QAnon Shaman on why he’s suing ‘that motherfucker’ Trump for $40T

Arizona’s own Jacob Chansley, better recognized as the QAnon Shaman who donned a horned fur hat while storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, is suing the federal government and several other entities, including President Donald Trump.

In a phone interview with Phoenix New Times, Chansley discussed the new lawsuit, in which he seeks $40 trillion in damages and declares himself the “rightful president” of the “New Constitutional Republic of the United States of America.”

Essentially, Chansley’s 26-page lawsuit, which was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court and consists of a single paragraph, amounts to a wandering diatribe against the global financial system and the U.S. government’s participation in it, which he argues violates the Constitution. He also claims that the National Security Agency spied on him and harassed him.

In 2021, Chansley was sentenced to 41 months in prison after pleading guilty to a count of obstructing an official proceeding during Jan. 6. He was released to a halfway house in 2023 after serving 27 months. He was pardoned by Trump on the first day of the president’s second administration.

Even so, Chansley has taken a turn against Trump, whom Chansley named as a defendant alongside the Federal Reserve, the NSA, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, the state of Israel, Elon Musk’s X Corp., T-Mobile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Warner Bros. Studios. He told New Times he plans to serve these organizations in Washington, D.C., later this month.

The lawsuit is full of wild claims, like that a scene in the 2008 Christopher Nolan-directed Batman film “The Dark Knight” and many plot details in 2009’s “Avatar” were taken from his writing and are proof that the NSA was spying on him, that the NSA catfished him by pretending to be his “celebrity crush” and that he was offered the opportunity to work for the NSA and help them deal with “other-wordly matters.” He also alleges the government stole $100,000 in cryptocurrency from him.

In his lawsuit, Chansley included a handwritten URL for a Google Drive folder, which New Times could not access. Chansley later provided New Times a link to the folder, which contained a well-organized system of hundreds of screenshots of his tweets. Many of the screenshots have nothing to do with his complaint. Some include pictures of Trump’s posts and a rant about how he told Trump that Pete Hegseth should not be Secretary of Defense.

They do, however, provide explanations for why Chansley turned sour on Trump.

“When I found out that the Trump admin was filled with Israel first ZIONISTS trying to demoralize our society, destroy the earth, turn our healthcare into a ai transhumanist mess & enslave the kids through 5th generation warfare… I had to walk away,” one post reads. “IT WAS NEVER ABOUT ME… it was ALWAYS about you guys.”

In the same post, Chansley referred to himself as the “Reincarnated Christ.”

Here is New Times’ interview with Chansley, edited slightly for clarity and brevity.

You’re representing yourself. Did you ever seek a lawyer? Do you have any experience filing lawsuits?

This is the first call lawsuit I’ve filed personally. But the thing is, after going through the criminal court system, learning how the legal system works, and watching my lawyer fumble the ball, I told myself, “I can fucking do this.”

What did you learn from your experience being prosecuted for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 and interacting with the criminal justice system?

The experience taught me that we live in a maze of paperwork that is written by lawyers — legalese — to be extra-complicated on purpose so that they, and only they, know how to navigate the maze. The second thing that I learned is that it doesn’t matter what the truth is, it just matters what it can be made to look like. And that goes for the positive and the negative.

What have you been up to on a day-to-day basis since getting out of prison?

Kicking ass and taking names, dude. In one way or another, I’m working. I just work behind the scenes in ways that are unseen, and then when I pop up, I got a bunch of shit.

You’ve declared yourself the rightful president. Have you received any support for that, or is that more of a lone-wolf statement of sovereignty from the American state?

When it comes to public support, there is also a mix of love and hate. There’s a mix of confusion and admiration. There’s a lot of people that are looking at it and they’re going like, “Well, that all sounds good, but who the fuck is this guy? He’s the guy from January 6th, big deal. What gives him the authority?” And it’s because they just don’t understand all of this other stuff.

People often associate you with Trump and the 2020 election. What led you to the point of breaking with Trump?

I’m suing that motherfucker because I believe it was him and his administration that’s directly responsible for the harassment campaign that I endured. That’s in the lawsuit. And you’ll see that in the exhibits.

My support of Donald Trump was only ever because I believe that he was what was best for America at the time. I knew that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were not it, just like I knew that Biden or Harris running in 2024 was not it. 

But see, that’s kind of the point. We don’t really have a choice. All elections have been a sham for a while. So when you understand that and you understand that Obama is Trump is Biden is Trump, and it’s all Epstein as president, it’s all Bibi (Netanyahu) as president, it’s all Israel and the Fed as president.

Speaking of Israel, it’s been two years since the Oct. 7 attack. What have been your takeaways from two years of Israel’s bloody, civilian-decimating response?

I did not fully understand the depth to which Israel was far from our greatest ally until the time around Oct. 7, when all this stuff started happening. They’re doing this basically for money and for power. 

When you understand that Hamas was created by the CIA and Mossad, the idea that the CIA or Mossad lost control of their terrorist proxy in the Middle East is fucking ridiculous. If you know how these people work, if you know the technology these people have, if you know the kind of capabilities that they have, there’s no fucking way they’re going to lose control of a terrorist cell, their most influential terrorist cell in the Middle East. So October 7th was Israel, bro.

(Note: While Israel did fund Hamas for years to counter the Palestinian National Authority and divide Palestinian power, there is no evidence that Israel and the United States created the group.)  

You filed your case in Superior Court. Since you made claims of constitutional violations, why didn’t you file in federal court?

Well, look at it like this — if I was to file it in the federal court first, then let’s say for the sake of argument that the government is so corrupt that they dismiss it on some technicality. Whatever. I could always go up higher to the next appeals court, but I’m starting on the bottom. I’m starting in civil court and I’m making this a civil issue. The federal system is corrupt — we know that. Doing it on a local level is also kind of like doing it on my home turf in that regard. But it is also an indication of a barrier between myself and the federal system in case I want to go up to the federal level. It just leaves me more room.

It leaves me options, but I don’t think I could go the other way with it. I could be wrong about that.

Well, most lawyers would say these claims aren’t in the jurisdiction of a county court.

If you read the Declaration of Independence, you’ll see that the Founding Fathers were basically like, “We started here, then this is what happens. Then we did this, and this is what the Crown did.” It’s about taking steps and creating a trail. When it comes to claims, I’m not really looking for the Superior Court to award me $40 trillion. What it’s about is a symbolic and actual, physical pushback against tyranny from international financial forces. 

OK. What do you think your odds of success are in this lawsuit? This is a daunting task, isn’t it?

(In a Victorian British accent) If you only knew who you were talking to. Daunting tasks are breakfast. That makes my life somewhat difficult. But I will say it also makes my mind sharp.

Maybe they aren’t going to try to take me to court on this, but it’s my hope that they’re going to settle, and it’s my hope they’ll settle for $40 trillion.

What are you hoping to accomplish politically with this lawsuit?

Gandhi had this campaign where what he did was he marched like 200 something miles to the Indian Ocean and he made salt. Now, at the time, due to British occupation, the British had a monopoly on salt. So if Gandhi was making salt, then he was in effect breaking the law because they had a monopoly on the salt and the salt tax. And the British thought, oh, big fucking deal. When he gets to the sea, he makes salt, and then all of the people in India start making salt the way Gandhi did. And the whole idea was it was humiliating to all of these British general types that are trying to control the people of India, and all they’re doing is making fucking salt. They’re not hurting anybody. They’re just living life independently of the British and their own country. 

My act of going to D.C. is like this march, and it is similarly, it’s like this march that it’s a symbolic act, and when I serve these people, it is once again a symbolic act. It’s letting them know you don’t fucking run shit in our country, yo.

This is our best chance as a people of pushing back. We don’t have to cooperate with their system. That’s kind of why I put it in the superior court as well, because the whole fucking thing is a joke, dude. It’s a joke that we’re all agreeing to laugh at that isn’t very funny anymore.

Thanks for your time.

Adios, amigo.