The FBI arrested a former State Department aide in the Trump administration on Thursday on charges related to the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol, according to a criminal complaint.
Federico Klein, a “Schedule- C political appointee” who resigned from his post on Jan. 19, was seen on body camera footage attacking officers with a stolen riot shield in the tunnel that led to the Lower West Terrace Capitol entrance, court documents obtained by the New York Times said. Klein used the shield to wedge open a door during a scuffle with law enforcement and yelled, “We need fresh people,” to a crowd as he stood toe-to-toe with police, investigators said.
Klein, 42, worked for the Trump 2016 campaign and was hired by the State Department in 2017, a financial disclosure form shows. He is the first member of former President Donald Trump’s administration to be arrested in connection to the attack on Congress, according to the Washington Post.
The former State Department official, who had a top secret security clearance, was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted area, knowingly and intending to impede or disrupt government business, uttering loud, threatening or abusive language on Capitol grounds, engaging in physical violence on Capitol grounds, impeding a government proceeding, and assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.
The FBI said Klein was arrested in Virginia.
CAPITOL DAMAGE AND SECURITY COSTS EXCEED $30 MILLION FOLLOWING RIOT
Klein, who was seen in video footage wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat at one time during the violence, was implicated by multiple witnesses, including a colleague at the State Department, an individual that went on a date with him, and a neighbor who accused him of “displaying inflammatory rhetoric” regarding “President Biden, Vice President Harris and the Black Lives Matter movement” on his vehicle, the documents read.
His mother, Cecilia Klein, told Politico that he was a Marine in the Iraq War and that he holds strong political views.
“Fred’s politics burn a little hot,” she said, “but I’ve never known him to violate the law … While I believe, as he said, he was on the Mall that day, I don’t have any evidence, nor will I ever ask him, unless he tells me, where he was after he was on the Mall.”
More than 300 people have been charged in connection to the Jan. 6 unrest after thousands of rioters stormed the Capitol, disrupting lawmakers as they counted electoral votes to affirm Biden’s 2020 victory.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died on Jan. 7 after responding to the Capitol riot, and a homicide investigation is underway. He received the rare tribute of lying in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda before his cremated remains were sent to Arlington National Cemetery to be laid to rest.
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Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and Trump supporter, was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer while she attempted to climb through a window into the Speaker’s Lobby. Three others died from “medical emergencies,” according to officials. Two additional Capitol Police officers who responded to the riot later died by suicide, local police said.
