Capitol rioter accused of ‘egregiously’ violating release terms by accessing internet & watching symposium on ‘election fraud’

Prosecutors are saying accused Capitol rioter Douglas Jensen’s “disavowal of QAnon” is just “an act” after he violated his release and accessed the internet.

Jensen has been accused by investigators of being part of a group that pursued a Capitol police officer inside the Capitol. He was wearing a QAnon shirt and was in possession of a knife at the time. 

Jensen has since disavowed his support of QAnon and other far right groups. He was granted pretrial release in July, with a condition on that release being that Jensen could not use devices with an internet connection. Only a month into his release, however, that’s exactly what Jensen did and the content he was consuming has not pleased prosecutors. 

A court officer checking in on Jensen at his home found him in the garage using an iPhone to stream news videos on Rumble, a popular video service among conservatives. Jensen would go on to admit that he also watched the two day cyber symposium on election fraud recently hosted by vocal Donald Trump supporter and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, who has been banned from major social media platforms for continuing to push his belief that the 2020 presidential election was rigged in Joe Biden’s favor. He is also one of several public figures facing defamation suits from Dominion Voting Systems. 

Jensen’s lawyer has not filed an official response, but the accused Capitol rioter could be facing jail time not only for the violation, but also because his wife was made a ‘custodian’ that would make sure he followed the rules of his release. Jensen would go on to admit, however, that it was his wife who left the news on for him the day he was caught consuming Rumble videos, meaning a release with a ‘responsible’ guardian may not be possible. 

Assistant US Attorney Hava Mirell wrote in a filing about Jensen that his actions prove his “alleged disavowal” of QAnon has been “an act.”

“Jensen’s swift violation confirms what the Government and this Court suspected all along: that Jensen’s alleged disavowal of QAnon was just an act; that his alleged epiphany inside the D.C. Jail was merely self-advocacy; and that, at the end of the day, Jensen will not abandon the misguided theories and beliefs that led him to menacingly chase U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up the Senate staircase on January 6, 2021,” the attorney wrote. 

Jensen has still “very much bought into QAnon’s ‘pack of lies,’” Mirrell said, adding that the fact Jensen was accessing the internet to specifically consume election fraud content is especially “egregious.” 

Jensen had previously claimed through his attorney that he had been “deceived” by a “pack of lies.”

“Jensen became a victim of numerous conspiracy theories that were being fed to him over the internet by a number of very clever people,” his lawyer wrote in a June filing before his client was granted release. “Six months later, languishing in a DC Jail cell, locked down most of the time, he feels deceived, recognizing that he bought into a pack of lies.”

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