'I WAS DUPED BY TRUMP' ..... QANON SHAMAN IS PISSED OFF BECAUSE TRUMP DID NOT PARDON HIM

QAnon Shaman 'regrets' participating in Capitol riot as his lawyer says ex-president's failure to issue a pardon was a 'betrayal' by the man who 'led him down the primrose path'

 

By Keith Griffith 

Daily Mail

January 22, 2021

The man dubbed the 'QAnon Shaman' has claimed through his attorney that he was 'duped' by Donald Trump into participating in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Jacob Anthony Chansley, 33, is being held without bail on federal charges in Phoenix, and on Friday his attorney told DailyMail.com that Trump's failure to pardon him was a 'betrayal.'

'My client is understandably compelled to reconcile the words of the former president with the subsequent actions of the former president,' attorney Albert S. Watkins said in a statement.

'The reconciliation of a betrayal necessarily requires the bellying up to the bar by the betrayed to acknowledge their role in making themselves ripe for betrayal,' he added.

 

Chansley, who also goes by Jake Angeli, gained infamy during the riot for his striking appearance in a horned helmet and furs in the Senate Chamber, and later drew mockery for a hunger strike behind bars to insist he be fed all-organic food.

Watkins argued that Trump had drawn Chansley into a web of lies, but said that Trump's lack of action during the riot and failure to issue pardons had been a wake-up call to his client. 

'Mr. Chansley is not alone. We all are compelled to be introspective about our role in creating and permitting an environment where believing the words of a president [is] criminally actionable,' Watkins told DailyMail.com. 

Watkins said that he was working to expedite Chansley's transport to DC after a judge in Arizona remanded him to the charging jurisdiction, but said that 'COVID sensitivities have obviously and not unexpectedly rendered the process cumbersome.'

'He regrets very, very much having not just been duped by the President, but by being in a position where he allowed that duping to put him in a position to make decisions he should not have made,' Watkins earlier told KSDK-TV.  

'Let's roll the tape. Let's roll the months of lies, and misrepresentations and horrific innuendo and hyperbolic speech by our president designed to inflame, enrage, motivate,' said Watkins. 

'What's really curious is the reality that our president, as a matter of public record, invited these individuals, as President, to walk down to the capitol with him,' he said. 

During his rally just prior to the riot, Trump had vowed to march on the Capitol with his supporters, but instead retreated to the White House to watch the events unfold on television.

Watkins said it was unfair to lump his client in with others who participated in the riot.

'As to my client, the guy with the horns and the fur, the meditation and organic food...I'm telling you that we cannot simply wave a magic wand and label all these people on January 6th the same,' he said. 

Chansley is charged with civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, disorderly conduct in a restricted building, demonstrating in a Capitol building, entering a restricted building without lawful authority and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. 

Watkins had made a public plea for Trump to pardon his client, but despite issuing a slew of pardons in his final hours in office, Trump did not pardon any participants in the Capitol riot. 

'No one was holding their breath on the request and, as such, there is no need to exhale,' Watkins, who i based in St. Louis, told KMOV-TV of his pardon plea.

'The request was of extraordinary value in that it accorded Trump an opportunity to do what his followers believed would have been the 'honorable' thing to do,' said Watkins. 

'Mr. Chansley, along with many others who were similarly situated, are now compelled to reconcile a betrayal by a man whose back they felt they had for years,' he said. 

Watkins said Trump's indifference likely spurred a great awakening for his client and other January 6 participants, alerting him to the fact that their devotion to Trump was not reciprocated. 

'They are compelled to be introspective and evaluate how they got where they are, the role of their former leader in that tragic course, and the vulnerabilities they share such as to be led down a primrose path by a man whose back is now squarely fading into the Mar-a-Lago sunset as he walks spiritually hand-in-hand with Lil Wayne,' he added.

He compared Chansley's situation to being a jilted lover or even a member of a cult.  

'The only thing that was missing at the Capitol was the president, our president, stirring up the Kool-Aid with a big spoon,' Watkins told the AP on Tuesday. 

Last week, a judge in Arizona, where Chansley was arrested, denied his request for bail and ordered him transported to DC where he will be held pending further proceedings.

Arizona Magistrate Judge Deborah Fine said at a pretrial detention hearing: 'I do believe he was an active participant in a violent insurrection that attempted to overthrow the US government on January 6 2021.'  

Fine said she made the decision on three concerns: that she believes Chansley is 'a serious flight risk', he 'poses a risk to obstructing justice' and is 'a danger to the community'.  

The decision came after federal prosecutors submitted a detailed court filing saying Chansley had told federal authorities he was 'glad' he sat in Mike Pence's chair on the Senate dais. 

The court documents revealed that he spewed QAnon conspiracy theories and said he was 'glad' because he believes the Vice President 'is a child-trafficking traitor'. 

QAnon was the extreme and debunked conspiracy theory that claimed a global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles was plotting against Trump.  

Prosecutors say Chansley also told federal authorities he left a note warning Pence 'it's only a matter of time - justice is coming' - but claimed the note was not meant to be threatening.

Chansley had also been planning to return to Washington DC to create a disturbance at Joe Biden's inauguration before he was arrested Saturday, according to federal prosecutors.  

Prosecutors dropped the claim that Chansley plotted to capture and assassinate elected officials at last week's hearing saying they didn't have 'direct evidence' of it at this time. 

During the hearing, Chansley spoke only to answer 'yes, your honor' when asked if he agreed to appear by video due to the pandemic.  

The judge said she believes Chansley would be a danger to the community if released and that there were no conditions the court could set to stop such danger.  

She pointed to his actions in the Capitol as a sign that he will not follow the orders of the court.  

'He will take the law into his own hands and will not respect the law,' said Fine.

'If he is willing to do that in the Capitol building during these important events [the Electoral College certification] I have no confidence that Mr Chansley will follow any order or condition that I set.'  

Chansley faces up to 25 years in prison for two felony charges and four misdemeanors - a sentence Fine said gave him a 'strong incentive' to flee. 

She said his actions since the riot - where he spoke of his involvement to the media and called the FBI to speak of his involvement but did not hand himself in - had also shown a person who thinks he is 'righteous'. 

The judge also asked: 'When does a protest turns into a riot? When is a protest an insurrection?'