Of the roughly 600 people who’ve been arrested in connection with the Capitol storming on Jan. 6, one has stuck out above all: Jacob Chansley, aka Jake Angeli, aka the QAnon Shaman. He was shirtless, adorned in tattoos, his face painted like the American flag, and had a horned helmet atop his head. He spent most of his tenure inside the building howling. He also quickly turned on Trump, in between begging for vegan prison meals. Now, almost nine months after the incident, he’s found some closure.
As per HuffPost, Chansley has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Details have not yet been revealed, but his hearing is scheduled for Friday, with a virtual press conference to be held after. But there’s more: He’s also turned on his nickname-sake, wishing to no longer be associated with the movement that has destroyed so many minds.
“Mr. Chansley, a long avowed and practicing Shaman, has repudiated the ‘Q’ previously assigned to him and requests future references to him be devoid of use of the letter ‘Q’,” his lawyer, Albert Watkins, said in a statement.
Watkins is famous in his own right, having described his client and other Jan. 6 rioters in comically blunt fashion. He said they “drank the Kool-Aid” and called them “f*cking short bus people.” But with Chansley and other non-violent Capitol stormers, he’s asking for “patience and compassion,” saying that they had “genuine mental health issues which rendered them more vulnerable to the propaganda of the day but who, at the end of day, seek to be accountable for their actions.”
Chansley has been charged with “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.” It’s not clear how much time he could face, especially considering, unlike most who took part in the siege, he’s spent most of the last nine months behind bars.
(Via HuffPost)