Anti-LGBTQ+ Infowars Host Charged in Capitol Riot

Anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theorist Owen Shroyer is facing federal criminal charges for his participation in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Shroyer, an Infowars host who once said former First Lady Michelle Obama was a transgender woman and seeking to impose "Satanic culture" on the U.S., has been charged with disorderly conduct and entering a restricted area on Capitol grounds, the Associated Press reports. A far-right mob stormed the Capitol that day to interrupt the certification of the electoral vote for Joe Biden as president.

The charges against Shroyer were announced Thursday. He said in a Sunday video that he is "obviously completely innocent of the charges." He said he was at the Capitol "as a journalist" and there was "never any intent to disrupt anything."

However, he called enthusiastically for the march on the Capitol, according to the complaint against him. "Today we march for the Capitol because on this historic January 6, 2021, we have to let our congressmen and women know, and we have to let Mike Pence know, they stole the election," the complaint says, as quoted by The Washington Post. The preceding day, Shroyer had denounced the election as "fraudulent" and called for a "new revolution."

Pence, as vice president, was presiding over the vote certification in a joint session of the U.S. House and Senate. He and the members of Congress had to be evacuated when the rioters entered the Capitol, with some of them shouting, "Hang Mike Pence!" The certification resumed later, confirming that Biden was legitimately elected president over Donald Trump. But Trump and his supporters have refused to recognize that reality.

Shroyer hosts The War Room With Owen Shroyer on the Infowars website, which is operated by infamous conspiracy-monger Alex Jones. In one of Shroyer's most notorious episodes, in 2017, he said Michelle Obama was trans -- something that is definitely not OK in his book -- and has nefarious designs on the nation and its children.

He brought up a drag queen story hour at Michelle Obama Public Library in Long Beach, Calif. "Michael Obama, now Michelle Obama, hosts LGBTQ History Month at her library because that's the community that her and her husband are a part of," he said.

"They want to sexualize the children," he added later in the broadcast. They want to bring this demonized culture, like literally Satanic culture, into the mainstream, have it at public libraries, and just pass it off as normal, accepted, this is just the norm now."

Nearly 600 people have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the January 6 attack, and about 40 have pleaded guilty, according to the AP.