On Wednesday, over 10 months after the incident that made him famous, Jacob Chansley, aka Jake Angeli, aka the QAnon Shaman was finally sentenced for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. Chansley had requested that the time he’d already served since being rounded up by the feds be at least partially counted as his sentence (while quoting Forrest Gump). Instead, he received 41 months, or three years and five months, in prison. Chansley’s lawyer, Albert Watkins, was disappointed with the ruling. But he wasn’t, and has never been, entirely sympathetic with what his client did.
Back in May, Watkins — who has tried to argue that Donald Trump “groomed” his followers to become rabid conspiracy theorists who believed in voter fraud nonsense — did not mince words about Watkins and others who tried to overturn the 2020 election.
“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all f*cking short-bus people,” Watkins told Talking Points Memo. “These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking ret*rded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.” Still, he mainted that they weren’t “bad people.”
Jump about half a year later, and Chansley is headed for the slammer. During the sentencing, Watkins tried to argue, as per NBC News, that his client was neither a planner nor an organizer, though he agreed with the judge that he “made himself the image of the riot.”
Outside of the court, though, Watkins was a bit more forthright and colorful. Asked about his opinion on Jan. 6, he told reporters that he’d like to have a beer with Trump, admitting that Trump does not drink, though he’d “have a beer.” And then he’d give him a piece of his mind. “I’d tell him, ‘You know what, you got a few f*ckin’ things to do, including clearing this fuckin’ mess up, and taking care of a lot of the jackasses that you f*cked up because of January 6th.”
The attorney for Jacob Chansley, a.k.a. the ‘QAnon Shaman,’ says Trump needs to take care of the ‘jackasses that [he] f*cked up because of January 6’ pic.twitter.com/zMtfC3e974
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 17, 2021
Watkins did admit that there were some things “that I agree with him on,” though he didn’t specify what. He also claimed that his opinion “doesn’t mean s*it.”