Justice Department officials announced on Saturday the arrests of three of the most high-profile accused rioters in last week’s siege of the Capitol – including the shirtless horn-cap intruder who went viral after turning the Senate podium into a personal throne worthy of Conan the Barbarian.
Jacob Anthony Chansley called the FBI’s Washington office on Thursday and later turned himself in to police, the FBI said.
Chansley said he came as part of a group effort with other ‘patriots’ from Arizona, at the request of the president that all ‘patriots’ come to Washington on January 6, 2021, the DOJ said.
Chansley, 33, who calls himself the “QAnon shaman,” was just the most bizarre of the many hundreds of pro-Trump extremists who broke the Capitol on Wednesday and are now being rounded up for arrests across the country.
The FBI also announced the arrests of Adam Christian Johnson, 36, featured in a viral video allegedly taking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern, and of a West Virginian lawmaker who helpfully livestreamed himself – to investigators – while he shouted, “Derrick Evans is at the Capitol!”
In large part thanks to images circulated by the rioters themselves that day and now flooding the Internet, prosecutors had filed at least 17 cases against named suspects in federal district court Saturday against named suspects, accusing them of such serious crimes of high punishments as violent entry. and attacking federal officers.
At least 40 other cases in the District of Columbia Superior Court are alleging lesser charges, including curfew violations and non-violent firearms offenses. They face a variety of crimes, including assaulting police officers, entering restricted areas of the Capitol, stealing federal property, and threatening lawmakers.
Prosecutors said more cases remained sealed.
Those charged federally include Lonnie Coffman of Falkville, Ala., A 70-year-old who reportedly brought weapons and 11 Mason-jar Molotov cocktails to the protest in his pickup truck.
Mark Warner, a Democrat who is the new chair of the Senate’s intelligence committee, on Saturday called on cellular providers to preserve social media content related to the uprising, which killed five people, including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick .
Johnson, de Parrish, Fla. Man allegedly depicted in a viral photo with Pelosi’s lectern was detained in his home state on Friday and is being held in Pinellas County Jail under federal warrant after U.S. Marshals arrested him, ABC News reported. .
On one occasion he was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or site without legal authority; one count of theft of government property; and a count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, the FBI said.
Johnson is a stay-at-home father who lives with his wife and their five children, The Bradenton Herald reported.
The desk was found the day after the siege in a corridor of the Senate Wing, near the Rotunda, the FBI said.
It is worth “more than $ 1,000,” said authorities, who named the House of Representatives trustee.
A rioter photographed with his boot 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, would live stream himself as he entered the Capitol, with the crowd, on Facebook. as he shouted across the threshold, ‘We’re in, we’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol! “
Accused of knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct, he resigned from the House of Representatives on Saturday.
“I hope it helps to start the healing process,” he said in a resignation letter, “so that we can all move forward and come together as ‘One Nation, Under God.’
His lawyer has maintained that he was “not part of the main group” of rioters and did nothing wrong during the offense.
Among those whose arrests were announced Saturday, the horned crown still belongs to Chansley due to bizarreities.
“This person was carrying a spear about six feet long, with an American flag just below the blade,” the FBI said of 33-year-old Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli, who was arrested Saturday.
Chansley is an ardent Trump supporter and, according to the Arizona Republic, wears the same horned getup as he spews out conspiracy theories in the Phoenix state capital.
Exciting QAnon supporters at a February 2020 Trump rally in Phoenix, Chansley told the crowd: “The snowball is rolling, and it’s only getting bigger. We are now mainstream, ”reported the outlet.
He was charged with knowingly entering or staying in a confined building or property without legal authority, and of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
“The fact that we had a bunch of our traitors in the office, squatted down, put on their gas masks and retreated to their underground bunker, I think that’s a victory,” Chansley, identified as Angeli, had told NBC News after the riot.
He has said his beliefs are based on internet research of groups he believes rule the world, such as the Illuminati.
“At one point it all clicked in some way,” he told the Republic.
“Oh my God. I now see the reality of what’s going on.”
Also Saturday, the mayor of Gravette, Arkansas issued a public statement after Barnett, who once lived, was arrested after being snapped into Pelosi’s office, with his dirty work boot on top of her desk.
“It’s a shame that something like that brings you out into the open,” Mayor Kurt Maddox told Fox24. “This is not the city of Gravette, this one person is not who Gravette is and not who the people are.”
Resident Joseph Cowan told the station, “We’re a bunch of good people [and] we just had that one spoiled egg, I think, that caused Gravette a lot of trouble now. “
With pole wires