In 50 years from now (provided the world still exists), we’ll be telling our grandkids about the time a crack-addict-turned-pillow-salesman attempted to convince the world that the 2020 presidential election was hacked by shouting nonsensical words and regularly shaking his fists at the clouds during a chaotic “cyber symposium.” If, however, you happen to be Douglas Jensen—the 41-year-old insurrectionist who chased Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman in a video that has since gone viral—you might remember Mike Lindell’s 72 hours of online chaos as the thing that sent you back to the clink.
Jensen, who spent seven months in a D.C. jail before being sent home to Des Moines under house arrest in July, could be headed back to the hoosegow after he admitted to a court officer that he spent two days streaming Lindell’s off-the-rails event. Why does that matter? Because one of the terms of Jensen’s release, according to BuzzFeed News, was “a prohibition on using devices with internet access, including cell phones.” As Zoe Tillman writes:
“But according to the government, 30 days after he was released from jail, a court officer assigned to check on him arrived at his house and found Jensen in his garage listening to news on a WiFi-connected iPhone through the video platform Rumble…
More than that, though… Jensen also eventually admitted to the pretrial services officer that he’d spent two days watching a ‘cyber symposium’ hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the most prominent and prolific proponents of the election fraud conspiracy theories and lies that fueled the January 6 riots.”
Jensen, you may recall, is the QAnon conspiracy theorist who posted a video of himself “touching the f*cking White House!” (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t the White House.)
Ironically, as the Des Moines Register shared, it was that video that helped get Jensen sprung from jail when Judge Timothy Kelly ultimately decided that, “It’s hard to imagine Mr. Jensen planned or coordinated the events of January 6 when he had no basic understanding where he even was that day.” Also working in Jensen’s favor was that he had publicly disavowed his association with QAnon; in court filings, according to the AP, Jensen’s lawyer claimed his client felt “deceived, recognizing that he bought into a pack of lies.”
Jensen’s decision to tune into Lindell’s cyber nightmare, however, tells another story. “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,” assistant U.S. Attorney Hava Arin Levenson Mirell wrote in a petition to send Jensen back to jail, adding that:
“Jensen managed to violate one of the most difficult-to-enforce conditions in the most egregious way imaginable… Indeed, the Court need look no further than Jensen’s virtual attendance at a symposium dedicated to challenging the legitimacy of the 2020 electoral election to know that Jensen will continue to let his loyalties to certain conspiracy theories prevail over his obligations to this Court and his family.”
(Via BuzzFeed News)