He was in the middle of the front lines of the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, wearing a QAnon-influenced shirt that read “Trust the Plan,” “Q,” and “Where We Go One We Go All,” and was part of a mob that chased Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman inside the Capitol on that fateful day.
But now, Doug Jensen hopes to be released from pretrial detention and is calling himself a “victim” of outrageous false conspiracy theories that he no longer believes in, Law & Crime [1] reports.
Jensen’s attorney has filed a motion on behalf of his client and it states Jensen didn’t travel to Washington, D.C. to take part in a violent siege and contends he was merely “trying to observe what he thought was going to be ‘The Storm,’ something that’s described as the culmination of every right-wing conspiracy theory that claims the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
“Doug Jensen was not an intended part of any group or mob at any time that day,” the motion states. “He simply went to observe ‘The Storm.’ He was at the front of the crowd but in no way leading anyone. He was in front of everyone for the now disclosed silly reason to get Q recognized for ‘The Storm’ that was about to take place.”
The reason may seem “silly” now, but at the time it was very, very serious. As you can see in the video below.
Here’s the scary moment when protesters initially got into the building from the first floor and made their way outside Senate chamber. pic.twitter.com/CfVIBsgywK [2]
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 6, 2021 [3]
Jensen’s attorney went on to claim that this video, where his client can be seen wearing the QAnon-themed shirt and leading a subset of the mob that chased Goodman, shows that Jensen was not part of a concerted effort, adding that Jensen moved “irrespective of the others.”
When Jensen was arrested in January, according to FBI Special Agent Tyler Johnson he “said he went to D.C. to receive big news from Donald Trump,” and at the time said he still fervently believed in QAnon’s conspiracy theories. These theories purport that Satanic pedophiles rule the world and Trump has been commissioned to take them down.
Jensen allegedly told Johnson that he believed Mike Pence and numerous members of Congress were going to be secretly arrested that day, and even asked at one point if law enforcement officials could “let me in on that if you know those arrests are real.” Jensen subsequently admitted he had a knife on him when he was inside the Capitol but said it was his pocketknife from work and he was carrying it “for protection.”
The motion portrays him as the victim of a “dysfunctional childhood” who in turn became a devoted husband and father and a “true believer” in QAnon because its “mission” is to take down a society of pedophiles. The motion further states that Jensen spent much of his life as a child in foster care because his mother was “a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who was institutionalized over 30 times” during his childhood.
Which is truly sad. I lost a dear friend to this disease so I can see having a bit of empathy here.
The motion goes a few more steps further.
“Jensen became a digital soldier for ‘Q'” his attorney stated.
“Doug Jensen became a victim of numerous conspiracy theories that were being fed to him over the internet by a number of very clever people, who were uniquely equipped with slight, if any, moral or social consciousness,” the motion continues. “For reasons he does not even understand today, he became a ‘true believer’ and was convinced he was doing a noble service by becoming a digital soldier for ‘Q.’ Maybe it was mid-life crisis, the pandemic, or perhaps the message just seemed to elevate him from his ordinary life to an exalted status with an honorable goal. In any event, he fell victim to this barrage of internet-sourced info and came to the Capitol, at the direction of the President of the United States, to demonstrate he was a ‘true patriot.'”
It’s worth noting that this is the kind of power Trump has over some of his supporters, especially the ones who are largely disconnected from reality, to begin with. Whatever Jensen’s situation was or is, he’s facing seven charges including disrupting the orderly conduct of government, violent entry, and obstructing a law enforcement officer.”
This leads me to wonder if Trump will feel any guilt over this. I’m guessing he won’t.