This is an, ummm, unusual defense…

Generally speaking, when a person is charged with a crime, they hire an attorney who they hope will strenuously defend them, probably not stopping to even entertain the idea that said attorney have a chat with a reporter and manage to insult millions of people in the process. And while it’s not clear if that’s the approach Jacob Chansley—a.k.a. the “QAnon Shaman,“ a.k.a. the shirtless guy who stormed the Capitol on January 6 wearing face paint and a furry hat with horns—took when assembling his legal team, in the future, he should probably plan to ask any potential lawyers, “You’re not going to use the phrase ‘fucking retarded’ while discussing my case, are you?”

Yes, that’s right. In an interview with Talking Points Memo, Chansley‘s lawyer, Albert Watkins, suggested that his client’s mental state, combined with the impact of Donald Trump’s “propaganda” efforts to convince people the election was stolen and that they should storm the Capitol, will play a part in his defense. All of which sounds reasonable! Then Watkins said this: “A lot of these defendants—and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully—but they’re all fucking short-bus people. These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, but first, let’s pause to appreciate that Watkins thinks it might be offensive to use the phrase “short bus,” but he really can‘t be sure. The Missouri–based lawyer then goes on to conflate intellectual disabilities, brain damage, and Autism, which of course are three separate things. To say nothing of the fact that there’s no evidence that any of them cause people to act violently, or try to overturn presidential elections. After offending who knows how many people, Watkins—who, incidentally, defended the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter activists—charitably added: “But they’re our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers—they’re part of our country. These aren’t bad people, they don’t have prior criminal history. Fuck, they were subjected to four-plus years of goddamn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since fucking Hitler.”