‘Shaman’ the weird face of Trumpers’ ‘wild’ day

“QAnon Shaman,” a regular on the conspiracy website and at pro-Trump gatherings, is an Arizona man who was front and center as mob stormed the Capitol on Wednesday.

He’s the painted face of the U.S. Capitol building rioters.

In the midst of the flag-waving violence and lethal chaos inside the Washington landmark, loud and proud QAnon advocate Jake Angeli was impossible to miss.

The 32-year-old Arizona man, known as the “QAnon Shaman,” stood front and center at Wednesday’s assault on democracy as rioters seized control of the building for hours. Angeli, shirtless and sporting a horned fur hat, was photographed standing behind Vice President Mike Pence’s desk in the Senate chamber after legislators were forced to flee the presidential election hearing by the horde of rioters egged on by President Trump.

Angeli, speaking to a reporter Thursday morning, said he had yet to be contacted by law enforcement and was heading back home. Angeli said he would have left the Capitol if word came from Trump for the rioters to leave.

“I trust the President ... I obey the orders of the President of the United States,” he said.

Angeli is a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist who made the trip to Washington for the rally-turned-riot. He’s a regular at Trump gatherings in his home state, and he entered the Capitol carrying a bullhorn and an American flag on a spear.

QAnon’s true believers claim, among other things, that Washington politicians are running a child sex-trafficking ring.

While Angeli posed for photos standing behind Pence’s desk, an Arkansas man instead broke into the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, put his feet up on her desk and and left behind “a nasty note” for the Democrat. Richard Barnett, 60, told The New York Times that he only departed after police blasted him with pepper spray.

Barnett, after coming to Washington from Gravette, Ark., said he stole an envelope with Pelosi’s letterhead from the desk, leaving behind a quarter to cover its cost. The rioter claimed he was pushed into Pelosi’s office by the crowd in the hallway, though he acknowledged the tale was unlikely to appease law enforcement.

“I’ll probably be telling them this is what happened all the way to the D.C. jail,” he acknowledged.

And reputed white nationalist Tim Gionet, known to his online followers as Baked Alaska, live-streamed about 20 minutes of video from inside the Capitol to some 16,000 viewers. Gionet stood at one point on the ledge of a recessed office window, doffing his hat to the audience as law enforcers massed behind him.

“Baked, you’re going to prison,” commented one of his followers.

Before police removed Gionet from the Capitol, he interviewed fellow rioters, joked about sleeping inside a vacant Congress member’s office and suggested he might call Trump at the White House.