Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she was honored to meet Jacob Chansley, the Capitol rioter better known as the “QAnon Shaman,” at the Turning Point USA conference this past weekend.
In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Greene decried what she described as the “horrendous” treatment of Jan. 6 defendants and, in particular, of Chansley, but she said she was amazed by the positive attitude he exhibited.
“I was honored to meet Jake Chansley this weekend, and I want to explain why I say honored,” Greene wrote in a lengthy X post Monday, later adding, “When I spoke with Jake, he is remarkably positive, happy, forgiving, and determined. Most people would be crushed and forever destroyed after being treated so horrendously by the media and their own government, but not Jake.”
“The entire country knows Jake as the face of the Jan 6th ‘Insurrection’ because the media plastered his image and slandered him all over the world, the Biden regime’s [Department of Justice] wrongfully prosecuted him for innocently and nonviolently walking through the Capital, and he was then treated horrifically in prisons even being held in solitary confinement for over 10 months just like many other J6’ers,” she wrote.
She attached a photo of the two of them together from this past weekend. Chansley was dressed in the same garb that helped spur his rise to moderate fame. He became well known after the Capitol riot for his horned fur hat and face paint, which made him instantly recognizable in the large crowd.
Chansley pleaded guilty to a charge of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison. Chansley, who grew up in Phoenix, served 27 of those months before being released to a halfway house this past March.
Chansley also indicated earlier this year that he was interested in running for Congress and filed paperwork in Arizona’s 8th District.
Greene and many of her conservative Trump-aligned colleagues have made the treatment of Jan. 6 defendants in D.C. jails a central focus.
The issue came up a couple of months ago, when Greene’s colleague, retiring Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), refuted some of the arguments that Greene embraces about the alleged treatment in the jails.
Drawing on his 25 years as a prosecutor, Buck responded to a letter from his state’s party outlining concerns about treatment in jails. He acknowledged the concerns, writing it “has been a concern of civil rights activists for decades, who argue it maintains substandard treatment of inmates.” But he added that “your letter misleads the reader by portraying worse conditions at the jail for January 6 defendants than for other inmates. That is simply not true.”
Greene shot back against his argument, pointing out that he had not visited the Jan. 6 defendants.