‘QAnon Shaman’ Jacob Chansley over Donald Trump, Elon Musk
“QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley is totally over his bromance with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, and is no “fanboy” of former President Donald Trump either, he told The Post in an exclusive interview.
“I support Trump because he addressed a lot of things that I’m concerned about like human trafficking and slavery, China and ending the forever wars in the Middle East,” Chansley, 35, said from his home in Phoenix.
“But I’m not a Trump fanboy. He said some things and did some things that I didn’t support. He made a lot of appointments in his first term that I don’t agree with,” he continued.
The self-proclaimed shaman — who famously wore a horned helmet and a fur hat when he entered the Capitol during the Jan. 6 , 2021 riots — pleaded guilty to obstructing a governmental proceeding and was sprung from prison in March after his 41-month term was shortened due to good behavior.
His case recently burst back into the headlines after stunning new footage emerged from the chaos that showed a police officer blithely walking alongside Chansley, a tattooed Navy vet, through the Capitol.
Backers pointed to the clip as evidence that his role in the riots was overblown — and he even drew a supportive tweet from Musk, who tweeted “Free Jacob Chansley” on March 10 after the footage aired.
He appreciated Musk’s backing at the time, but said he’s now “disappointed” in the tech titan.
“[Musk] was one of my strongest advocates and offered to pay my legal fees. But he never reached out to me or my lawyer, upon my release. If he’s talking the talk, why not walk the walk?” said Chansley.
Chansley is also unsure of Musk’s motives.
“I wonder why he is doing some things, or why he isn’t doing more in other areas that are vital to humanity’s survival.”
Now working as an executive assistant for a filmmaker while running a shamanic consultancy, Chansley conceded that some Jan. 6 rioters deserved to be criminally charged.
“There were people who assaulted police officers,” he said. “There were people who vandalized the Capitol. I don’t care what side of the aisle you are on, if you assault a police officer you should be charged.”
And said he regretted not doing more to quell the spiraling chaos at the time.
Arguing that the new footage aired on Tucker Carlson in March should have played a decisive role in his case, Chansley filed a motion to toss his conviction.
“My desire to vacate my sentence is because of ineffective assistance of counsel — and video evidence that has come out since my sentencing,” he said. “As far as I can tell the government did not follow the proper legal procedure.”
But Judge Royce Lamberth this week sided with prosecutors who called his argument “meritless.”
“Chansley’s actions during the first violent breach of the Capitol provides more than enough evidence of his corrupt intent to interfere with Congress that day,” they wrote in response to his initial motion.
Chansley, who is single and hopes to start a family, still backs the “Q” movement, a loosely-affiliated group that believes anonymous government entities are attempting to relay forbidden truths through cryptic messages known as “drops.”
“I believe the Q drops are written by people with high level security clearances who want to free humanity from the nefarious forces who are attempting to monopolize all the world’s resources and labor through controlling the banks, corporations and governments,” he said.
Chansley — who said he’s a libertarian centrist — chafed at his portrayal in the press as a cartoonish conspiracy theorist.
“Every time the Democrats lose an election they cry about fraud,” he said. “Every time Republicans lose they do the same thing. I’m a centrist. The centrist view is that America’s elections are corrupt and have been for decades.”
Still, he’s not opposed to leveraging his unlikely rise to fame — fur hat and horn helmet included.
“My face has become associated for a lot of people with a desire for freedom,” he said. “I would be a fool for that message not to get out one way or another.”