Exclusive: J6 Prisoner Says Poll Proves No Unbiased Juries Possible in D.C.

Catherine Salgado February 03, 2024
PJmedia.com

J6 prisoner Jake Lang says the Washington, D.C., “jury pool is unbelievably rigged against” him and his fellow Jan. 6 prisoners. Can the prisoners reasonably hope for a fair trial in a city where more than two-thirds of residents say the prisoners deserve jail regardless of what they did at the Capitol? Does trial in D.C. for J6ers constitute a violation of their constitutional rights?

Trump supporter Jake Lang was caught up in the Jan. 6, 2021, protests and says he saved a fellow protester’s life from a similar fate to Rosanne Boyland — namely, being trampled under a stampede. Lang is accused of “Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers Using a Dangerous Weapon” and other charges by the feds for confronting Capitol police with a bat, as I explained in my first piece in this series. 

Lang previously told PJ Media that he found and picked up a bat in self-defense in the face of police brutality, which did occur repeatedly on Jan. 6. As Lang has yet to go to trial despite three years of incarceration, no court has ruled on his actions.

Lang recently filed a change of venue motion, supporting the filing with polling data published on The Epoch Times and J6changeofvenue.com showing the extreme anti-Trump, leftist bias of D.C. residents, the Jan. 6 prisoners’ jury pool. For instance, per the latter site, 85.8% of respondents to the Triton poll “strongly” or “somewhat agree” that “Jan. 6th was an insurrection.” Yet plenty of evidence has shown since 2021 that the protest was not an insurrection, which is why no Jan. 6 prisoner has been charged with insurrection. Furthermore, 89.4% of D.C. respondents blamed Trump for Jan. 6, even though he explicitly called for peace that day and asked the protestors to go home once things got out of control at the Capitol.

Lang highlighted one poll result in particular when speaking to me, a statistic he wants all Americans to know. Poll respondents were asked whether “regardless of what they did, anyone who participated in the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6 should serve prison time,” Lang said. “Now, catch this — 68.8% of Washington, D.C. residents agreed to that statement.”

That means, Lang emphasized, “regardless if they had criminal conduct or alleged criminal conduct at the Capitol, if they were just simply protesting on the lawn” (which is normally public ground), “if they went into the Capitol [and] took a selfie with a police officer and fist-bumped them, if they tried to save lives like I did, regardless of what they did, anyone who protested at the Capitol on Jan. 6 deserves prison time” according to the J6 prisoners’ potential jury pool.

“Our jury pool is unbelievably rigged against us,” Lang told me, “it’s so slanted, so biased, how can  we possibly get our constitutionally protected rights to an impartial jury here in Washington, D.C., where they hate Trump and hate his supporters and hate the Jan. 6ers.” It’s quite reasonable for Lang to be worried on this count — in fact, his constitutional rights to a speedy trial have arguably already been violated, as he has been in jail for three years without trial.

In my opinion, the most shocking data from the poll was that 48% of D.C. respondents either strongly or somewhat agree that “a fair punishment for anyone who participated in any of the events of January 6” would be the “penalty for insurrection, treason, or committing an act of domestic terrorism [i.e.] life imprisonment or death.” Perhaps that’s because, per Epoch Times, 63.6% of D.C. respondents “strongly agree” that Jan. 6 was an “act of terrorism;” furthermore, 76.6% said Trump supporters are racist. Lang has a point when he calls D.C. residents “brainwashed.”

This “astronomical” bias is “insurmountable” in D.C., Lang insisted, arguing that Jan. 6 prisoners cannot have a fair trial unless they are moved out of our nation’s capital. “We need to be tried in our home states,” Lang said, where citizens are somewhat more nuanced in their understanding of the Capitol protests. It’s absolutely insane that violent criminals and even murderers are released daily onto our streets by Democrat DAs, but the Jan. 6 prisoners cannot even get a fair trial. Lang described it as a “David and Goliath scenario.” Read more exclusive comments from Jake Lang on his message for his fellow Americans and abusive D.C. prison conditions in my previous pieces.

Jake Lang thanked PJ Media for sharing comments from the J6 prisoners that mainstream media is actively suppressing. Most of the American media and government don’t want to let the Jan. 6 protestors so much as present their side of the case; that’s why so many of the protestors have been imprisoned in biased D.C. while the media smears them left, right, and center. Innocent or guilty, peaceful or violent, every American citizen accused of a crime has constitutional rights guaranteed to him, including a speedy trial. These rights have been blatantly violated for many Jan. 6 prisoners. Every American should be concerned that our justice system — particularly in the cities — is becoming so politicized and biased that some Americans cannot hope to have a fair and objective trial.

Catherine Salgado is a contributor for PJ Media. She also writes for The Rogue Review, Media Research Center, and her Substack Pro Deo et Libertate. She received the Andrew Breitbart MVP award for August 2021 from The Rogue Review for her journalism.