Federal Judge Rips Into Tucker Carlson in Ruling on 'QAnon Shaman' Jan. 6 Case
A federal judge this week rebuked former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for broadcasting security footage of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Carlson was given the footage by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In March, Carlson showed some snippets of it on his program.
Based on clips that showed Capitol police interacting peacefully with “QAnon shaman” Jacob Chansley and guiding him through the Capitol, Chansley filed to have his 41-month sentence thrown out.
🚨BREAKING: Never before seen video of January 6 shows Jacob Chansley, the QAnon Shaman, being led through the Capitol by police the entire time that he was in the building. pic.twitter.com/rikoRMWezF
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 7, 2023
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth denied that request on Thursday in a fiery ruling. Chansley had finished his sentence before the ruling was issued.
Lamberth said the videos changed nothing.
“Even if plea counsel had presented the Court with this footage, … Mr. Chansley would not have received a lower sentence,” he wrote. “The criminal nature of Mr. Chansley’s actions that day … establish the appropriateness of a sentence of at least 41 months’ incarceration.”
Lamberth’s greatest scorn was reserved for the end of his decision as he targeted Carlson.
“The Court would be remiss if it did not address the ill-advised television program of March 6, 2023,” he wrote.
“Not only was the broadcast replete with misstatements and misrepresentations regarding the events of January 6, 2021 too numerous to count, the host explicitly questioned the integrity of this Court — not to mention the legitimacy of the entire U.S. criminal justice system — with inflammatory characterizations of cherry-picked videos stripped of their proper context.”
Quoting “Nineteen Eighty-Four” author George Orwell, Lamberth said Carlson “called on his followers to ‘reject the evidence of [their] eyes and ears,’ language resembling the destructive, misguided rhetoric that fueled the events of January 6 in the first place.”
“The Court finds it alarming that the host’s viewers throughout the nation so readily heeded his command. But this Court cannot and will not reject the evidence before it. Nor should the public,” he wrote.
Lamberth said that “neither the events of [Jan. 6] nor any particular defendant’s involvement can be fully captured in a seconds-long video carelessly, or perhaps even cynically, aired in a television segment or attached to a tweet.”
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