With Tucker Carlson’s crew now combing through the January 6th footage for the stories of that day that the general public has not yet seen, the evidence regarding Jacob Chansley, aka the “QAnon Shaman,” has definitely been among the most explosive – and has caught the attention of Elon Musk and Jonathan Turley.

The images of Chansley being escorted through the Capitol have sent Democrats into an actual tizzy, with zero explanation of why the January 6th Committee did not disclose this video during their own control of the narrative. In fact, the chairman of the committee, Representative Bennie Thompson, has admitted that none of the January 6 committee members watched the security videos – that was delegated out.

Thompson said he doesn’t think any of the Jan. 6 members themselves ever had access to the footage — they let only staff view it. "I'm actually not aware of any member of the committee who had access. We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video."

— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) March 8, 2023

After all, when you have the narrative set, what’s the point of watching all the evidence, right???

So not only has Tucker Carlson fully showed what Chansley was up to that day, we now know that Chansley’s lawyers NEVER saw this video. And yes, that is a legal problem for the Department of Justice.

Albert Watkins, the former attorney for Chansley, told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday that he had not seen the Jan. 6 footage first shared Monday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” while serving his client.”

Watkins said the footage proves Chansley did not have all the evidence to decide whether he should go to trial or take a plea. (He ultimately took a plea.)”

“This is a man who had tremendous intelligence, [is] very gentle, very, very articulate who was diagnosed 15 years earlier by the government with a mental health issue- and the government knew that,” Watkins told Carlson. “The government knew through three hearings when we begged and pleaded to get this man out of solitary confinement, literally falling into an abyss, mentally.”

“And through each of those three hearings that government assistant U.S. attorney knew the most important aspect of that hearing was that Jake was not violent. The government knew,” he continued. “They knew that Jake had walked around with all of these police officers. They had that video footage I didn’t get. It wasn’t disclosed to me. It wasn’t provided to me.”

This caught the attention of law professor Jonathan Turley, who noted that if what Watkins is saying is true, then Chansley got screwed over at sentencing.

At first blush, this would appear a clear “Brady violation” when a prosecutor fails to provide a defendant with any evidence that is favorable or exculpatory to his case. Like most things in Chansley’s life, it is a bit more complex than it would seem.”

First, Chansley quickly pleaded guilty to the charge. This may have been due in part to the draconian treatment that he received by the Justice Department, which insisted on keeping him in solitary confinement with no apparent justification. The result is that he moved rapidly to sentencing without significant discovery in his case.”

Second, the footage was in the possession of the legislative branch so the Justice Department could claim that it was not required to produce it. Indeed, the prosecution may have been entirely unaware of the footage.”

Third, Chansley waived an appeal of the plea agreement and is now weeks away from release. The case is practically closed.”

It is not clear, however, if Judge Lamberth will find the failure to disclose this evidence troubling and worthy of inquiry. None of this means that Chansley should not have been given jail time. Indeed, it is appropriate to sentence rioters to greater than average time due to the assault on our constitutional process.”

Yet, it is hard to believe that Judge Lamberth would have given 41 months to a nonviolent, first offender who was led through the Capitol by police officers to the floor. This was a Navy veteran who pleaded guilty to the crime.”

The role of Congress in withholding this footage is disgraceful and wrong. The Congress and the January 6th Committee knew of this footage and its relevance to a pending criminal case. Yet, they refused to make it public. Instead, the January 6th Committee hired a former ABC producer to put on a made-for-television production of highly edited images for public consumption. Countervailing evidence or images were consistently excluded and witnesses appeared as virtual props to support high-quality video packages.”

Even The New York Times admitted the narrative was meant to “recast the midterm message” and “give [Democrats] a platform for making a broader case about why they deserve to stay in power.”

It seems that there are several legal questions at play here that must be answered, should lawyers be willing to step up for Chansley again. First, why is the DOJ so insistent on keeping anyone arrested in conjunction with January 6th in solitary confinement? This was even an issue for Democrats early on in the legal process. And it apparently is still going on, over two years after the fact. At this point, I think it is a fair assumption that the DOJ was looking to punitively break defendants in order to get them to agree to plea deals without having to go through the discovery process. Second, did the DOJ have possession of this video, or did the Capitol Police simply never turn it over to the DOJ? Third, will Chansley’s sentence end up being vacated due to prosecutorial misconduct? And does he have the standing to sue over what happened to him – or did he sign away that right under the terms of his plea deal?

All of these very open questions has led Elon Musk to throw his support behind Jacob Chansley. And while Musk doesn’t have any legal insight into the case the way Jonathan Turley does, his practical approach to the difference in sentencing is one that will resonate with many of his Twitter followers.

Free Jacob Chansley https://t.co/8BbeXF2Fye

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2023

In replying to a comment on this tweet, Elon Musk then said “I do believe in the fairness of justice.” He then followed up with a second tweet.

Chansley got 4 years in prison for a non-violent, police-escorted tour!?

Dave Chapelle was violently assaulted on stage by a guy with a knife. That guy got a $3000 fine & no prison time. https://t.co/qDRWxozD8B

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2023

Fact check: partly true. Dave Chappelle’s attacker did get sentenced to 270 days in the county jail, but since it was a sentence of less than a year, there was no prison time. I cannot find any reference to fines in the sentencing, though that had been something that had been referenced in earlier charges. The attacker ended up pleading “no contest” to two charges, which resulted in the jail sentence (and he is also facing an attempted murder charge in a separate case). Still, it’s not 41 months in prison. The fact-checkers are having a meltdown over Elon Musk calling what Chansley did a “non-violent, police-guided tour,” without addressing the obvious disparity in the cases he was comparing. The fact-checkers don’t want to discuss THAT part of the tweet, nope nope nope.

With all the legal shenanigans being revealed, it’s little wonder that the House GOP is now starting an investigation of the January 6th Committee itself. Sadly, for some people, it is too little, too late. You can disagree with what happened on January 6th, and still think that the DOJ has very much overstepped and deliberately attempted to ruin people, and that the Capitol Police and Congress need to be called to account for potentially withholding exculpatory evidence. Are we a nation of laws, or not?

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Featured image via Tomas on Flickr, cropped, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)