QAnon Shaman freed from prison 14 months early

By Bob Unruh

Security video of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, shows Jacob Chansley, 35, the “QAnon Shaman,” being escorted into the Senate that day by security officers in the building.

Now, after his lawyer charged that the government deliberately had withheld exculpatory information about his client, Chansley has been released from a federal prison and moved to a halfway house.

The Daily Mail reported that lawyer Albert S. Watkins, representing Chansley, told the publication that Chansley had been moved from prison to a halfway house.

Watkins said, “After serving 11 months in solitary prior to his sentence being imposed, and only 16 months of his sentence thereafter, it is appropriate this gentle and intelligent young man be permitted to move forward with the next stage of what undoubtedly will be a law abiding and enriching life.”

Chansley was a key part of many of the videos of the Jan. 6 events at the Capitol, when hundreds protested what they saw as an unfair – even stolen – election, with his costume of helmet and such.

He pleaded guilty in September 2021 to civil disorder and violent entry and was given 41 months in prison.

The report explained, “Bureau of Prison records confirmed that Chansley is in the custody of the Residential Reentry Management field office in Phoenix, with a release date set for May 25.”

Watkins decline to attribute a reason for the decision.

“This was a decision of the US Bureau of Prisons,” he said.

The report pointed out federal guidelines allow for reduced time for good behavior, “but under those guidelines Chansley would have expected to serve at least 35 months and 22 days of his 41-month sentence.”

Watkins had argued only weeks ago that Chansley should be freed based on video publicized by Fox News host Tucker Carlson that showed him not breaking into the Senate, but actually being escorted there by security officers in the Capitol.

That video was withheld from Chansley and his lawyer, and the American public, by Democrats, in power in Washington at the time, and only was released on the orders of GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

WND previously reported how that video, and others, eviscerated the Democrats’ claims that Jan. 6 was a “deadly insurrection.”

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The videos actually reveal Trump supporters obeying cops leading them out of the Senate chamber, with some even thanking the police.

The footage shows Chansley thanking the police officers who are clearing ralliers out of the Senate chamber in the U.S. Capitol building.

The video shared on Twitter by “D. Scott” (@eclipsethis2003) hit social media and conservatives responded with outrage, with many saying the Democrats’ claims about Jan. 6 was collapsing.

The video shows officers yelling that it is “Time to go!” And people can be heard saying “thank you.”

A man walking with police down the stairs after leaving the chamber chants, “Freedom!” as the video comes to an end.

Chansley, in the video, tells officers, “Thank you for your patience. We really appreciate it.”

It was ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s partisan Jan. 6 committee in Congress that earlier released only cherry-picked segments of video, trying to portray the events as a real attempt to overthrow the U.S. government.

Carlson’s conclusion was that that created narrative was “probably second only to the 2020 election as the biggest scam in my lifetime.”

A recent Rasmussen Reports poll shows a majority of “likely voters” polled believed the FBI helped instigate the Jan. 6 “riots,” as WND reported.

Furthermore, WND reported last month that newly surfaced Jan. 6 video footage shows D.C. police firing stun grenades into a crowd of peaceful, pro-Trump protesters, raising the specter that police brutality and reckless, provocative actions by incompetent officers enraged the crowd and led people to rush past them into the Capitol.

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The astonishing answers come into focus only when one contemplates both the unprecedented level of political and financial corruption in America’s ruling class (multiple Biden family members received $31 million in payola from China), and simultaneously the communist Chinese government’s brilliantly devious methods of unconventional total warfare, by which China is stealthily infiltrating, subverting, corrupting and colonizing the United States of America.

The China threat has rarely been more dramatically or pointedly documented than in the sensational March issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled “HOW CHINA IS CONQUERING AMERICA.” Whistleblower is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.

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Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.


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