Jake Lang, one of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants pardoned when President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, now faces a misdemeanor charge in D.C. Superior Court for allegedly threatening a Metropolitan Police commander at a Jan. 6 fifth-anniversary event earlier this year.
Lang was never convicted in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021. His trial never took place before the pardon, and he had been held in pretrial detention. Now, prosecutors allege that statements he made to Metropolitan Police Cmdr. Jason Bagshaw at the anniversary gathering constituted criminal threats.
According to charging documents, Lang approached Bagshaw, pointed at him, and delivered a string of statements that prosecutors characterize as threats. Among them, per prosecutors:
Public execution is the only solution for animals like you.
Lang was also seen on camera telling Bagshaw he should be "put down like a dead dog" and "hung" in front of the Capitol, prosecutors say. Charging documents further allege Lang said Bagshaw needed to be dragged "out by his ankles" and thrown "in the Potomac."
Bagshaw is the same officer who confronted protesters at the Capitol's lower west tunnel on Jan. 6, 2021, where Lang was also present, NBC News reported.
A warrant for Lang's arrest was issued on Friday. He was arraigned on Saturday and pleaded not guilty. Lang has also been given a stay-away order, though the specific terms of that order have not been made publicly available.
His attorney, James Thomas Ryan, declined to comment on the charge.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, which handles both local and federal crimes in Washington, also declined to comment. The specific name of the misdemeanor offense has not been publicly identified, and no case number or presiding judge has been disclosed.
A status hearing is set for March 24.
Lang's pardon covered his conduct related to Jan. 6, 2021. It did not, and could not, immunize him from new and separate criminal conduct. That distinction matters, and it is one that Lang's own alleged behavior forces into the spotlight.
Lang previously described the group at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 as "an organized unit of patriots trying to take on tyrants." His actions at the Capitol were documented in cellphone, body camera, and CCTV video. Whatever one thinks of the pardons or of the treatment Jan. 6 defendants received in the justice system, the alleged conduct here is new, specific, and directed at an identifiable law enforcement officer by name.
Threatening a police commander with "public execution" is not political speech. If the allegations hold, it is exactly the kind of conduct that undermines every serious argument made on behalf of Jan. 6 defendants who simply walked through the Capitol and went home. Investigators will need to establish whether the statements meet the legal threshold for criminal threats under D.C. law, and the court will weigh Lang's not-guilty plea against the video evidence prosecutors say exists.
The pardon gave Lang his freedom. What he allegedly did with it may tell the public everything it needs to know about whether that mercy was well spent.
