An accused January 6 insurrectionist is forming an armed militia, which he plans to use to combat "civil unrest" around the 2024 presidential election.
According to Wired, Edward “Jake” Lang, who has currently been held for over 1,200 days awaiting trial for allegedly attacking police officers with a baseball bat during the storming of the U.S. Capitol, has been using encrypted Telegram channels to amass a following.
"Lang claims that the Telegram groups already have 20,000 members, including pastors, farmers, former military personnel, and currently serving sheriffs," wrote David Gilbert — although experts who have examined his channels believe it's barely more than one-tenth that many. "But a group this size, they warn, is still large enough to cause a serious threat. And while unarmed members are welcome, the group is, at its core, a pro-gun organization. 'We are pro open carry, pro always have it on you, rather than waiting for somebody else to be able to defend your life,' says Lang."
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Lang's group is known as the North American Patriot and Liberty Militia, or "Napalm."
"As the 2024 US election approaches, Lang says that Napalm will be focusing on potential 'civil unrest' around the vote," the report continued.
"We have to make sure that we're prepared for any real-time scenarios, any eventualities," Lang recently said, according to Wired. "Civil unrest at any given moment, especially around an election time, is something that could come along, and so we have to plan for that contingency as well."
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Lang, who also tried to rally support during a Newsmax interview before the network had to cut his feed, is one of several high-profile defendants whose trial stands to be affected by an upcoming Supreme Court decision in Fischer v. United States, which will decide whether January 6 defendants can be charged with obstruction of an official proceeding. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee overseeing Lang's case, has previously ruled obstruction should be dismissed from Lang's indictment, because the statute was not intended to apply to the specific situation of rioting at the Capitol. Even if the Supreme Court agrees, Lang is charged with seven other offenses, including assaulting police with a dangerous weapon.
The Supreme Court case also potentially impacts former President Donald Trump himself, whose D.C. indictment by special counsel Jack Smith includes obstruction charges.
