QAnon Shaman Jacob Chansley’s Lawyer Says Capitol Rioters ‘Are People With Brain Damage’

Attorney Albert Watkins, a Missouri-based lawyer representing Jacob Chansley, better known as the QAnon Shaman, said in an interview Tuesday that his client and other the U.S. Capitol rioters were manipulated by former President Donald Trump‘s lies.

Watkins also stated that his client and rioters were vulnerable to Trump’s lies and manipulations because of their mental state.

“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all f—ing short-bus people,” Watkins told TPM. 

“These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.”

Watkins also argued that the Capitol rioters weren’t “bad people,” but were only brainwashed by Trump.

“These aren’t bad people, they don’t have a prior criminal history,” Watkins said. “F—, they were subjected to four-plus years of —damn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since f—ing Hitler.”