Newly free from prison, local insurrectionist plans to return to Sullivan County

Jake Lang maintains his actions on Jan. 6 were justified

By RUBY RAYNER-HASELKORN
Posted 2/4/25

WASHINGTON, DC — The River Reporter spoke with Edward Jacob Lang, a 29-year-old Narrowsburg, NY native, from prison just weeks before his release. That release followed President Donald …

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Newly free from prison, local insurrectionist plans to return to Sullivan County

Jake Lang maintains his actions on Jan. 6 were justified

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WASHINGTON, DC — The River Reporter spoke with Edward Jacob Lang, a 29-year-old Narrowsburg, NY native, from prison just weeks before his release. That release followed President Donald Trump’s issuance of a presidential proclamation on January 20, ordering the release of Lang and about 1,500 other individuals involved in the riot at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In the days before Trump took office, Lang, who goes by Jake, imagined his release. Speaking to the River Reporter from his prison cell on the secure video chat app “GettingOut” he said, “In my heart of hearts, I think I’m going to be picked up in a limousine, me and all the J6’s in the CDF, where I’m at right now, and taken to the inauguration on day one. In my heart, that’s what I feel like is going to happen. We will be presented as—God forbid, humility strikes me—some form of heroes or whatever, at the main event, the inauguration, like the heroic champion entry type of scenario, the liberation of the January 6 political prisoners brought directly, just five miles away from the United States Capital to revel in the festivities with all of our other people who stepped by our side.”

Lang’s hopeful predictions were not far from what soon became reality. On January 21, Lang was released from prison into the embrace of his father Ned Lang. Others who stormed the Capitol on January 6 crowded around Lang cheering. “This man has stood by my side,” Lang says while embracing his father after his release. Lang thanked Trump, his “King,” and the crowd of supporters erupted into a “USA” chant.

Trump’s executive action directed the U.S. Attorney General to dismiss all 11 of Lang’s charges for his actions at the Capital, which included assaulting law enforcement with a deadly weapon and engaging in physical violence on restricted grounds. Lang, never sentenced, delayed his trial proceedings and was released from The Central Detention Facility (CDF) in Washington, D.C. after four years in prison. 

Lang justifies his actions on January 6. “We stood up against a stolen election. We will be vindicated in the pages of history as patriots and freedom fighters,” Lang said in a video taken moments after his release. There has been no evidence that election fraud determined the outcome of the 2020 election.

The riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 disrupted the peaceful transfer of power, led to the injury of about 140 law enforcement officers, and left $2.9 million in damages, reports NPR. According to AP polling only about two in 10 people support pardoning most January 6 participants. 

Republican lawmakers and two January 6 defendants have spoken out against Trump’s sweeping pardons. Judge Beryl Howell, who served as the chief of the D.C District Court at the time of the riot, has. warned against Trump’s executive order. Judge Howell told CNN, “That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.”

“We’re back, the Patriots, we don’t have to crawl in the corners of Facebook and Instagram being censored, we’ve got X, we’ve got Trump, we’ve got Musk, we’ve got the dream team,” Lang said shortly after he was released from prison. 

Court papers filed by prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office argued that Lang should remain detained without bond because of his involvement in establishing the “USA Patriot Militia” in the days after January 6 before his arrest on the 16th, where he “leveraged a unique set of skills in social media to attempt to organize online groups of state militias and encourage them to stop the inauguration.” The court filing says releasing Lang is a “danger to the community.”

In prison, Lang says, “I’ve developed this extremely deep relationship with God, but I’ve also developed this extremely deep leadership position in the January 6 community.” While in prison he says he’s worked to raise money for that community, runs “multiple organizations,” and has garnered “millions of views and a social meeting following.”

Lang started a second militia from prison, the North America Patriot and Liberty Militia (NAPALM). He said, “My parents and everybody are all tweaked out about it [NAPALM] always and stuff,” and when his trial was coming up he heeded his parents’ advice and stepped back from the militia. He says the decision to step back “is just political, for political expediency and for prudence.” Lang employs six people, working out of the Philippines, to assist him in running his various January 6-related projects, which also include a podcast. 

In addition to using the “GettingOut” video chat app, Lang was able to communicate with the River Reporter via text from multiple numbers, some operated by his employees on his behalf.

Now, no longer behind bars, Lang says he wants to represent Sullivan County as NY-19’s Congressional representative. Speaking to the River Reporter about his future plans while still in prison, Lang said jokingly, “Now that Trump’s in office I’m going to come home and buy the River Reporter and turn it into conservative news outlets.” 

Lang grew up in Narrowsburg and lived at 60 Lake St. until he was 16. “I have plans back in my home area. I love Narrowsburg. My father will live out the rest of his life there, and I want to have my family and be able to be next to my father,” he says. 

Lang identifies himself as a “political prisoner,” and sees “great similarities” between himself and Nelson Mandela. He told the River Reporter he read Mandela’s autobiography while in solitary confinement and compared NAPALM to Spear of the Nation, the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress founded by Mandela following the Sharpeville Massacre. Speaking about his actions at the Capitol, Lang says “I got caught up in this flurry of excitement trying to defend the people around me and defend my country.” 

According to court papers filed by prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office, various pictures and videos show Lang used an aluminum baseball bat and a riot shield to assault law enforcement as he tried to enter the building and was at the front of a violent mob that spent more than two hours in a standoff with law enforcement officers as Trump supporters tried to force their way into the Capitol.

Lang says he went to the capital on January 6 out of fear of a permanent COVID lockdown under Joe Biden. He says he was worried about where things were headed. “COVID tyranny was the bane of my existence… I didn’t want America to continue like this,” he says. He added, “Something internally was calling, and I felt a duty.”  

Lang says he took a Porsche car with his friend Sam Baron, a member of Chabad Brooklyn, to get to the capital, “I drove down there in style,” he says. 

“January 6, for me, was an amazing day. I would stand up for my country in a heartbeat again if it was necessary,” Lang told the River Reporter. He is most proud of the imagery from the day. “There was a deeper, latent, almost dormant understanding between everybody in the crowd,” He says describing the atmosphere at the Capitol that day.

How does Lang answer people who see that same imagery and are scared and fearful? “Sometimes it’s necessary.” “They should use some more discernment to know that these weren’t people that had anything bad, no bad intentions for them, for fellow American brothers and sisters,” he answers.

Since his release, Lang has been in the Florida Keys where his mother lives. Posting to X, formerly Twitter, he updates his followers with appearances on right-wing and libertarian talk shows and photos from fishing trips with his father Ned Lang, a former Town of Tusten board member and owner of various properties and businesses local to Sullivan County, NY and Wayne County, PA. 

Ned Lang has been outspoken in his support of his son. He posted a letter urging Trump to issue a pardon for Jake and contributed to his legal costs for nearly four years. But Ned, who owns The Ranch House in Beach Lake, PA, which showcases a Trump billboard out front, has not always approved of Jake’s actions.

“My dad and I had a strained relationship for many years on and off,” Jake Lang told the River Reporter. Lang’s parents divorced when he was eight, and when he was 16 he moved to Matamoras, PA, spending his first two years of high school in Damascus and then his last two at Delaware Valley. 

“I had a falling out with my dad at that time because I wanted to smoke marijuana, and he didn’t want me to smoke marijuana.” Lang then moved to NYC and briefly attended Hunter College on a wrestling scholarship before dropping out his first year. 

Lang describes the period of his life between the ages of 18 and 24 before the onslaught of the COVID pandemic as being in “dire straits.”

After dropping out of college, Lang began selling hats on the street with the tagline “Pusha” and making money from e-commerce resale of e-cigarette vapes and other products like hoverboards. Soon after dropping out he became embroiled in the New York City club scene working as a promoter, attracting clientele to clubs, and helping new models grow their social media following. 

“Overnight I was rich and the most connected with model services seven nights a week that I didn’t even have to pay for,” he says. Lang says, “I just got transplanted into this lifestyle,” adding “I was just doing the same thing every night, partying, sleeping around, drinking, and I started a little bit of drug use and making a lot of money.”

“I was the life of the party and then by the time I was 23 or 24 I was in a self-destructive phase, and if I didn’t get my way I was angry and abusive.”

He says he was the “slave of sin,” describing “I was addicted to the sexual addiction and drugs and alcohol and being in the right place and the right people and being recognized.” 

Aside from Lang self-identifying as being “obsessed with liberty,” and hosting a “protest outside the Federal Reserve bank in NYC,” his life was not centered around politics in a substantial way prior to January 6.

He says “I never voted for Trump until this year inside D.C. jail.” In 2020, Lang didn’t vote and in 2016 he said he voted Libertarian. 

His life only began to shift away from the club scene two months before January 6. “I have a whole different life now, my purpose, my community, and my value system and everything,” he says.

During the fall of 2020, he says, “I was an absolute wreck, and my businesses started to suffer severely from it. I hit rock bottom with my company. Management flattened out.” Around then Lang was also “introduced to Jesus” by a woman he was seeing.

In November of 2020, Lang moved partially out of the city to Newburgh, NY where a childhood friend lived. He says “I was sober, I was celibate. Those are two huge things for me. For like a month and a half, I was doing good.” He says he was going to church every day and starting to get his life back together. 

His reverence of Trump, sobriety and new political dedication is deeply tied to him finding God. He refers to Trump as an instrument of God.

Lang was baptized in the church in Narrowsburg but says “it was not a severely religious upbringing,” and he considers himself a “Messianic Jew,” and also identifies himself as a “born again Christian.”

Lang’s release and potential return to the area have triggered mixed reactions from area locals. A full-page ad was bought welcoming Lang home in the February 6-12 issue of the  River Reporter. It included a verse from the bible Genesis 50:20 and "Welcome Home Jake [with the J superseded with the number 6], God Bless America." See the editor’s note below.

In a popular community Facebook group, Sullivan County Post, commenters  said, “A bunch of amped up, ignorant goons went to the Capitol, tried to interfere with the Democratic process because they didn’t like the results, everyone around Trump admitted he did nothing to stop what was happening but fanned the flames,” below a post about Lang’s release. Another called Jake’s father, Edward Lang “a traitor to this county,” while many comments were sympathetic to Lang’s legal situation. For instance, “Jake was held for 4 years without a trial! He was never given the opportunity to even defend himself. How can that be fair?”

A sign on someone’s property right off of Rt. 97 before Skinners Falls, reads “Welcome home, Jake.” 

Speaking about Narrowsburg, Lang said, “We’re becoming infected with liberalism. The Narrowsburg I grew up in was much different. Main Street has changed dramatically, the politics, the demographics.”

In the November 2024 election, Sullivan County favored Trump. 58.14% of Sullivan County voted for Donald J. Trump and JD Vance and 41% for Kamala D. Harris and Tim Walz. But Sullivan does have some hyper-liberal enclaves, like the hamlet of Narrowsburg in the Town of Tusten. In Tusten, 57.08% voted for Kamala D. Harris and Tim Walz while 42.47% voted for Donald J. Trump and JD Vance. 

Some locals who think Lang shouldn’t have been pardoned worry he hasn’t learned a lesson for his actions at the capitol on January 6 and fear now, since being released by Trump he has only been emboldened.

(Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed by advertisements are those of the advertisers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the River Reporter and have no influence or impact on the paper’s reporting and coverage.)

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