Jake Lang, a former January 6 defendant who is running for the U.S. Senate in Florida, has said he believes the Proud Boys should be deputized to “bounty hunt illegal immigrants.”
“I would deputize the Proud Boys and the January 6 Patriots to bounty hunt illegal immigrants,” Lang explicitly told Newsweek.
“We would offer a bounty and work with local sheriffs and deputize and give legal access to be able to have these people join en masse and be able to work alongside federal law enforcement to provide tips, to provide information, and to go out and make the arrests of these illegal immigrants.”
The candidate, who is running as a primary challenger to incumbent Ashley Moody, who was appointed to the seat by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in place of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was referring to the far-right extremist group, notorious for their role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Moody has already received the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
The deputizing of civilians in support of local law enforcement in moments of crisis was common in the Old West. Still, the practice is now largely obsolete, and the suggestion of involving a group as notorious as the Proud Boys in law enforcement would prove highly controversial.
President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants is being spearheaded by ICE, which already has more than 20,000 agents and has received “more than 175,000 applications” to join its ranks thanks to a recent advertising blitz, according to Assistant Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
Elsewhere in the interview, Lang, an e-commerce entrepreneur originally from New York and in his early 30s, expressed no regrets over the events of January 6, when a mob of Trump supporters laid siege to the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the formal certification of the 2020 presidential election results, wrongly believing Joe Biden had “stolen” victory.
Lang was pictured during the melee wearing a gas mask while carrying a baseball bat and riot shield that he later used against police officers, according to federal prosecutors. “This is our house, we paid for this f***ing building,” he reportedly shouted at officers.
Lang was arrested on multiple charges relating to his actions, including assault and obstruction, and spent nearly four years in a “D.C. gulag” before being freed in January as a result of Trump’s blanket pardon of those prosecuted for their roles in the attempted insurrection.
The aspiring senator disputed the fact that any assaults took place during the riot and dismissed the mountain of video footage of violent attacks on police officers: “I don’t believe those are assaults in the legal definition. I believe that those are self-defense, defense of a third person, and defense of a country.
“Assault is an illegal act. I believe all the acts that were done on January 6 were justified and therefore legal because we were attacked first [and were in a] self-defense posture.”
He insisted he can beat Moody, whom he considers a “DeSantis loyalist.” He lashed out at the Republican Party “establishment” embodied by the “weak-kneed, feckless Republican leadership of Mitch McConnell, and the spineless swamp jellyfish that are in the United States Senate.”
Lang continued: “They are a weak, weak group of people that do not represent the American fire, and the MAGA movement, and you would be hard-pressed to name a single MAGA Republican that represents the American people in the Senate.
“They’re a bunch of country-club, uniparty Republicans, and so when the American people elect me, they’re electing an end to an era of the uniparty deep state.”
