Former Jan. 6 prosecutor targets Big Tech with congressional run

Here’s a name to add to your radar as the 2024 primaries get underway: Will Rollins. 

The Democrat running for the U.S. House in California’s 41st District is certainly piquing my interest. And it’s all because of one issue he’s choosing to prioritize with his campaign. 

Rollins is a former federal prosecutor whose work at the Justice Department included cases brought against some of the rioters who participated in the deadly Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol. He’s looking to flip control of the House seat, currently held by an election-denying Republican, Ken Calvert. 

In a campaign video, Rollins says he wants to rein in the influence of Big Tech and media outlets over the masses. He cites Jan. 6 and mentions an intentional train derailment derailment near the U.S. Navy hospital ship Mercy in Los Angeles in 2020 — by a locomotive engineer apparently inspired by Covid-19 conspiracism — as evidence of a “systemic problem”:

Today, some of our biggest threats are right here at home, and it’s not happening by chance. The train engineer told investigators that he thought the Mercy was part of a government conspiracy and that he had to stop it. Sadly, his beliefs are not unique. We’ve all watched as people have become angrier and more violent, as they’ve heard similar conspiracy theories and QAnon lies ripple across social media and then echo on Fox News. I saw the same thing when I helped prosecute people who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Predictably, some conservatives are attempting to frame Rollins’ platform as a nefarious desire for government censorship. 

In reality, he’s doing something that more lawmakers — of all political persuasions — should have done after the efforts to end democracy as we know it: highlighting the role played by powerful tech companies that were used to plan and promote those efforts on Jan. 6. 

I’ve been firmly aligned with tech experts, including many who testified to the House Jan. 6 committee, who have aired their frustrations over the lack of Big Tech references in the committee’s final report. 

And I see promise in a candidate like Rollins, who appears to understand the link between Big Tech and rising illiberalism — and isn’t afraid to call it out.