Jacob Chansley, better known as the ‘QAnon Shaman’, has given an interview from prison, in which he compared himself to Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

The Capitol building had to be evacuated as some rioters managed to get into the Senate chamber, while others erected a gallows outside the building and chanted ‘hang Mike Pence’ after the then-US vice president rejected false claims from Trump that he could overturn the election results.

‘This is what every single great leader, or great you know pioneer of sorts, has had to go through, whether it be people like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr, or Jesus Christ,’ Chansley said.

‘When you challenge a system that is so heavily corrupt, when you speak truth to power, okay, what it does is it sends ripples throughout the world,’ he added.

Chansley added that ‘part of the role of the shaman’ is ‘to be the one that fights the spiritual war for the people’, and while he couldn’t speak about his case due to an ongoing appeal, he said he has been in ‘administrative segregation’ for more than 300 days, describing it as ‘basically solitary confinement’. The podcast host, Joe Oltmann, called Chansley a ‘patriot’.

Perhaps a salient distinction to make is that Jesus Christ, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr never stormed a government building as part of a riotous mob chanting for people they hated to be hanged in the name of a man who clearly lost an election.