Arizona QAnon supporter joins storming of US Capitol

Among the supporters of President Donald Trump who mobbed their way into the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, one – unmistakable in his fur, horned hat and painted face – was Jake Angeli, a QAnon supporter who has been a fixture at Arizona right-wing political rallies over the past year.

Angeli was seen in photographs from Washington, D.C., amid protesters who turned violent and stormed the building, causing both chambers to suspend their intended action of the day: certifying the results of the presidential election for former vice president Joe Biden.

At one point, Angeli was seen on the dais of the U.S. Senate. He posed for a photo flexing his right arm; his left was holding a spear from which hung a U.S. flag.

Since at least 2019, Angeli has held forth outside the Arizona Capitol shouting about various conspiracy theories, most related to the wide-ranging beliefs espoused by QAnon.

Angeli, in a 2020 interview with The Arizona Republic, said that he wears the fur bonnet, paints his face and walks around shirtless with ragged pants as a way to attract attention.

Then, he said, he is able to speak to people about his beliefs about QAnon and other truths he says remain hidden.

The QAnon school of thought supposes that a high-level government agent with Q-level security clearance has been unspooling cryptic clues about secret investigations inside Washington, D.C. Some of those investigations involve politicians running a child sex trafficking ring.

In February 2020, Angeli worked the crowd outside a rally in Phoenix for Trump.

He held up a tattered sign that read, “Q sent me,” and asked the crowd if they knew of the conspiracy.

Several met him with affirmative nods.

“The snowball has been rolling and it’s only getting bigger,” Angeli said at the time. “We’re the mainstream now.”

Reached on his cellphone Wednesday evening, Angeli refused an interview with The Republic.

He did speak with a correspondent from the Globe and Mail of Toronto, according to a Tweet from that reporter, saying that police had stopped trying to block him and other Trump supporters and let them into the Capitol. After some time, according to the Tweet, Angeli said police politely asked him to leave.

Angeli was a fixture at rallies to reopen Arizona businesses shuttered by the government as a measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19. He has also been at rallies contesting the Arizona election results.

Besides the government corruption espoused by QAnon, Angeli believes that leaders have conspired to keep blockbuster scientific discoveries from the public in order to maintain the system as it is.

The Q movement, he said, validated beliefs he had held as far back as 2016.