Justice Department officials announced the arrests Saturday of three of the highest-profile accused rioters from last week’s Capitol siege — including the shirtless, fur-wearing, …
Justice Department officials announced the arrests Saturday of three of the highest-profile accused rioters from last week’s Capitol siege — including the shirtless, fur-wearing, 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 turned himself in 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 January 6, 2021, the DOJ said. Chansley,33, who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman,” was only 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 in arrests across the country. The feds also announced the arrests of Adam Christian Johnson,36, seen in a viral video allegedly carrying off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern, and of a West Virginian lawmaker who had helpfully — for investigators — livestreamed himself 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 crimes as violent entry and assaulting federal officers. At least 40 other cases in the District of Columbia Superior Court allege lesser charges, including curfew violations and non-violent gun crimes. They face a variety of offenses, including assaulting police officers, entering restricted areas of the U.S. Capitol, stealing federal property and threatening lawmakers.
