QAnon Shaman’s Lawyer Has a Creepy New Defense For His Client: ‘He Had a Fondness For Trump Not Unlike The First Love a Man May Have For a Girl’
Al Watkins, the attorney for Jacob Chansley (better known as the “QAnon Shaman” despite his apparent new dislike for the nickname) offered a uniquely creepy defense for his client’s actions during the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol: Chansley was apparently so fond of former President Donald Trump, it was “not unlike the first love a man may have for a girl.”
Chansley, infamous for the facepaint and horned furry hat he wore during the riot, pled guilty to a felony during a virtual court hearing on Friday. Over the past months since January 6, Watkins has thrown around a long list of wild comments attempting to defend his client. This particular quote, however, stood out as especially bizarre.
CNN’s Jim Acosta played a clip of Watkins talking about his client before asking his guests, Democratic strategist Paul Begala and former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-WY) for their reactions.
“Take a listen to what [Chansley’s] lawyer says about his client’s view of Donald Trump,” Acosta said. “I think it’s pretty telling.”
“He had a fondness for Trump that was not unlike the first love a man may have for a girl, or a girl for a man, or man for a man,” Watkins says in the video clip. “The first love always, always maintains a tender and soft spot in the heart of the lover.”
“We can’t blame all of this on love, can we?” Acosta asked Comstock. “What a bizarre comment.”
“What’s love got to do with it?” Comstock replied. “I mean, this was an insurrection.”
She added that the people like Chansley who “bought into Donald Trump’s Big Lie” were now suffering for it, and that investigations needed to continue into what happened that day:
This is sad that people who believed in Donald Trump are now going to pay a very personal cost, as they should. These were criminal actions on January 6th.
I don’t think we’ve still gotten to the bottom of it because I think a lot of the people who need to be held responsible, people at the White House who may very well, as information comes out, have been involved in this rally and egging on this kind of activity, and that’s why I think it’s so important that we get these phone records, that we get the text records of these people who were engaged in that activity that day.
“Even [House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy’s records?” asked Acosta.
“I think anybody,” she agreed, adding that she would also focus the inquiry on people like “Donald Trump Jr., Mark Meadows, people at the White House and [people] conducting the rally.”
“Congress has an absolute right to subpoena those records and I think what they have done is exactly appropriate,” Comstock concluded.
Watch the video above, via CNN.
