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MAGA shaman Jake Chansley is trading in his horned helmet, bare chest and spear for a suit and tie. The January 6 rioter who led the charge into the Senate chamber is hoping to return to the Capitol in 2024 as a congressman.
Chansley filed paperwork last week to run in Arizona’s 8th congressional district as a Libertarian. The seat is currently held by Representative Debbie Lesko, a sixty-four-year-old Republican, who announced last month that she would not seek re-election.
The announcement comes after Chansley was released early from prison this past year. Chansley was sentenced to forty-one months in federal prison for obstructing election proceedings but was transferred to a community correctional center in Phoenix after serving just twenty-seven months. Since his time in jail, Chansley has disavowed the QAnon movement.
Among Chansley’s campaign promises are term limits for congress, the criminalization of lobbying and a seven-figure fine for congressmen caught insider trading. Chansley will presumably look to tackle other pressing issues like the human trafficking network under the Denver International Airport and the CIA’s Mockingbird Operation to take control of American media — the real, non QAnon issues, that Americans care about.
In an interview with Newsmax on Monday, Chansley said he is confident the American people will support his message despite his jail time.
“I guarantee you I will do a better job in the Congress than anybody that is running or is currently in there because I will actually speak for the American people as one of the American people,” Chansley said.
Nor is Chansley worried that his shirtless escapade around the Capitol will ruin his credibility with voters. “It’s a symbol that I am willing to bare all,” he said, which Cockburn hopes isn’t meant to be taken literally.
“If it takes horns and face paint with no shirt to end up disrupting the establishment and the established corrupt politics in the dinosaur circus we call DC, then I am fine with that,” Chansley said when asked if he regretted his actions.
Chansley assured voters that his mental health is as sound now as it was on January 6. The eleven months he served in solitary confinement did not do any damage.
“The fact of the matter is this notion of mental illness or having mental health issues is a bogus narrative,” Chansley said. “The fact of the matter is my previous attorney Albert Watkins was inaccurate in his portrayal of me and his representation of me.”
Chansley isn’t the only January 6 rioter who hopes to return to the scene of the crime. Derrick Evans, a former Republican state House Representative from West Virginia, was charged with civil disorder following January 6 and is now running for the US House. New Hampshire man Jason Riddle, who was seen on video chugging wine inside the Capitol and served jail time, is also running for Congress next year.
