Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum | Getty Images
A self-described QAnon shaman was held without bail by a judge Friday after prosecutors brought evidence he stormed into the Senate and left a threatening note for Vice President Mike Pence during a riot by pro-Trump supporters .
Jacob Chansley, the conspiracy theorist with horn, spear, and complexion, drew attention to his bizarre demeanor among the crowd entering the Capitol complex on January 6th.
Prior to Friday’s hearing in the US District Court in Phoenix, Arizona prosecutors said there was “strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, in support of the Capitol rioters’ intentions to trap elected officials in the United States to murder. ” State government. “
Those prosecutors dropped the lawsuit on bail at the hearing after they were pushed back by the Washington, D.C. Supreme Attorney’s office, whose office filed the two crimes and four offenses that led to Chansley’s arrest.
The Arizona federal prosecutor also noted in the file that “news reports indicate that the siege of the US Capitol may just be the beginning of potentially violent actions by the president [Donald] Trump’s supporters. “
The filing by the office of US Arizona attorney Michael Bailey called for a judge Friday to arrest Chansley, one of the most notorious rioters arrested without bail.
They said he planned to return to Washington next week for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
“Chansley is a self-appointed QAnon leader,” said a group of conspiracy theorists who believe many US lawmakers are part of a ring of child molesters and satan worshipers. There were other followers of QAnon among the rioters.
“Chansley is an active participant in a violent uprising that sought to overthrow the United States government and has made himself the best-known symbol of it,” the prosecutor wrote. “No [bail] Conditions can reasonably ensure its appearance [in court] still guarantee the security of the community if necessary. “
But Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, undermined the idea during a press conference late Friday that there were indications of attacks by the rioters.
“Right now we have no direct evidence of kill capture teams,” said Sherwin, whose office has brought charges against Chansley and other rioters.
Sherwin said “there may be a split” between his office and those of federal attorneys in Arizona and Texas who have made similar allegations.
Later on Friday, at Chansley’s hearing in Phoenix, a US assistant attorney asked the judge to remove the sentence on bail alleging there was strong evidence of intent to capture and kill elected officials.
While that statement “may very well be appropriate in a trial against Mr. Chansley and very well characterize the evidence and intent on that day,” the prosecutor said that for the purpose of bail hearing, “we do not want to mislead the court by acting discuss the strength of any type of specific evidence. ”
The bail also stated that Chansley, wearing complexion and a hat with horns, ran to a Senate podium “where Vice President Pence had chaired and started posing just minutes earlier” to be photographed by other rioters.
Pence chaired a joint congressional session that day to officially confirm the election of Biden as president.
A protester yells in the Senate Chamber in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021.
Win McNamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images
“Chansley left a note on the podium of the Senate Chamber where Vice President Mike Pence had chaired the session minutes earlier warning, ‘It is only a matter of time, justice will come.'”
Prosecutors said that when the FBI questioned Chansley about the meaning of his words, he “did a long disgrace in which he described current and former United States leaders as infiltrators, particularly Vice President Mike Pence”.
“He said he was able to get into the United States Senate in DC ‘by the grace of God’.” Chansley said he was glad he was in the Vice President’s chair because Vice President Pence is a traitor to child trafficking, “the file said.
While Chansley, also known as Jacob Angeli, claimed that he did not mean the note as a threat, “the government disagrees,” the file says.
A protester holds a mannequin with a noose “traitor” written on it during a protest at the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, the United States, on Wednesday, January 6, 2021.
Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The prosecutor noted, “Chansley has also expressed an interest in returning to Washington DC for the inauguration and later told the FBI, ‘I’ll still go, you’d better believe it.'”
“‘Sure I’d want to be there, as a protester, as a protester, f–‘ a ‘,” he said, according to the file.
In an interview with the FBI last week, the prosecutor wrote that he said twice “that he had plans to go to the Arizona State Capitol following the January 9 FBI interview.”
“Chansley confirmed his testimony and had his horns, furry coyote tail headdress, complexion, tan pants, six-foot spear and megaphone in the 2003 Hyundai that he parked with the FBI,” the file says.
The document said Chansley lied to federal investigators prior to trial after his arrest when he said he had never used drugs other than marijuana, which he had smoked three times a week in the past.
“Chansley described his routine use of psychedelics, including mushrooms and peyote, in recorded interviews on his podcast,” the file said. In addition, QAnon, who was based on an imaginary conspiracy theory, was not provided with a full portrait of Chansley’s apparent mental health problems, which he has publicly disseminated, which has strong mystical beliefs and leadership in a dangerous extremist group based on an imaginary conspiracy theory , includes PTS officer and therefore not assessed in the assessment. “
In a video interview outside the Capitol when he and other rioters were leaving the complex, Chansley said he had left the Senate and “the cops just walked out with me.”
He also said the mob would leave because Trump posted a message asking them to do so and that the rioters “won” the day.
“We won by sending a message to the Senators and Congressmen. We won by sending a message to Pence: If you don’t … do what your oath is, if you do they don’t keep it. ” Constitution, we’ll remove you then, but one way or another, “Chansley said.
ProPublica reported that last month two women had warned the Capitol Police about Chansley, whom they saw “strangely dressed” and “carrying a spear” outside the building.
“He was a character you would recognize – Jacob Chansley, the QAnon supporter in a Viking outfit, who was photographed from the podium in the Senate Chamber last week,” said ProPublica of the women Melissa Byrne and Chibundu Nnake.
“They alerted the Capitol Police at the time that the spear appeared to be violating the complex’s gun ban, but the officials denied their concern,” ProPublica said.
“One officer told them that Chansley had been stopped earlier in the day but that the ‘senior’ cops had decided not to take any action against him.”
“We don’t perceive it as a weapon,” Nnake recalled of the officer who spoke about the spear, “the article says.
Byrne tweeted Friday, writing, “I am extremely angry that I reported this to the USCP on December 14th for carrying a gun on the Capitol Grounds and was told that ‘higher elevations’ are fine if he’s there. It’s me. ” seething. Imagine if he was arrested and examined. “
Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb, who has been one of Trump’s most vocal critics in his own party, said in a statement Friday, “Mad dealers will try to whitewash the Capitol attack, bad apples got out of hand. This is wrong. .. These men weren’t loud drunkards – they were terrorists who attacked the constitutional transfer of power in this country. They failed, but they were dangerously approaching a bloody constitutional crisis. “”
Trump was charged Tuesday by the House of Representatives for instigating the mob that stormed the Capitol complex following a rally on the Ellipse calling on supporters to help him reverse Biden’s election.
Also on Friday, the New York Times reported that the FBI is investigating 37 people in an investigation into the riot murder of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
The Times cited an FBI memo sent to the private sector and others.
Four other people died in the riot, including an Air Force veteran who subscribed to the QAnon theory and was shot trying to climb through a broken window in the House of Representatives building.
Note: This article and its headline were updated after the Federal Prosecutor’s Office dropped its earlier claim that “strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions in the Capitol, supports Capitol rioters’ intentions to capture elected officials in the United States and to murder. ” Government.”
