An attorney on behalf of the now arrested rioter, Jacob Chansley, from last week’s deadly storming of the Capitol building petitioned President Donald Trump to pardon his client, citing the president’s responsibility in inciting the riots.
Chansley became a viral image of last Wednesday’s riots by attending shirtless, with face paint, wearing an animal skin, and holding an American flag fashioned into a spear. He was arrested soon after and charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct.
In a televised interview, the attorney explained on behalf of Chansley that “he felt like his voice was, for the first time, being heard. And what ended up happening, over the course of the lead-up to the election, over the course of the period from the election to Jan. 6 — it was a driving force by a man he hung his hat on, he hitched his wagon to. He loved Trump. Every word, he listens to him.”
The attorney chillingly continued that “we all have to understand that the words that were spoken by the president meant something, not just to my client. They meant something to a lot of people.” He said also that Chansley intended to return to D.C. on the day of the Biden inauguration.
Prosecutors have indicated that those charged in connection with the Capitol riots may be charged with sedition which holds a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The attorney describes his client, and the many thousands who attended last Wednesday’s riots as brainwashed. Trump, he claims, holds some responsibilities for the violence and compares his supporters to the infamous Jonestown cult mass suicide saying, “You know the only thing different here? There’s no Kool-Aid.”
