Who is Jake Lang, target of improvised bombs at NYC Gracie Mansion anti-Islam protest?

Rebecca White and John Annese, New York Daily News on Mar 9, 2026

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NEW YORK — Jake Lang, the far-right provocateur who staged an anti-Islam protest at Gracie Mansion that drew a pair of ISIS-inspired counterprotesters accused of throwing improvised bombs at him, first rose to notoriety for his role in the Jan. 6 riots.

Lang, described in court filings as a proud participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, spent four years jailed as he awaited trial before President Donald Trump pardoned all of the rioters at the start of his second term.

The 30-year-old New York resident was part of the pro-Trump mob of insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Video showed him wielding a barricade shield and a baseball bat in a pitched battle with police as he wore a riot helmet stolen from a Metropolitan Police Department officer, according to court filings.

Court documents show he posted photos and videos of himself on social media, including a video of a crowd at an entrance to the Capitol and the words “This is Me” superimposed overhead, and a Facebook post reading, “I was the leader of Liberty today.”

Lang gave a video interview a day after the riot, boasting, “We are talking war. We need men up there, men who are going to pull cops down and out of there. Men who are going to take a bullet if need be, you know. This was tyrants versus freedom fighters,” court papers allege. His defense attorney contended he saved the life of a man who claimed to be the victim of excessive force by police at the Capitol.

In the years following his arrest, Lang helped create video “documentaries” he posted to his “J6Truth” website despite being locked up pretrial. He was moved around to several jails, including in 2024 to MDC Brooklyn in Sunset Park.

After his release, Lang announced he’d be a 2026 candidate for the U.S. Senate in Florida. And in January, he staged a small pro-ICE counterdemonstration in Minneapolis but was outnumbered by protesters who pelted him with water balloons in frigid weather.

On Friday, Lang showed up briefly to counter a pro-Iran protest in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, where he simulated a lewd act with a live goat.

The next day he showed up with about 20 supporters in front of Gracie Mansion — where authorities say two teens targeted him and others with an improvised bomb.

Lang also brought a goat with him to the Gracie Mansion protest, crudely describing the animal as “Mamdani’s second wife.”

He told a Daily News reporter that he wanted to “stop the Muslim prayers that are happening in New York City.”

“They’re humiliation rituals for the white Christian men in the city,” he added.

He and his small group quickly fled after Emir Balat, 18, threw what police described as an improvised explosive device. Balat and his accomplice, Ibrahim Kuyami, both said they were inspired by ISIS, and in a written statement Balat praised Allah and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

“Jesus is king, and he made it that that nail bomb didn’t go off” Lang said moments after the explosive failed to detonate. “Thank you, Lord God. They threw a nail bomb at us and it didn’t explode because Jesus is still on the throne in my life.”

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