WASHINGTON — A federal judge has denied Jacob Chansley’s motion to vacate his guilty plea and sentence in his Capitol riot case, saying in an opinion Thursday that footage aired on Fox News in March was neither new to the defense nor exculpatory.
In a 35-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who was nominated to the federal bench in 1987 by former President Ronald Reagan, said Chansley had failed to raise any issues that warranted vacating or altering his 41-month sentence. Chansley pleaded guilty in September 2021 to obstructing the joint session of Congress and was sentenced by Lamberth two months later. He was released to a halfway house in March and has since finished the remainder of his prison term.
Chansley’s attorney, William Shipley, had argued footage aired by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson showed the man known as the “QAnon Shaman” walking through the U.S. Capitol unimpeded by nearby officers. He claimed in court filings the Justice Department had failed to provide that footage to Chansley’s former attorney, Albert Watkins.
On Thursday, Lamberth rejected those claims and denied Chansley’s motion, saying there was nothing in the footage – which he described as “videos aired devoid of context” – that warranted altering Chansley’s sentence.
“These videos are decidedly not exculpatory, especially when viewed in context with the ‘mile and miles and miles of footage’ recorded of Mr. Chansley on Jan. 6, 2021,” Lamberth wrote. “Such footage, conveniently omitted by the March 6, 2023 program, shows nearly all of Mr. Chansley’s actions that day, including: carrying a six-foot-long pole armed with a spearhead, unlawfully entering the Capitol through a broken door, disobeying orders from law enforcement on more than a half-dozen occasions, screaming obscenities, entering the Senate chamber, climbing onto the Senate dais, sitting in the Vice President’s chair, and leaving a threatening message for the Vice President.”
Further Lamberth said, all of the facts contained in the footage were already provided to Chansley’s attorney by the government by March 20, 2021 – five months before he pleaded guilty.
“In other words, Mr. Chansley possessed the facts in the videos well in advance of his plea agreement, yet still determined, quite sensibly, to accept responsibility for his role in the criminal events of January 6, 2021,” Lamberth wrote.
Chansley dropped a direct appeal of his sentence in May 2022 and opted instead to try to convince Lamberth to throw out his plea. Lamberth suggested if that effort had succeeded, and Chansley were to be re-sentenced today, he might receive more time based on new evidence uncovered by prosecutors in the past two years.
At the time he was sentenced in November 2021, Lamberth wrote, prosecutors were unaware Chansley knew about the noose hanging from a gallows constructed outside the Capitol. Lamberth suggested that information would have impacted how he viewed Chansley leaving a threatening message for former Vice President Mike Pence later in the day.
Since his release from prison, Chansley has embraced his image as the “American Shaman.” On his website he sells hats, flags, coffee mugs, yoga leggings and other items emblazoned with an image of his screaming, horned-cap wearing face on Jan. 6. He has also suggested in interviews that he was a political prisoner.
“The Court is disappointed to learn that, through his filings and public statements, Mr. Chansley has recanted the contrition displayed at his sentencing nearly two years ago,” Lamberth wrote. “Such an about-face casts serious doubt on the veracity of any of Mr. Chansley’s claims, here or elsewhere.”
As part of his sentence, Chansley was ordered to serve three years on supervised release, which he will remain on until some time in 2026.