PHOENIX (AP) – An Arizona man who took part in the Jan. 6 insurgency at the U.S. Capitol while wearing face paints, shirtless and a furry hat with horns now says he regrets assaulting the building, left apologized for causing fear to others and showed disappointment with former President Donald Trump.
In a statement released last Monday through his lawyer, Jacob Chansley said he had re-evaluated his life since he was jailed for more than a month on charges arising from the riot and now realizes he should not of having entered the Capitol building. Chansley, who previously said Trump inspired him to be in Washington on Jan. 6, said Trump “dropped a lot of peaceful people.”
Chansley said he agreed with the events leading up to the riot and asked people to “be patient with me and other peaceful people who, like me, have a hard time putting together everything that happened around us, and for us. We are good people who care deeply about our country. “
Chansley’s attorney, Al Watkins, released the statement about half a day before Trump’s impeachment trial was scheduled to begin in the U.S. Senate.
Watkins, who had unforgivably apologized on behalf of Chansley to Trump, said the Senate did not accept his offer for his client to state how he was incited by the former president.
Defense counsel said his client’s apologies were not self-service, but a genuine expression of guilt. Still, he said he does not think it is right for the government to prosecute the people who were incited.
“If you believe the government is properly prosecuting the former (president), at the same time you will not be able to criminally blame those who were incited, because the incited people become victims,” Watkins said in an interview.
No one picked up the phone at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia when The Associated Press called Tuesday to comment on Chansley’s apologies.
Chansley was part of a group of hundreds of pro-Trump supporters who charged against outnumbered police officers and stormed the Capitol as Congress rallied to vote to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
Authorities say Chansley was one of the first people in the Capitol building, who disobeyed an officer’s orders to leave, rejected the officer’s request to use Chansley’s megaphone to tell riot police that they left the Senate chamber and wrote a note to then-Vice President Mike Pence saying, saying, “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”
Prosecutors said the spear Chansley was carrying was a weapon, although his lawyer has characterized the spear as an ornament.
Since his imprisonment, Chansley has had two cases in which he did not eat because the detention facilities where he was incarcerated did not serve organic food.
He lost 20 pounds (9 pounds) during the last episode of starvation. Chansley, who calls himself the “Shaman Shaman,” said he has been following this diet for eight years while practicing shamanism.
Last week, a judge ordered officials of the corrections to provide Chansley with organic food. He was later transferred to a prison in Virginia after the District of Columbia Corrections Department said he could not comply with the court’s order to feed him organic food.
He has pleaded guilty to felony counts of civil disorder and obstruction in an official proceeding, in addition to four other felony counts.