Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang has been charged with making threatening statements about one of the officers he faced off with at the U.S. Capitol.
Lang was seen on camera at a Jan. 6 fifth-anniversary event this year, telling Metropolitan Police Cmdr. Jason Bagshaw that he should be “put down like a dead dog” and “hung” in front of the Capitol.
Lang was part of the brutal battle between Trump supporters and police at the Capitol’s lower west tunnel on Jan. 6, 2021, which is also where Bagshaw faced down the mob that day.
Lang now faces a misdemeanor charge in D.C. Superior Court, with prosecutors alleging his statements against Bagshaw constituted threats.
Prosecutors say Lang approached Bagshaw and pointed at him, quoting Lang as saying, “Public execution is the only solution for animals like you,” and that Bagshaw needed to be dragged “out by his ankles” and thrown “in the Potomac.”
James Thomas Ryan, an attorney for Lang, declined to comment.
Lang, a white supremacist and pro-Trump influencer, was among the more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants Trump pardoned upon his return to office in January 2025. Lang’s actions at the Capitol were extensively documented in cellphone, body camera and CCTV video. He bragged about his actions on Instagram, calling the mob “an organized unit of patriots trying to take on tyrants.”
While Lang was one of just a handful of rioters held in pretrial detention because of what a Trump-appointed judge called the “very strong” evidence against him, along with his “overt expressions of willingness to use violence in the future,” he was not convicted, and his trial did not happen before Trump pardoned him.
In Washington, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia handles both local and federal crimes; it declined to comment.
The warrant was issued Friday and Lang was arraigned Saturday, when he pleaded not guilty.
A status hearing is set for March 24, and Lang has been given a stay-away order, details of which were unavailable.
