Could a recent Florida transplant who was charged with beating up cops during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in the United States Capitol have a chance to defeat Ashley Moody in the 2026 Senate race?
Jake Lang thinks so.
The soon-to-be 30-year-old native New Yorker was among the more than 1,500 people charged with offenses related to the Capitol attack who were pardoned by President Donald Trump earlier this year, and he has filed paperwork to challenge Moody next year.
“Electing a January Sixer to return to the Capitol and represent we the people, constitutional conservatives, and a true 1776 patriot is more than just individual campaign issues,” Lang, who lives in West Palm Beach, told the Phoenix over the phone earlier this week.
“It’s really about a hallmark moment in American history where the old era of Mitch McConnell, uniparty, RINO Republicanism in the Senate is over, and Florida, the most MAGA state in the country, sends a young firebrand to Washington.”
Edward Jacob Lang, who lived in Newburgh, New York, was arrested on January 16, 2021, and indicted on January 29, 2021. He spent nearly four years in jail awaiting trial on an 11-count indictment for his actions at the Capitol, which included charges of assaulting law enforcement with a deadly weapon and engaging in physical violence on restricted grounds.
Those charges were dropped when Trump issued a blanket pardon on January 20, just hours after being inaugurated as the country’s 47th president.
“Jan. 6 was the day when free men stood up to tyranny,” Lang said in response to the federal charges brought against him.
“We peacefully protested.” We used our God-given right to address a grievance with our government. A stolen election. A fraudulent and rigged election. And we were out there praying in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, singing hymns, and waving our American flags when something unspeakable happened.”
The “unspeakable,” he claimed, was that law enforcement “unleashed an attack” on those who came out “peacefully” to petition their government, armed with pepper ball bullets, tear gas, concussion grenades, and flash bangs.
“They basically took what was kindling and threw a match on it, blaming January 6 and creating some sort of false narrative that it was an insurrection. “Nobody believed that,” he said.
“Nobody showed up armed, and after many years of maintaining my integrity and refusing to crumble, even though I spent 900 days in solitary confinement, I never took a plea deal,” Lang said, claiming to have saved two lives in the ugly melee that unfolded outside the Capitol.
Attacks on officers
The feds had a different perspective. His indictment details how Lang “repeatedly, and strategically, attacked the officers guarding the Capitol with that bat.”
The indictment goes on to read: “Specifically, he can be seen striking the officers with the bat at the following times: 4:54.58 p.m.; 4:56.30 p.m.; 4:56.44 p.m.; 4:57.13 p.m.; 4:57.15 p.m.; 4:57.21 p.m.; 4:57.26 p.m.; 4:57.32 p.m.; 4:58.06 p.m.; 4:58.29 p.m.; 4:59.10 p.m.; 4:59.32 p.m.; 4:59.49 p.m.; 4:59.51 p.m.; 4:59.54 p.m.; and 4:59.58 p.m.”
The US Attorney’s Office argued against Lang’s release because of his role in forming a paramilitary group in the days following January 6.
He has also established a legal defense fund for “J6ers” that he claims he oversaw from his prison cell. The Phoenix was able to locate three separate websites linked to Lang that have been collecting funds for Jan. 6 participants; one claims to have raised nearly $600,000, another claims to have raised nearly $200,000, and a third claims to have raised more than $241,000.
“My team and I are basically the figureheads of the Jan 6 movement,” he told me. “We’ve gotten lawyers for over 50 Jan 6ers and it was those lawyers and our team of professionals that basically have been liaising with President Trump’s team, giving them all of the evidence that they needed, that even people like myself that were charged with violence are not guilty because it was in a self-defense posture and so we were very involved working night and day with people very close to Trump.”
DeSantis-Trump 2?
When asked if he thought he had a chance against Moody, the twice-elected Florida attorney general who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in January to replace Marco Rubio in the Senate, Lang said Moody isn’t well known outside of political circles. He cited a University of North Florida survey published last month, which found that the majority of voters had never heard of her.
He referred to a potential race against her as “round two” of the DeSantis-Trump Republican presidential primary in 2023-2024.
“There is the DeSantis camp, which is the RINO establishment uniparty, and everyone understands that his 2024 presidential bid was a betrayal of President Trump and the Make America Great movement. “Ashley Moody represents the old school Ron DeSantis/Jeb Bush/Paul Ryan/Mitch McConnell wing of the Republican Party,” he said.
He added that his interviews with MAGA luminaries such as retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former CBS-turned conservative reporter Lara Logan, and conservative gadfly Laura Loomer on his “Political Prisoner Podcast” from his jail cell demonstrate that he has “MAGA patriots” on his side.
The Moody campaign declined to respond to Lang’s remarks.
Professor Aubrey Jewett teaches political science at the University of Central Florida. He is skeptical that Lang will gain much traction in the Republican primary, particularly in convincing voters that Moody, who has long expressed her love for Trump, is not a MAGA Republican.
“In the pre-Donald Trump political era, someone who had been convicted of rioting in the Capitol and attacking police officers would in no way ever be considered a serious candidate for Congress by either party but especially Republicans, who are always claiming that law-and-order mantle in support of the police,” according to Jewett. “But here we are.”
With so much happening in the first six weeks of the Trump administration, some may forget the outright shock felt by many when Trump pardoned nearly everyone convicted of crimes on January 6. Just a week earlier, Vice President J.D. Vance had stated, “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you should not be pardoned.”
Jacksonville-area Republican U.S. Rep. John Rutherford, a former Duval County sheriff, told Roll Call before the mass release of Jan. 6 rioters that he did not support releasing those who had been violent with law enforcement.
“I’m certainly not for an all-out pardon for everybody, because there are some violent felons in there,” Rutherford told the website. “I am a 41-year police officer. You attack a police officer, and I want your ass to go to jail.”
Jake Hoffman, the executive director of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans, does not take Lang seriously.
“Every cycle, both parties field insane candidates with less than a 0% chance of winning a race, but they do so anyway. “This is one of those cases,” he told The Phoenix.
Anthony Sabatini, a Lake County Commissioner and former GOP state representative, legally represented Lang for four months but has told the Phoenix that he is not involved in the campaign.
Lang would not be the first person involved with Jan. 6 to run for office in Florida, assuming he sticks with it through next year.fphoo
In 2022, Jeremy Brown, a self-described Oath Keepers member and lauded 20-year U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison on weapons charges stemming from an investigation into his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, lost a state House race in Tampa Bay Area District 62 to Democrat Michele Rayner. Brown ran his campaign from jail, which Lang would not have to face.
