Infowars host Jonathon Owen Shroyer has been charged with misdemeanors related to the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol after the FBI said it found video from the riot showing him inside a restricted area.
The “War Room with Owen Shroyer” host was accused Friday of knowingly entering any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Federal prosecutors do not allege that Mr. Shroyer merely entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, but rather that he breached the building’s grounds and made it to the top of the stairs on the east side of the complex.
Mr. Shroyer acknowledged the charges in a video posted on Infowars, the website run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and said he was in contact with his lawyer and planned to turn himself in on Monday.
“There’s a lot of questions, some I have answers to, some I don’t,” Mr. Shroyer said in the video. “I plan on declaring innocence of these charges because I am.”
Mr. Shroyer is now the second person directly involved with Infowars to be charged in connection with the events of Jan. 6. Samuel Montoya, a video editor for the site, was arrested and charged in April.
Infowars had made clear prior to Jan. 6 that both Mr. Shroyer and Mr. Jones, vocal supporters of former President Trump, planned to be in D.C. that day to protest the outcome of the 2020 election he lost.
“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 the fraudulent election,” Mr. Shroyer said during a pro-Trump protest in D.C. on Jan. 5. “We are going to restore and we are going to save the republic!
A document filed this week in D.C. federal court includes still images from different videos depicting Mr. Shroyer and Mr. Jones, among other Trump supporters, in a restricted area outside the Capitol.
Mr. Shroyer was previously arrested at the Capitol in 2020 after he interrupted a congressional hearing being held as part of the first impeachment proceedings brought against Mr. Trump while in office.
The government argues Mr. Shroyer accordingly should have known that he was not allowed in or around the building at the time of the Capitol riot.
In a statement of facts, a special agent for the FBI said Mr. Shroyer had entered into a deferred prosecution agreement following his 2020 arrest which required that he comply with certain conditions.
Per the agreement, Mr. Shroyer vowed not to break the law and to perform 32 hours of community service, as well as to refrain from protesting in the Capitol or acting disorderly on its grounds, it said.
The FBI special agent said that Mr. Shroyer had not fulfilled the community service requirement as of Jan. 6 and that it remained in effect at that time.
A judicial summons issued was Friday in D.C. Superior Court ordering Mr. Shroyer to appear for a remote hearing on Sept. 30 for counts of unlawful conduct and parading on Capitol grounds.
“I was informed by my lawyer that there is a warrant out for my arrest right now and that I have to turn myself in by Monday morning. So that’s just that,” Mr. Shroyer said in the Infowars video.
Prosecutors have accused Mr. Montoya, the Infowars editor, of having breached the Capitol building. “It feels good to be in the Capitol, baby!” he said in a video filmed there. He has pleaded not guilty.
The document entered Friday in the Shroyer case includes images showing him allegedly in a restricted area with Mr. Jones and “Stop the Steal” activist Ali Alexander, neither of whom have been charged.
More than 500 people have been charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot. The U.S. House of Representatives has established a bipartisan select committee to investigate the incident as well.
