J.D. Vance praised the so-called "QAnon Shaman" and questioned his prosecution in a newly resurfaced video.
Donald Trump's running mate discussed Jacob Chansley, who pleaded guilty to obstructing Congress during the Jan. 6 insurrection, after seeing heavily edited video clips of the U.S. Capitol riot on former Fox News host Tucker Carlson's program.
"This guy who was sentenced to four years in prison for literally walking around in the Capitol," Vance told an audience at an unspecified event in 2023. "We were taught it was a crazy guy with, like, the bullhorns, you know what I'm talking about? He looked like he’d be a fun guy to have a beer with, right? The Q shaman, that's what they called this guy."
Chansley wore a horned fur hat and carried a spear, with his chest bare and his face painted. And, although he was not accused of committing acts of violence, he admitted to using a bullhorn to galvanize other rioters and scrawling a threatening note to then-Vice President Mike Pence as part of an effort to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election win.
He was sentenced to 41 months in prison, which was on the low end of federal guidelines, in November 2021 and asked a judge to withdraw his guilty plea after leaving prison in March 203, citing security camera footage aired on Carlson's program that appeared to show police allowing him to wander around in the Capitol.
The judge said all but 10 seconds of the video shown on Fox News had been provided to him prior to his sentencing.
“These videos are decidedly not exculpatory,” said federal judge Royce C. Lamberth. “Such footage, conveniently omitted by the [Fox News] 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.”
“That law enforcement officers outnumbered by the quantity of rioters did not physically engage Mr. Chansley or impede his progress is irrelevant," the judge added.
Vance, during his talk, felt that Chansley's actions were not egregious enough to merit the sentence that was imposed.
"Look, this guy may have broken the law, I don't know, but he sure as heck should not be spending four years in prison," Vance said. "Nothing they showed on video would make me think that this guy should be going to prison for four years."
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