Jacob Chansley, who became known as the “QAnon Shaman” after rocking a horned headdress and makeup during the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, is reiterating why he no longer supports President Donald Trump.
“The man, alone, refusing to release the Epstein client list was enough for me, and I think a lot of other people, to be like, ‘OK, this is bullshit,’” the convicted rioter recently told CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan.
Five years ago, Chansley carried a spear into the U.S. Capitol building and sat in a seat that had been occupied by then-Vice President Mike Pence on the Senate floor earlier in the day. Chansley later pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of an official proceeding and served 27 months in prison before an early release in 2023. He has since disavowed the QAnon movement, The Associated Press reported.
Chansley was one of about 1,500 people charged with Jan. 6-related crimes to receive a pardon from Trump early last year. By year’s end, he signaled his disgust with Trump over the administration’s support for Israel in its war in Gaza as well as the handling of files tied to the late convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.
“Fuck this stupid piece of shit… What a fraud…,” Chansley wrote under a mugshot of Trump in a since-deleted X post last year.
In a video shared on social media Tuesday, Chansley told O’Sullivan that he doesn’t regret going to the Capitol five years ago.
“Even though I had prison and all that stuff, no regrets. I don’t live with regret,” he said.
He added that his support of Trump stemmed from his claims of wanting to end “child and human trafficking.”
In an interview published Monday by The Times of London, Chansley said he plans to run for governor as an independent in his native state of Arizona this year. It’s unclear if he’ll follow through on such a bid. Chansley later clarified to the paper that he wasn’t “interested in politics” but rather was “interested in saving my country, humanity & the planet from extinction. That is the direction we are heading if we don’t get new leadership.”
Chansley previously expressed interest in a run for Congress in 2024, but failed to submit a petition with the necessary signatures to be placed on the ballot.
He also told The Times that the Trump administration was “a corrupt disaster,” and slammed the president for “essentially using the American military to commit the armed robbery of a nation” in its attack on Venezuela last weekend.
“It is the antithesis of everything that America needs right now,” Chansley said of the president’s acts in his second term.