The Jan. 6 rioter immortalized in a photograph carrying former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) lectern in the Capitol rotunda, says he’s being prevented from pursuing his new side hustle—making miniature wooden lecterns and selling them on eBay for charity.
Adam Johnson was convicted in 2022 of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds for his role in the riot. He was sentenced to 75 days in prison and fined $5,000 for his actions.
Since then, he’s leaned into his public image, posting on X under the moniker ‘The Lectern Guy,’ with the iconic image as his profile picture and another photo of himself in the Capitol as his cover image.
Leaning into it also means commissioning paintings in his home riffing on the iconic moment, including one with him on horseback like Napoleon
Johnson also frequently makes jokes about his time in the Capitol—including returning to the scene of the crime wearing an “I visited the Capitol and all I got was solitary confinement” T-shirt while mugging for the camera.
He previously listed his profession as a furniture maker and now is putting his woodworking skills to work for his latest project: carving miniature lecterns and auctioning them off on eBay.
According to a post Johnson made X on Monday though, eBay stopped him from putting up with the items.
Johnson listed the lecterns on Viva Frei’s eBay store. Frei is a popular conservative YouTuber focused on legal matters. He’s also a friend of Johnson.
“So get this. I’ve auctioned off close to a dozen of my handmade lecterns and given all of the proceeds to charity over the past year,” Johnson wrote. “I’ve made a lot for friends through my ordeal, and Viva Frei is one of the best men I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know. He offered to use his account and reach to auction off one of my lecterns in hopes that we could help a family out in need. The idea was larger reach, more bids, more money for a family.”
Frei posted that eBay sent him a message explaining the reason for the takedown. The site said the item “didn’t follow our Disaster and tragedy policy,” which bans items that “portray, glorify, or attempt to profit from human tragedy or suffering, or that are insensitive to victims of such events.”
EBay has banned items from dramatic events in the past, including alleged timber from the Notre Dame fire in 2019, and T-shirts that popped up in the aftermath with the slogan “Je Suis Notre Dame.”
Frei called eBay invoking the policy a symptom of living under a “fascist technocracy.”
“I am absolutely speechless. Worth noting: You can literally buy Mein Kampf on eBay. You can buy ‘the human centipede’ on eBay,” Frei said.
For his part, Johnson said he’d still try to sell the lecterns.
“I won’t be moved,” he wrote. “My 501c3 has been approved and my website is being built. We will be hosting auctions there within a couple of months.”
Johnson has posted about setting up a 501c(3), which would give him tax-exempt status, for months, but hasn’t gone in-depth about what it would be focused on. Last December he mentioned raising money for kids on Christmas and in March he talked about raising money to feed kids.
Until he gets it set up, mini-lecterns will be in short supply.
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