Supreme Court won’t hear InfoWars host’s First Amendment challenge to Jan. 6 conviction

The Supreme Court has rejected a petition from Owen Shroyer — an InfoWars host who traversed Capitol grounds with broadcaster Alex Jones amid the riot on Jan. 6, 2021 — seeking to overturn his misdemeanor guilty plea on First Amendment grounds.

Shroyer accompanied Jones throughout the day on Jan. 6, helping lead the march from President Donald Trump’s rally to the Capitol while stoking the fury of thousands of Trump supporters who had just attended his “stop the steal” rally.

Shroyer, unlike Jones, was charged with misdemeanors for what prosecutors said were his efforts to inflame the crowd, using a bullhorn, at the foot of the Capitol. Though Shroyer had claimed he was working with Jones to help calm the seething mob — and Jones was captured on video calling for calm and asking police officers for permission to address rioters to steer them away from the Capitol — prosecutors said Shroyer deviated from that path when he ascended the Capitol steps and exhorted the crowd with a chant of “1776.” Jones’ group, prosecutors noted, also ignored officers’ exhortations to leave Capitol grounds altogether.

The justices turned down Shroyer’s case in a routine list of orders issued Monday morning. No justice signaled any dissent from the decision or commented on its rationale.

Shroyer pleaded guilty last year to trespassing on Capitol grounds and was sentenced to 60 days in prison by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee. Shroyer quickly vowed to appeal the sentence all the way to the Supreme Court, saying he had become a “martyr for free speech.” Shroyer’s attorney Robert Barnes did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

Jones’ trek on the restricted grounds of the Capitol — as members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence sheltered from the oncoming mob — has become a source of interest for investigators. His entourage included Ali Alexander, the founder of the Stop the Steal organization and organizer of events on Jan. 5 and 6. It also included Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

Several leaders of the Proud Boys, who were convicted last year of seditious conspiracy, also traded messages suggesting they had been in touch with Jones on Jan. 6, as they marched with their own allies toward the Capitol and helped instigate the breach.

Jones, Chesebro, Alexander and others, however, were not charged for their own presence in the restricted area.

Shroyer’s prosecution was unusual because most protesters who did not enter the Capitol building or engage in physical confrontations with the police have not faced charges. But prosecutors said Shroyer deserved to be treated more seriously because at the time of the Jan. 6 riot he was under a court order to stay away from the Capitol.

That order stemmed from a prior criminal case against Shroyer where he was charged with disrupting a 2019 House Judiciary Committee hearing that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Shroyer was removed from the session after he abruptly jumped out of his seat and shouted, prosecutors said. The earlier case against Shroyer was resolved through a deferred prosecution agreement that essentially allows the case to be dismissed without a conviction if the defendant successfully completes a period of probation.

The early phase of Shroyer’s Jan. 6-related prosecution drew judicial scrutiny into whether prosecutors were assessing whether suspects in the riot had legitimate claims to being members of the press.

“Who watches the watchmen?” U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui asked in an August 2021 order demanding more information from the Justice Department about Shroyer’s status.

Prosecutors initially rebuffed Faruqui’s inquiry, but later said they had considered Shroyer’s case under DOJ’s media guidelines and decided to proceed with it.