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The accused US Capitol rioter who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman” lied during a jailhouse interview claiming that he was “waved” into the building by police officers, a federal judge said.
In a 32-page March 8 motion ordering Jacob Chansley to remain behind bars until trial, Judge Royce Lamberth said the Arizona man wasn’t truthful during an interview with “60 Minutes+” that aired earlier this month.
Chansley, 33, claimed that he thought he was allowed into the Capitol Jan. 6 after being “waved in” by police officers, giving him the impression that his actions were permitted. But Lamberth said video proves otherwise.
“The government’s video shows that defendant blatantly lied during his interview with “60 Minutes+” when he said that police officers waved him into the building,” Lamberth wrote.
“Further, this video confirms that defendant did not, as counsel claims, enter the building ‘contemporaneously with the exiting by Capitol Police.”
Lamberth said Chansley, of Phoenix, also didn’t enter the Capitol during the “third wave of the breach,” as his attorney maintains.
“To the contrary, he literally spearheaded it,” Lamberth wrote. “In sum, defendant has evinced an intent to disrupt the legitimate functions of the United States government and a willingness to resort to violence to do. This intent indicates that ordering defendant released pending trial would pose a danger to the public.”
Chansley, who unsuccessfully lobbied for a pardon from then-President Donald Trump, has been jailed since his arrest and has apologized for storming the Capitol.
He has pleaded not guilty to two felony and four misdemeanor charges in the siege, but insists he had tried to stop others from taking over the Capitol.
“Well, I sang a song,” Chansley told “60 Minutes+” in an interview that aired in part on “CBS This Morning” on March 4. “And that’s part of shamanism. It’s about – creating positive vibrations in a sacred chamber. I also stopped people from stealing and vandalizing that sacred space, the Senate. OK?”
Lamberth ordered the release of two videos showing Chansley inside the Capitol on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported.
One clip shows the shirtless man wearing a horned headdress and face paint as rioters clashed with cops behind him. The second video shows Chansley, who was holding a spear attached to a flagpole, walking through a door to the Capitol as someone yells, “This is our house,” the newspaper reported.
In a statement Tuesday, Chansley’s attorney, Albert Watkins, told the newspaper that the “one dimensional world of video footage cannot be relied upon to navigate the assessment process.”
Watkins also called on the public to send any video footage that may show the “peaceful and non-violent nature of the Shaman” to show what “really occurred” during the siege.
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