Jake Lang’s Tour of American Courtrooms Continues

St. Paul, MN – White supremacist agitator and violent J6er Edward Jacob “Jake” Lang Zoomed into a court hearing in St. Paul on Friday, Oct. 9, as the Minnesota state government argued its case against him for kicking over an ice sculpture reading “Prosecute ICE” in front of the State Capitol building in February.

The hearing marked Lang’s second appearance for his criminal charges after the previous hearing scheduled for July was canceled. It saw the state’s attorneys make the case for a hate crime charge in addition to property destruction against Lang that could carry a prison sentence, while Lang’s attorney argued in favor of a pretrial hearing to dismiss the additional charge.

Lang, wearing a polka dot dress shirt beneath a navy blue suit jacket, was making his video call from a familiar location where he frequently gives interviews, sitting in front of a backdrop branded for his “Blessed News Network,” which markets itself as “AI-curated Christian and conservative headlines.”

The previous day, Lang was protesting at Cornell University in New York, carrying a sign on campus claiming the “Cornell 7” were innocent, potentially explaining his absence in the Minnesota court room. According to Lang, he was “thrown out” of the campus for this.

Throughout the hearing, Lang was quiet and relatively stoic, breaking from this demeanor to shake his head and show disbelief whenever the prosecuting attorney spoke to the judge. It was clear he learned from his run-in with Judge Reid Poland III in Tennessee, where he was held in contempt of court and jailed for the maximum amount of time after interrupting the trial of Dalton Eatherly, also known online as “Chud the Builder.”

The bedraggled Brian Karalus, Lang’s attorney, sat at a table in the center of the room across from the two prosecuting attorneys. Karalus, who earlier this year represented Shiloh Hendrix – the woman who was filmed at a park in Rochester calling an 8-year-old the N-word – had only papers before him where the two across from him had laptops.

Lang watched silently over Zoom, suspended above the courtroom from a wall-mounted TV, while Karalus did not contest the government’s first charge against Lang, the destruction of property, but made the case to dismiss the second charge, that the destruction was hate or bias-motivated.

Justifying Lang’s actions as a form of “political speech,” Karalus added in a rambling speech to the judge that the majority of Americans and Minnesotans support deportations.

“Mr. Lang’s political position on this is not in the minority,” Karalus said. “The state might not like some of his antics and his theatrics, but that’s not a crime.”

Contrary to Karalus’ point, YouGov polling conducted on Jan. 24, less than two weeks before Lang’s vandalism, revealed that 57% of U.S. adults somewhat or strongly disapproved of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On the topic of deportations specifically, according to Pew Research Center polling from February and March last year, 51% of U.S. adults distinguish between immigrants who have committed violent crimes from those who have not committed any crimes and have a job. The data reveals that a majority of those polled actually are opposed to deporting such immigrants, who make up a significant number of those targeted by ICE under the second Trump administration.

Karalus made the case that the state’s decision to prosecute Lang represented “selective prosecution,” mentioning the toppling of a Columbus statue in front of the State Capitol in 2020.

The statue, which was pulled down by a large group of activists two weeks after the police murder of George Floyd, was not destroyed, and damage on the statue itself was restricted to a scuff on its nose when the solid-bronze statue made impact with the concrete below. Ramsey County charged just one person who was involved, Mike Forcia, with a felony of first degree criminal destruction of property.

Forcia ultimately agreed to a restorative justice sentencing which saw his criminal charges dropped after he completed 100 hours of community service educating the public about the genocide of Indigenous peoples during the development of the U.S.

Elena Basill, the state’s lead prosecutor in the Lang case, supported the hate crime charge using Lang’s remarks during the video, not mentioning the deluge of racist comments made by him before and after the event.

“Our country is made for Americans, not Somalis,” Lang said in the video after destroying the ice sculpture.

The remarks came two months into the deadly Operation Metro Surge and roughly a month into the heightened ICE presence in the Twin Cities where federal agents killed two Minneapolis residents and abducted countless migrants off of the streets and from their homes.

Weeks prior to his appearance at the State Capitol, Lang’s planned anti-Islam march from Minneapolis’ City Hall into the largely Somali Cedar-Riverside neighborhood was stunted by thousands of residents who forced him to retreat and chased him through a hotel lobby many blocks away from where he planned on burning a Quran.

Lang’s appearance that day was inspired by right-wing influencer Nick Shirley’s late-December vlog purporting to show fraud at Somali daycares and healthcare providers in the cities. This began a new wave of anti-Somali sentiment that came directly from the President of the United States, leading to increased immigration enforcement presence in the city and further normalization of racism.

Even before Minneapolis residents forced him to flee the city, at the Whipple Federal Building that ICE has operated out of near the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, Lang declared his politics were further to the right than the Nazis, and since then he has taken to referring to himself as the “Fuhrer.”

When Basill finished her remarks, Lang raised his hand for comment but the judge quickly moved on. Lang placed his hand on his brow, frustrated, but remained silent.

After hearing arguments, the judge announced that he would make a decision in the next 30 days about the next steps in the trial and whether there would be a pre-trial hearing on the motion to dismiss the hate crime charge. A review hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15, 2027.

The Minnesota case isn’t Lang’s only legal fight. This year he’s been dealing with charges in Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Michigan and Texas.

In September, Lang pleaded guilty to a DUI charge in Pennsylvania from last year. On Sept. 22, the judge sentenced Lang to six months of probation for the incident.

On July 21, Lang pleaded guilty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to making threats to do bodily harm against a police officer on Jan. 6, 2026, and the court sentenced him to one year of probation and fined him $500.

After Lang was arrested in Minneapolis following his “[N-word] march” in August, the D.C. court momentarily issued a bench warrant for Lang on the grounds that the arrest violated his parole. Lang’s lawyer in the case, self-described cannabis influencer and “Street Lawyer Magic” attorney Lonny Bramzon submitted a motion full of typos to recall the bench warrant.

In Michigan, Lang still faces multiple charges from a May appearance in Dearborn where he was pulled over and police found psychedelic mushrooms in the U-Haul he was driving. Dearborn Police charged Lang with possession of a controlled substance and operating a motor vehicle while using a mobile device. His next hearing in Michigan is scheduled for Nov. 16.

Lang is also still banned from entering the Lone Star state after being charged with making terroristic threats during the trial of Karmelo Anthony earlier this year. He was released from jail in May on a $250,000 bond and is required to wear an ankle monitor to forbid him from re-entering the state while the case is open.

After his hearing in Minnesota, not one to miss out on a potential spotlight, Lang co-opted a march of “pro-life Christian students” through Trenton, New Jersey. Claiming to have “led” the group, video posted by Lang showed him mixed in a crowd of people who were seemingly ignoring him.

Shortly after that, Lang traveled to Hart, Michigan, to protest an event for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, arriving in the back of an armored truck that seemed straight out of a haunted hayride. The bed of the truck contained roughly a dozen of Lang’s self-styled “crusaders,” carrying crosses and carrying signs referring to the Michigan-born doctor El-Sayed as a terrorist.

At the event, Lang lined up with several familiar faces, including Jayden Scott, to declare the Council of American-Islamic Relations a terrorist organization. Lang was wearing his characteristically empty plate carrier vest and had his court-ordered ankle monitor on his left leg making sure he stays out of Texas.