Federal prosecutors offered the most frightening description yet of the rioters who took over the Capitol last week, writing in a new court case that the intention was “to capture and murder elected officials”.
The vision was included in a detention memorandum that seeks to keep Jacob Anthony Chansley – who gathered people inside the US Capitol using a megaphone – in prison, according to Capitol Police information included in the lawsuit. Chansley was also notable for his headdress, face paint, and a six-foot spear.
“Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions on the Capitol, supports that the intention of Capitol and the protesters was to capture and murder elected officials in the United States government,” government prosecutors wrote.
The allegations, written by lawyers at the Arizona Department of Justice, come as the government begins to describe in more alarming terms what happened. In a separate case, prosecutors in a Texas court alleged that a retired Air Force reservist, who carried plastic zippered restrictions on the Senate floor, may have intended to restrict lawmakers.
Chansley is due to appear in Arizona’s federal court on Friday for a detention hearing.
“He loved Trump, every word. He heard him. He felt like he was answering our president’s call,” Chansley’s lawyer, Al Watkins, told CNN on Thursday night. “My client was not violent. He did not cross any police line. He did not attack anyone,” said Watkins, adding that Chansley expects a presidential pardon.
Prosecutors describe those who took over the Capitol as “insurrectionists” and offer new details about Chansley’s role in last week’s violent siege, including that after positioning himself on the dais where Vice President Pence had been that morning, Chansley wrote a note saying “it’s just a matter of time, justice is coming.”
Chansley later told the FBI that he did not consider the note a threat, but said the vice president was a “child trafficker” and made a long diatribe about Pence, Biden and other politicians as traitors.
Before being arrested, Chansley told the FBI that he wanted to return to Washington for inauguration to protest.
Prosecutors accuse Chansley of being an escape risk that can quickly raise money by nontraditional means as “one of the leaders and mascots of QAnon, a group commonly referred to as a cult (which preaches the unmasked and fictitious anti-government conspiracy theory) . ”
They also said Chansley suffers from mental illness and is a regular drug user, according to the prosecutor’s arrest memo.