A new court filing claims that the newly released footage of Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman” from the Jan. 6 Capitol protest, only shows four minutes of his time inside the Capitol building.
A filing by prosecutors of Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola, who was also sentenced for his involvement in the incident, claims that the footage, which was released by Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday, does not show most of the evidence that is damaging to Chansley.
The filing claimed that all of the footage shown by Carlson took place between 2:56 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Jan. 6, even though Chansley had breached a police line at 2:09 p.m. and entered the Capitol.
“With the exception of one CCTV camera (where said footage totaled approximately 10 seconds and implicated an evacuation route), all of the footage played on television was disclosed to defendant Pezzola (and defendant Chansley) by September 24, 2021,” the filing read. “The final 10 seconds of footage was produced in global discovery to all defense counsel on January 23, 2023.”
Politico reported that the release of Chansley’s footage to his attorney predated his sentencing, meaning that his plea deal, which occurred prior to Sept. 24, 2021, could have possibly been revoked.
Harvey Silverglate, one of the nation’s leading defense attorneys, previously told the Washington Examiner that Carlson’s footage, which appeared to show U.S. Capitol Police escorting Chansley through the Capitol, could lead to an appeal to vacate his guilty plea, which landed him 41 months in prison.
“Virtually every moment of his time inside the Capitol was caught on tape,” Carlson said on Monday. “The tapes show the Capitol Police never stopped Jacob Chansley. They helped him. They acted as his tour guides.”
Others have called for Chansley to be freed as well, such as Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who posted footage of Chansley telling supporters of former President Donald Trump to “go home” and “obey our president.”
Musk posted another video on Saturday, which showed Chansley claiming he had stopped people from stealing items from the Capitol on Jan. 6, including someone “stealing muffins out of the break room.” Musk claimed “this shaman/muffin-guardian is obviously not going to overthrow the state.”
House Republicans have expressed intent to open multiple inquiries into the conduct of the Democrat-led Jan. 6 committee which was a spotlight of the previous Congress as well as inquiries into the security failures that occurred during the Capitol protest and the treatment of protesters who were charged in the aftermath of the attack.
CNN reported that Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) is expected to lead one of the inquiries in his position as chairman of the House Administration Committee’s subcommittee on oversight.
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