“A District of Columbia judge said on Tuesday he will review later in June whether U.S. Capitol attack suspect Doug Jensen can be released from jail while he awaits trial. Jensen, of Des Moines, was arrested three days after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which left five people dead. After several indictments, he now faces seven charges, including allegations that he brought a folding knife into the Capitol. Jensen was photographed aggressively confronting officers in the building, including at one point chasing one up a staircase at the head of a larger mob. After his arrest, prosecutors described Jensen as a ‘true believer’ in the QAnon conspiracy theory, which held that then-President Trump was fighting a secret global cabal of Satanic pedophiles who had infiltrated elite society and the Democratic Party. In his new motion, Jensen forswears his former faith in QAnon. Attorney Christopher Davis writes, ‘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 a 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 that he was a true patriot. Six months later, languishing in a D.C. jail cell, locked down most of the time, he feels deceived, recognizing that he bought into a pack of lies. The QAnon conspiracy was 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.’”
“Pre-trial release hearing set,” Des Moines Register, June 8, 2021