Owen Shroyer is seen marching with a megaphone at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (via FBI court filing). Inset: Infowars host Owen Shroyer speaks to reporters outside the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Federal Courthouse, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023 in Washington (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana).
Conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Jonathan Owen Shroyer was sentenced to 60 days in prison Tuesday for joining rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and, according to prosecutors, inspiring others to mob violence with his dissemination of 2020 "election fraud" propaganda.
Shroyer hosts "The War Room with Owen Shroyer" on Infowars, the platform run by Alex Jones, a fellow right-wing conspiracy theorist and early originator and purveyor of the 2020 "Stop the Steal" movement supporting former President Donald Trump's baseless claims that voter fraud, the so-called "deep state" and Democrats stole his electoral victory. Trump did not win the 2020 election and though he attempted to litigate these claims more than 50 times in various court filings, no such fraud was ever found and his lawsuits were roundly dismissed or denied.
This June, the "War Room" host pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count of entering and remaining on Capitol grounds. Shroyer did not physically enter the Capitol building itself. Instead, he stood outside it, got atop some of its stairs and led a march around the building with people in tow as he chanted, among other things, "1776!" through a megaphone and screeched a series of falsehoods about Trump's "stolen" election.
Before his sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, Shroyer addressed the court, and according to Politico reporter Kyle Cheney, he defended and played down his conduct.
Shroyer said he was trying to direct people away from the building, not toward it. He also told the judge there was no plan for violence that he was part of that day.
HAPPENING NOW: Owen Shroyer, the InfoWars broadcaster and longtime sidekick of Alex Jones, is about to be sentenced by Judge Kelly. He claimed in remarks to Kelly that he chanted to the crowd at the Capitol steps to draw it away. DOJ pushed back sharply on that.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 12, 2023
The Associated Press reported that Kelly offered a curt assessment of Shroyer's claims in court Tuesday.
"Context is everything. I do not believe that you were trying to distract the crowd or turn the crowd away from the Capitol," the judge said, noting the delicate moment at which his conduct occurred — the transfer of presidential power.
This was a similar line of reasoning from Kelly when he sentenced convicted seditious conspirators Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, Joseph Biggs and others from the right-wing Proud Boys network earlier this month. Biggs is also an Infowars contributor and Jones associate. Throughout the Proud Boys sentencing hearings, when Tarrio, Biggs or their co-defendants pointed to their own violent rhetoric and brushed it off as little more than free speech run amok, Kelly emphasized the time and place they chose to act as particularly pernicious.
On Jan. 6, according to court records, Shroyer told a crowd if the election was going to be "taken" from Trump's supporters, they would have to let Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence know just how outraged they were and that they would not accept that outcome at any cost.
"Death to tyrants!" Shroyer chanted.
Shroyer also circulated video and podcasts and other similarly-themed materials in the run up to the attack. He gave a speech in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, where he told listeners: "Americans are ready to fight. We're not exactly sure what that's going to look like perhaps in a couple of weeks if we can't stop this certification of this fraudulent election … we are the new revolution! We are going to restore and we are going to save our republic!"
Prosecutors sought four months for Shroyer, arguing that he helped create the conditions for Jan. 6 that went from bad to worse.
Shroyer's attorney Norm Pattis told reporters gathered outside the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse Tuesday that he plans to appeal the 60-day sentence.
Kelly told Shroyer his sentence was unique because he had also been charged in the district once before for disturbing Congress. This episode was in December 2019 when he stood up during a House Judiciary Committee hearing and declared: "Jerry Nadler and the Democrat Party are committing treason against this country!"
In a similar vein of conservative activists facing repercussions for their actions, the son of prominent conservative activist Brent Bozell III, Leo Bozell IV, was found guilty this week of assaulting police, destroying government property and obstructing an official proceeding, among other charges.
Bozell also helped organize the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 6, according to prosecutors.
