A federal courtroom resembles a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.
This has never been truer than on Friday when Jacob Chansley’s attorney, aka Jake Angeli, better known as “QAnon Shaman,” used the fictional film Forrest Gump in his dispute before a federal judge.
The QAnon Shaman is charged with interfering with the police during civil disturbance and obstruction of Congress, as well as several offenses. He was arrested in Arizona on January 9th and has been in custody ever since. Chansley, who has been in custody since his arrest, has argued that police let him into the Capitol building. His bare chest and ornate fur hat became widely known as a symbol of the January 6 uprising.
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Attorney Al Watkins claimed that his client went to the Capitol on January 6, “like Forrest Gump” at the invitation of former President Donald Trump.
His somewhat opaque note stated: In the film, Forrest Gump was invited to the White House with the U.S. ping-pong team, where he met then-President Richard Nixon, an encounter that broke out in the days after the grip and grin for Nixon would prove fateful.
“We are not dealing with a man of violence,” Watkins told US District Judge Royce Lamberth. “They really believed in the truth of what was being said by the country’s highest hired hand, the President …”
Prosecutors argued that there was no sane version in which Chansley could have believed he was being led into the Capitol, pointing out the broken windows and alarms in the building. He was allegedly asked to leave several times, but stayed in the Senate Chamber and left a note on the Vice President’s desk: “It’s only a matter of time. Justice is coming. “
A decision on the application for release is expected shortly. Until then, Chansley will be staying at the Gray Bar Hotel. Forrest Gump, of course, lived in the Watergate in a room furnished by Richard Nixon.
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