By ANITA DRINGHK
According to the White House, the Medal of Freedom is awarded to “individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” It has been given to fine Americans such as Thurgood Marshall; Cesar Chavez; Maya Angelou; conspiracy-spreading talk show host Rush Limbaugh; tanning bed inventors, Mel Anohma-Moore and Artie Fishull Burns; master car-switcher Devin Nunes; three golfers; and loyalist democracy denier Jim Jordan. President Trump also had plans to award the highest civilian honor to Jacob Anthony Chansley.
Chansley, 33, also known as Jake Angeli, a longtime passionate QAnon supporter from Arizona, is currently celebrating his fifteen minutes of fame in a jail cell after being photographed in the U.S. Capitol carrying a 6-foot spear with the American flag tied to it and wearing a horned hat when he was part of a pro-Trump mob that stormed the building last Wednesday.
The award date has now been postponed due to his arrest—Angeli’s, that is. Angeli was documented standing at Vice President Mike Pence’s chair in the Senate chamber, bare-chested with his face painted. Replicas of the spear he was carrying and the horned hat he was wearing sold out by Thursday morning on Amazon and Vikings-R-Us to those who like to secure their Halloween costumes early. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Angeli was still wearing his horns when he was taken into custody on Saturday.
An Attorney’s Office press release states that Angeli is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Court documents reveal that, Angeli called and voluntarily spoke with law enforcement on Jan. 7, the day after the riots to say he was the “hot guy with the horns in the patriots’ mob.” During the booking process, Angeli let it be known that he thought jail time would help him get his shirtless image included in next year’s “Hot Cons” wall calendar.
Angeli, who is quite talkative and unfiltered, gloated over the fact that some of Nancy Pelosi’s staff peed themselves during the riot while hunkering down under a large table for two hours. He also stated that he resents that antifa is getting credit for his patriotic actions. “Antifa isn’t even an organized group,” he reportedly shouted as he punched the cement wall in the intake room and grunted like a bull. Taking extreme offense at the suggestion of antifa having anything to do with the insurrection, Angeli called antifa members “a bunch of urban legend p***ies. They wouldn’t even have the balls to carry zip ties into the Capitol, let alone a fighting patriotic spirit.” Angeli told officials that he traveled to the Capitol with a highly organized group from Arizona, “at the request of the President that all ‘patriots’ come to D.C.,” court documents say.
Clearly, Angeli is a true patriot, completely deserving of a Trump-endorsed bauble in the form of a Medal of Freedom, or at least a box of organic grass-fed Trump steaks in case he is still imprisoned when Trump leaves office.
pasquiltimes.com 