Qanon Shaman wins early release

Jacob Chansley, better known as the Qanon Shaman, has won early release from federal prison. He is now in a halfway house and expects discharge from that facility on May 25.

Qanon Shaman released

Jacob Chansley was serving 41 months in prison after pleading guilty to various charges stemming from the January 6 event. But today federal authorities released him to a halfway house.

Federal Bureau of Prisons policy does allow “time off for good behavior.” But normally he would have had to serve 35 months and 22 days at least. In fact he has served less than 27 months of his sentence, reckoning from his arrest.

The Qanon Shaman’s attorney, Albert S. Watkins, declined comment on the reasons for the early release. He said only that the Bureau of Prisons had made that decision – for which he had high praise.

“Halfway house” is an institution allowing a slow and gradual re-integration into society for an ex-convict.

Three weeks ago, Tucker Carlson released and discussed copious and never-before-seen footage of the January 6 event. One can clearly see the Qanon Shaman getting a guided tour of the Capitol. This tour even included admittance to the very chamber of the United States Senate. The new footage led Naomi Wolf to apologize for her rush to judgment two years earlier, and Elon Musk to call explicitly for Chansley’s immediate release.

At least one influencer is already speculating that the Bureau granted an accelerated release to avoid litigation embarrassing to prosecutors.

That speculation might not be so idle, because his former attorney insisted he never saw the exculpatory footage. Perhaps he would not have advised his client to plead guilty if he had.

Other questions

The Tucker Carlson footage raised questions of a prosecution withholding exculpatory evidence, and maybe a defense counsel who didn’t know enough to file a Brady Motion to discharge that evidence. But the footage also reveals a Capitol Police officer walking around, apparently unharmed, after he was supposed to have died in the line of duty. (He suffered a fatal stroke the next day.) In addition it reveals that Ray Epps played a larger role than he cared to admit. Indeed one could argue from the footage that Ray Epps perjured himself at the green table before the January 6 Committee – and that Committee gave him a free pass for such perjury. These circumstances definitely support the speculation that authorities just wanted his case to go away.