🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
A convicted insurrectionist from the Capitol riot has declared his interest to run against Abraham Hamadeh, a Kari Lake ally, for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024.
Jacob Chansley, who is also known as the "QAnon Shaman," declared his interest to run for Arizona's 8th Congressional District as a member of the Libertarian Party on Thursday. Chansley, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and supporter of Donald Trump, was one of the roughly 2,000 rioters who broke into the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 while Congress was certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. Thousands of Trump supporters rallied outside the Capitol to protest the results after the former president had claimed, without any evidence, that the election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud.
More than 1,200 people have been charged, according to the latest data from the Department of Justice (DOJ), including more than 400 accused of assaulting or impeding law enforcement, which is a felony. The DOJ's Washington, D.C., office said in early September that 623 people had been sentenced, though not all had been given jail time, while about 657 had pleaded guilty to federal charges, "many of whom faced or will face incarceration at sentencing."
Chansley pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and served 27 months out of a 41-month sentence. He was then released to a halfway house in Phoenix. Prosecutors, meanwhile, described him as "the public face of the Capitol riot."
Chansley is a convicted felon, so he cannot vote, but he can still be eligible to run for office. In Arizona, felons are allowed to hold public office as long as their civil rights are restored, which can mean completing your sentence or paying fines.
Newsweek attempted to reach Chansley's campaign email for comment, but the message was undeliverable. Newsweek also reached out to Shipley Law, who previously represented Chansley, via email.
Arizona's 8th Congressional District is up for grabs in 2024, after Republican incumbent Debbie Lesko decided not to run for reelection. There are a handful of Republican candidates that Chansley will be running against, including Hamadeh. There are also two Democrats and one independent in the race.
Hamadeh, a former U.S. Army Reserve captain and intelligence officer who also previously worked as a prosecutor in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, declared his candidacy in mid-October. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, announcing his bid, he wrote: "President Trump is under attack. He needs back up — and I'm ready to help him Make America Great Again."
Newsweek reached out to Hamadeh via email for comment.
The Republican candidate is endorsed by Lake, who is currently running for a Senate seat in Arizona. Lake won the Republican nomination for Arizona's governor race in 2022, with an endorsement from Trump, but ultimately lost to her Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs. After Lake lost the election, she refused to concede and sued multiple times in an attempt to have the election results overturned.
Hamadeh also lost in 2022 when he ran for Arizona's attorney general. His Democratic opponent Kris Mayes beat him by a little under 300 votes. Like Lake, Hamadeh has also contested his election loss in court.
In a X post in late October, he announced Lake's support of his candidacy. "I'm HONORED to have Kari Lake's endorsement in this race. We've never seen a fighter like Kari and I look forward to working with her to Make America Great Again. While others catered to the establishment and hid after the election we continue to fight like hell for Arizona."
fairness meter
About the writer
Rachel Dobkin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on politics. Rachel joined Newsweek in ... Read more