You won’t be seeing the QAnon Shaman strolling around in public wearning nothing but slacks and a horn headpiece anytime soon. As per CNN, a federal judge has ruled that Jacob Chansley, whose many aliases also include Jake Angeli, is too dangerous to release from prison, despite his assurances that he’s a peaceful person who prefers his prison food to be vegan. And that’s not all the judge said: He also chastised him for doing his splashy 60 Minutes Plus interview without getting permission first.
According to CNN, Judge Royce Lamberth has not been moved by Chansley’s attempts to reform his tattered reputation, which he sullied by being the most vocal and most eye-catching of the MAGA mob that violently stormed the Capitol on January 6. Lamberth found that he exhibited a “detachment from reality,” in part because he claimed his actions — which involved carrying a spear through the government building and howling from the balcony — was “not an attack on this country.”
“Defendant characterizes himself as a peaceful person who was welcomed into the Capitol building on January 6th by police officers. The Court finds none of his many attempts to manipulate the evidence and minimize the seriousness of his actions persuasive.”
Lamberth also effectively used his 60 Minutes Plus testimony against him, taking his words and using them to hang him. “The statements defendant has made to the public from jail show that defendant does not fully appreciate the severity of the allegations against him,” wrote Lamberth. “To the contrary, he believes that he — not the American people or members of Congress — was the victim on January 6th.”
Chansley’s lawyer, Albert Watkins, tried to argue that the spear he carried through the Capitol was just a flag pole, but Lamberth wasn’t having that either. “A six-foot pole with a metal spearhead fixed to the top is, undoubtably, a dangerous weapon,” Lamberth wrote.
As for Chansley’s 60 Minutes Plus appearance — his first public interview since his arrest on January 9 — Lamberth questioned whether he got the required clearance from the U.S. Marshals Service, the detention facility or the judge, according to The Washington Post. He did the interview from Watkins’ office, and Watkins had assumed that was fine.
Though Chansley has not been charged with assaulting anyone, he was charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct. Watkins has tried to paint his client as an innocent man misled by others, among them former president Donald J. Trump. “I am not belittling my client . . . but my client was wearing horns,” Watkins said. “He had tattoos around his nipples. He wasn’t leading anywhere. He was a follower.”