
His father, Ned, said in a TV interview last year that two assistants were working for his jailed son and had helped him create his website, J6Truth.org. He lauded his son and his new pursuit, claiming the videos posted there showed that police lured peaceful protestors into the Capitol to entrap them.
"My son is an entrepreneur; he has been very gifted in the electronic or the information world," Ned Lang said.
Lang hoping to make arguments, question witnesses at his trial
When Lang's trial finally takes place in federal court in Washington, it may be unusual. Lang, who's not a lawyer, wants to split the courtroom duties with his attorneys, including delivering his own opening and closing arguments and questioning some of the witnesses.
His lawyers have asked the presiding judge, Carl Nichols, to allow such a "hybrid defense." He has yet to decide.
In their motion, they argued, "Mr. Lang has an absolute constitutional right to manage his own defense."
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Capitol riot suspect Jake Lang starts podcast, TV network from jail
