CNN
—
Federal prosecutors on Sunday pushed again in opposition to claims {that a} video of so-called “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley that was proven by Fox Information’s Tucker Carlson exonerated anybody within the mob on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In court docket filings Sunday, federal prosecutors stated that video didn’t present Chansley, who was sentenced to 41 months in jail for his actions on January 6, dealing with off with officers for half an hour outdoors the Senate chamber or when Chansley refused to be escorted out of the Capitol by an officer and solely left after being forcibly eliminated.
The prosecutors have been responding to a request to throw out the case in opposition to 5 members of the Proud Boys for his or her alleged actions on and round January 6. Protection lawyer Roger Roots, who represents Dominic Pezzola, had requested the decide to throw out the case – citing Carlon’s clips of Chansley strolling round components of the Capitol with officers, calling the video “exculpatory.”
“Chansley was not some passive, chaperoned observer of occasions for the roughly hour that he was unlawfully contained in the Capitol,” prosecutors wrote. “He was a part of the preliminary breach of the constructing; he confronted regulation enforcement for roughly half-hour simply outdoors the Senate Chamber; he gained entry to the gallery of the Senate together with different members of the mob (clearly, precluding any Senate enterprise from occurring); and he gained entry to and later left the Senate ground solely after regulation enforcement was in a position to arrive en masse to take away him.”
Addressing the video Carlson performed of Chansley strolling with officers within the constructing, prosecutors wrote that “it’s true {that a} sole officer, who was attempting to de-escalate the scenario, was with Chansley as he made his approach to the Senate ground after initially breaching the Chamber.”
“However the televised footage fails to indicate that Chansley subsequently refused to be escorted out by this lone officer and as a substitute left the Capitol solely after extra officers arrived and forcibly escorted him out,” prosecutors say.
A former lawyer for Chansley, Albert Watkins, beforehand advised CNN that he had by no means seen the footage Carlson performed of his consumer.
Prosecutors say that other than 10 seconds that “implicated an evacuation route,” the remainder of the video performed by Carlson was launched to Pezzola and Chansley by September 24, 2021, and the extra 10 seconds have been launched to all January 6 defendants on January 23, 2023.
Chansley pleaded responsible to obstructing an official continuing in late 2021.