Finger-pointing and suspicion: Jan. 6 defendants in disarray over potential Trump pardons

Before the 119th Congress convenes today with Vice President Kamala Harris presiding over a joint session to certify Donald Trump’s election win, a group of Jan. 6 defendants and their supporters will hold a press conference at a hotel across town to press the case for blanket pardons when Trump takes the oath of office in two weeks.

Among the scheduled speakers for the press conference is Jake Lang, a Jan. 6 defendant accused of using a stolen police riot shield, helmet and baseball bat to attack officers for more than two hours during a frenzied battle for control of the entrance where the new president customarily emerges on Inauguration Day. Lang, who is currently in jail awaiting trial, is advertised as appearing at the press conference “live from DC Gulag!”

Lang is also at the forefront of a planned class action lawsuit seeking $50 billion in restitution for Jan. 6 defendants claiming wrongful arrest and imprisonment, which organizers say they will file on Jan. 20, the day Trump takes the oath of office.

The surge of heady expectations for mass pardons, heroes’ welcome and monetary payouts ahead of Trump’s inauguration has only ratcheted up long-festering divisions within the Jan. 6 community, where charges of being a federal informant are often flung about based on the flimsiest of evidence. While suggesting he will consider extending pardons even to those convicted of attacking officers, Trump himself has indicated he might make exceptions for “antifa” provocateurs or unnamed individuals at the Capitol who exhorted the crowd to “go.”

The sniping against the class-action lawsuit associated with Lang — led by a group he founded called Federal WatchDog — began almost as soon as it was announced on the far-right conspiracy site Gateway Pundit.

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William Pope, who is among the Jan. 6 defendants seeking permission from the court to attend Trump’s inauguration, lambasted the effort, posting on X on Dec. 27: “Why is the fed-saturated Napalm Militia now bringing a $50 billion lawsuit? First of all, nobody who is smart wants to be affiliated with them. Second, filing anything like this before you know how the Trump administration will resolve J6 issues is foolish and premature.”

In an earlier post, Pope wrote: “It’s amazing to me how some people in the ‘J6 community’ are more than willing to ally themselves with provocateurs who have known connections to intelligence agencies but want to cast off people who are connected to Trump. Makes you wonder who they are working for.”

Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who recently completed a two-year prison sentence for civil disorder, amplified Pope’s criticism, writing on X: “You mean the Napalm Militia connected to informants from the Bundy Ranch standoff, the third assassination attempt on Trump in California that got memory-holed, and propagandist provocateurs and intel assets who incited January 6th?”

Hale-Cusanelli comes into the dispute with his own baggage; as a former military security contractor at the time of the Jan. 6 attack, he was the target of a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation that revealed that he made racist, antisemitic, fascist and pro-Hitler comments to coworkers, including, “Hitler should have finished the job.”

Hale-Cusanelli spoke twice over the past summer at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. During one event in August, a fundraiser for Patriot Freedom Project, Trump addressed the group in a video message, calling the group “amazing patriots.” Patriot Freedom Project was founded by a woman named Cynthia Hughes, who identifies Hale-Casanelli as her “nephew.”

The faction attacking Jake Lang’s project has found an influential ally in Julie Kelly, a former political consultant whose sympathetic reporting has helped establish her as one of the Jan. 6 defendants’ most prominent advocates. Kelly has said that she donated a portion of the proceeds from her book January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right to Patriot Freedom Project, while encouraging others to also donate to the organization.

As a measure of Kelly’s stature, Republican lawmakers such as Reps. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), who are actively engaged in hearings aimed at revising the history of the Jan. 6 attack, frequently re-post her reports on X. In the past month, Kelly has appeared as a guest on podcasts hosted by Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist, and Sebastian Gorka, who was named senior director for counterterrorism in the incoming administration. Two days after the 2024 election, Mike Davis, a prominent MAGA lawyer, tagged Kelly on X, writing, “Please send me your pardon and commutation lists.”

Kelly re-shared Pope’s post disparaging Lang’s class action lawsuit as “fed-saturated,” and separately posted on X the same day: “Lots of Jan 6 scams and grifts out there and getting worse. Beware!”

Explaining her skepticism towards the lawsuit, Kelly told Raw Story: “I do think it’s jumping the gun and does not appear to be serious when you’re talking about a figure like 50 billion.”

Lang, in turn, expressed his displeasure toward Kelly in an interview from the D.C. Jail over the weekend. While expressing appreciation for Kelly’s reporting and describing her as “a loved and well-respected member of the Jan-six community,” Lang told Raw Story he thinks Kelly should have contacted him or his lawyer directly.

“She has alliances and allegiances with people who have slid over to the other side,” Lang said. “She was speaking out of turn…. Instead of handling this the proper way, she has now turned coat and gone to the liberal media and caused more dissent.”

Speaking to Raw Story, Lang chalked up the accusations that government agents and provocateurs infiltrated his group to jealousy of his stature as a leader in the movement who remains incarcerated.

“I’ve become a main striking point to destroy, and they’re doing that so they can elevate themselves,” Lang said.

“It’s mainly to try to take the limelight and emerge out of this January 6 world,” Lang added, alluding to the many Jan. 6 defendants attempting to build personal brands through books, documentaries and podcast appearances.

Lang also defended the timing and financial goal of the lawsuit by saying that “it’s important that a statement is made on Day 1” about the harm suffered by the Jan. 6 defendants and that $50 billion isn’t a lot of money considering the combined loss of family relationships, reputations, businesses and health of roughly 1,000 plaintiffs.

The case for Jan. 6 restitution

“We were actually justified with our actions on Jan. 6 and shouldn’t have been charged in the first place,” Lang told Raw Story when asked to explain the basis for a legal argument that the 1,572-plus defendants were wrongfully charged, and in some cases incarcerated.

“Every human being has the right to defend themselves,” Lang said when asked to elaborate on his claim that the rioters’ actions were justified. “We were not the aggressors. The Capitol police fired on us with teargas grenades. There were FBI assets in the crowd. Really, we were there as pawns of the Democrats to stir up violence.”

Speaking with Raw Story, Lang promoted a conspiracy theory suggesting that officers deliberately created a split reality by giving Trump supporters “fist bumps” in some instances and battling them in others.

“I believe that was purposely orchestrated to get the false insurrection narrative they wanted,” he said.

Federal prosecutors allege that Lang’s actions on Jan. 6 and statements around that time paint a different picture. They allege that over a period of more than two hours, Lang kicked and hit officers with a stolen shield and jabbed a baseball bat at them.

Prosecutors cite a video interview Lang gave during the riot in which an interviewer asked him what he thought would happen next.

“Guns…. That’s it. One word,” Lang allegedly responded. “The First Amendment didn’t work, we pull out the Second…. No one wants to take this and die for our rights, but dying for our rights is the only option that any person with a logical brain sees right now. This is it.”

The following day, the government alleges that Lang said in an interview streamed over Instagram that the Trump supporters at the Capitol were not a “mob” but rather “an organized unit of patriots.”

“We are talking war,” he said. “We need men up there, men who are going to pull cops down and out of there. Men who are going to take a bullet if need be, you know. This was tyrants versus freedom fighters.

“This was patriots on a mission to have the Capitol building,” he added “To stop this presidential election from being stolen so that we at least have one presidential veto left from all of these bulls--- laws and restrictions.”

Promoting militias

Lang’s public profile rose considerably last June when he announced the launch of a project called NAPALM, an acronym for North American Patriot and Liberty Militia. The project also elicited growing skepticism among some of his fellow Jan. 6 defendants.

The project’s website described its mission as “to uphold the Constitution” and “protect America from any enemy, foreign or domestic.” But beyond launching a handful of Telegram channels, boosting the profiles of a collection of far-right influencers and generating a burst of mainstream media coverage, the project doesn’t appear to have gone anywhere.

“There’s never been any type of action,” Lang acknowledged to Raw Story. “It’s basic Second Amendment preparation. This was strictly for preparation and self-defense. There has never been a plan other than be prepared.”

The website for the new Federal WatchDog group, promising “to uphold the Constitution” and “protect America from the weaponized federal government,” is markedly similar to NAPALM in style, format and even the titles of the personalities involved.

Lang is named the “national chairman” of both groups.

Pete Santilli, a Cincinnati-based internet talk show host, is listed as “strategic operations director” for both groups. Considering that Santilli pleaded guilty to conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer in the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff, he is likely the target of Hale-Cusanelli’s derogatory X post.

Other individuals carrying over from NAPALM to the new Federal WatchDog group include Ann Vandersteel, a far-right influencer who promotes sovereign citizen ideology and who is one of the featured speakers at today’s press conference; and Maureen Steele, formerly an organizer for the anti-vaccine People’s convoy trucker protest.

Hale-Cusanelli’s reference to NAPALM’s connection “to the third assassination attempt on Trump in California” likely references Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s claim that his deputies “probably… prevented the third assassination attempt” against Trump at a rally in Coachella, Calif. in October when they arrested a man with a loaded handgun and shotgun.

Vem Miller, the pro-Trump internet personality arrested at the rally, reportedly pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor gun charges last week. Miller is suing Bianco for alleged violations of his constitutional rights. No evidence has surfaced to indicate that Miller, an ardent Trump supporter, intended to harm the president-elect.

Miller was not directly involved with NAPALM, but former congressional candidate Mindy Robinson, one of Miller’s partners at the America Happens online media platform, was named by Lang as “Nevada state lieutenant commander.”

Suspicion of provocateurs

Among the Jan. 6 defendants who have become the target of the provocateur accusation is Daniel Goodwyn, who personally delivered 144 letters from Jan. 6 defendants to Mar-a-Lago on Dec. 12. While Goodwyn was unable to meet with Trump, who spoke at the event, he handed off the letters to Lara Logan, a far-right journalist. Goodwyn and Logan are both listed as featured speakers at today’s press conference.

Dova Winegeart, who received a four-month sentence for cracking a window at the Capitol with a metal-tipped wooden pole, accused Goodwyn of being a foreign asset while describing him as a “p—- bullhorning J6 instigator,” in reply to Pope’s X post.

Winegeart declined to provide Raw Story with evidence to support her claim that Goodwyn is a foreign asset, and Goodwyn did not respond to an email. While the claim has not been independently confirmed, a fellow Jan. 6 defendant's public accusation is indicative of the level of mistrust within the community.

Goodwyn, who was sentenced to time served for unlawfully entering the Capitol, “used a bullhorn to incite others to go into the Capitol,” according to a sentencing memorandum filed by the government in his case. The document goes on to allege that Goodwyn “yelled several inflammatory statements through the bullhorn to other rioters, including, ‘[b]ehind me, the door is open,’ ‘we need you to push forward, forward,’ ‘we need critical mass for this work,’ and ‘go behind me and go in.’”

Trump has hedged somewhat in his recent comments about his pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 defendants. He has said he and his team would consider Jan. 6 pardons on a “case-by-case” basis and “look at individual cases.”

"Unlike Joe Biden who just commuted the sentences of murderers, child predators, and other violent criminals, President Trump will pardon Americans who were denied due process and unfairly prosecuted by the weaponized Department of Justice," Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition, told Raw Story.

In his interview with NBC journalist Kristen Welker last month, Trump said both that he would consider pardoning defendants who attacked police officers and that he might make exceptions for those who engaged in provocative conduct.

If the disputes among the Jan. 6 defendants themselves are any indication, Trump’s team may have a difficult time determining who falls into which category.

In response to Welker’s question about whether he would consider pardoning defendants who pleaded guilty to assaulting officers, Trump said: “I know the system. The system’s a very corrupt system. They say to a guy, ‘You’re going to go to jail for two years or 30 years.’ And these guys are looking, their whole lives have been destroyed.”

But earlier in the interview, he cracked the door open to make a different call.

“Those people have suffered long and hard,” he said. “And there may be some exceptions to it. I have to look. But, you know, if somebody was radical, crazy. There might be some people from antifa there. I don’t know. You know, because those people seem to be in good shape. What ever happened to Scaffold Man? You know who Scaffold Man was? He stood on a scaffold telling everybody to ‘go,’ and nothing happened to him.”

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