REBELS WITHOUT A CLUE
‘ Barbarian,’ lawmaker and thief arrested for siege on Capitol Hill
Department of Justice officials announced the arrests Saturday of three of the highest-profile accused rioters from last week’s Capitol siege — including the shirtless, horn-hatted invader who went viral after turning the Senate dais into a personal throne worthy of Conan the Barbarian.
Jacob Anthony Chansley called the FBI’s Washington office Thursday and later surrendered to police, the feds said.
“Chansley said that he came as part of a group effort with other ‘patriots’ from Arizona at the request of the president that all ‘patriots’ come to DC on Jan. 6, 2021,” the DOJ said.
Chansley, 33, who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman,” was the most outlandish-looking of the many hundreds of pro-Trump extremists who breached the Capitol on Wednesday and who are now being rounded up across the country.
The feds also announced the arrests of Adam Christian Johnson, 36, allegedly seen in a viral image carrying off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern, and of a West Virginian lawmaker who had helpfully — for investigators — identified himself in livestreamed video by shouting, “Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”
Thanks in large part to images passed around by the rioters themselves that day, and which now flood the Internet, by Saturday prosecutors had filed at least 17 cases against named suspects in federal district court, alleging such serious, high-penalty crimes as violent entry and assaulting federal officers.
At least 40 other cases in DC Superior Court allege lesser charges, including curfew violations and nonviolent gun crimes.
They face a variety of offenses, including assaulting police officers, entering restricted areas of the Capitol, stealing federal property and threatening lawmakers.
Prosecutors said additional cases remained under seal.
Those charged federally include Lonnie Coffman of Falkville, Ala., who allegedly brought guns and 11 Mason-jar Molotov cocktails to the protest in his pickup truck.
Mark Warner, a Democrat who is the incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Saturday called on mobile carriers to preserve social-media content related to the insurrection, which left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.
Johnson, the Parrish, Fla., man allegedly photographed carrying off Pelosi’s lectern, was busted in his home state on Friday and was
being held in Pinellas County Jail on a federal warrant after US marshals picked him up, ABC News reported.
He was charged with one count of knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, one count of theft of government property, and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, the feds said.
Johnson is a stay-at-home dad who lives with his wife and their five children, the Bradenton Herald reported.
The lectern was found the day after the siege, in a corridor of the Senate wing off the Rotunda, the feds said.
It has a value of “more than $1,000,” said authorities, who cited the House’s curator.
A rioter photographed with his boot up on Pelosi’s desk, Richard Barnett, 60, has been charged with violent entry, theft of public property and other federal crimes.
Evans, a freshman member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, on his Facebook page allegedly streamed himself entering the Capitol with the mob, shouting, “We’re in, we’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”
Charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct, Evans, 35, quit the House of Delegates Saturday.
“I hope it helps to begin the healing process,” he said in a letter of resignation, “so we can all move forward and come together as ‘ One Nation, Under God.’ ”
His lawyer has insisted he was “not part of the main body” of rioters and did nothing wrong.
Among those whose arrests were announced on Saturday, the horned crown for outlandishness still belongs to Chansley.
“This individual carried a spear, approximately six feet in length, with an American flag tied just below the blade,” the feds said of Chansley, 33, also known as Jake Angeli, who was busted Saturday.
Chansley is an avid Trump supporter who wears the same horned getup while spouting conspiracy theories at the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix, according to the Arizona Republic.
Rousing QAnon supporters at a February 2020 Trump rally in Phoenix, Chansley told the crowd: “The snowball has been rolling, and it’s only getting bigger. We’re the mainstream now.”
He was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
“The fact that we had a bunch of our traitors in office hunker down, put on their gas masks and retreat into their underground bunker, I consider that a win,” Chansley, identified as Angeli, told NBC News after the riot.
He has said his beliefs are based on Internet research of groups he believes control the world, such as the Illuminati.