‘QAnon shaman’ set to take competency exam in Colorado federal prison

Jacob Anthony Chansley, the Jan. 6 Capitol rioter known as “QAnon Shaman,” is set to take a competency exam in a Colorado federal prison.

In a court filing dated Saturday, the government said that Chansley has been housed at a correctional facility in Littleton, Colo., where he will undergo his competency evaluation.

Chansley pleaded not guilty in late January to six charges related to the riots, including disorderly conduct, entering the Capitol and demonstrating inside.

Late last month, a Washington, D.C., federal court ordered Chansley to undergo the exam, finding that there was “reasonable cause to believe that a competency exam” was warranted.

The exam will determine if he is “presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense.”

Chansley has been held at the Colorado facility since June 10, according to a separate court document dated June 16.

Hundreds of people have been charged in connection with the riots after supporters of former President Trump overwhelmed the Capitol, breaching security and delaying the certification of the 2020 presidential election in Congress.

Chansley became one of the more recognizable figures of the rally, seen in photos shirtless wearing a horned helmet and face paint.

Albert Watkins, an attorney for Chansley, wrote in a court filing on Tuesday that his client has “become the de facto service mark for January 6, akin to the Nike Swoosh…inextricably and in perpetuity linked to an event which will become known not as a day of infamy.”

“Adorned in his costume, depicted in a mug shot devoid of his red, white and blue paint, Jacob A. Chansley is now a public figure, both reviled and glorified by both sides of the great political divide,” Watkins wrote.