Imprisoned Jan. 6 rioter leading 'network of armed militias in all 50 states': report

12 June 2024

On Monday, June 11, Politico's Alexander Burns reported that some Canadian government officials are worried about the possibility of civil war breaking out in the United States. In a 37-page document titled "Disruptions on the Horizon," a Canadian government office called Policy Horizons Canada argued that officials in Ottawa should make preparations for that grim possibility.

The report warned that if "U.S. ideological divisions, democratic erosion, and domestic unrest escalate," the result could be "plunging the country into civil war."

Only a day after Politico's article was published, Wired's David Gilbert reports that far-right Edward "Jake" Lang — who is incarcerated while awaiting trial for his alleged role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection — "is now using encrypted messaging channels to create a nationwide network of armed militias in all 50 states."

Lang, federal prosecutors allege, swung a baseball bat at police officers during the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building.

"Though he has been in prison for over 1200 days, Lang is working with a network of election deniers and conspiracists to promote the North American Patriot and Liberty Militia, or Napalm for short," Gilbert reports in his June 12 article for Wired. "The group officially launched last week with 50 state-specific militia groups on Telegram."

Gilbert continues, "Lang claims that the Telegram groups already have 20,000 members, including pastors, farmers, former military personnel, and currently serving sheriffs. However, multiple experts who reviewed the channels tell Wired said that figure was wildly overestimated and that the real figure was closer to 2500 members. But a group this size, they warn, is still large enough to cause a serious threat."

The Wired reporter notes that "tensions around" the United States' 2024 presidential election in November "are already at an all-time high," adding that "many Republicans refuse to say if they will peacefully accept the outcome of the November election."

Devin Burghart, executive director at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR), told Wired, "We've noted considerable energy being put into resurrecting far-right paramilitary activism right now. The growing talk of 'Second Amendment remedies' to unfavorable electoral outcomes is a serious cause for concern. Militia groups like Napalm promote political violence and sow the seeds for another potential insurrection."

Lang is presently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn while awaiting his trial, which is set for September.

Lang told Wired, "I thought it was necessary to get organized in case these encroachments, these violations of our civil liberties, our natural rights were to escalate to a point where it'd absolutely be untenable and that we would need to defend ourselves. There is a tyrannical wave that has hit America that we've never seen before. And so, it's time that people get organized in case they escalate to something that basically puts our very lives in danger."

Read David Gilbert's full report for Wired at this link.

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