Govt. Says Alleged Capitol Rioter Violated Terms of Release by Watching Mike Lindell’s Election Conspiracy Symposium

 Douglas Jensen stands accused of leading a mob that chased and hectored Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman inside in the Capitol on January 6. Jensen was wearing a Q-Anon shirt and had a knife in his pocket at the time.

In July, a federal judge granted Jensen pretrial release over the government’s objection. That judge imposed certain conditions on Jensen, one of which was that he could not use devices with access to the internet.

But according to a prosecutors’ filing that was flagged by Buzzfeed on Thursday night, Jensen violated that condition a month after his release.

“A mere thirty days after his release from the D.C. Jail,” said the filing, “defendant Douglas Jensen was found alone, in his garage, using a WiFi-connected iPhone to stream news from Rumble.” As the document notes, Rumble is an alternative to YouTube that is popular among some conservatives.

During a check on Jensen, a court officer arrived at the defendant’s residence and found him watching the video streaming service on his phone. “Jensen eventually admitted to his Pretrial Services Officer that in the previous week, he had spent two days watching Mike Lindell’s Cyber Symposium regarding the recount of the presidential election,” the filing said.

Lindell, of course, is the CEO of MyPillow who has become synonymous with conspiracies about the 2020 presidential election being rigged against Donald Trump. Last week he held an absolutely batty “symposium” where he claimed he would prove that election could not have been won by Joe Biden. (Spoiler alert: he did not show any such proof.)

As a result of the alleged breach of the conditions of Jensen’s release, the government is asking for him to be sent back to jail while he awaits trial. Jensen had been a confessed subscriber to the Q-Anon conspiracy theory, and prosecutors homed in on this in a successful attempt to jail before trial. However, he was granted pretrial release when his lawyer argued that after six months in custody, Jensen felt he had been “deceived” by the Q-Anon movement.

“He has proven that not even six months in jail will deter him from returning to the conspiracy theories that led him to commit an assault against a federal officer on January 6, 2021,” said the filing.