Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Trump-appointed aide stormed Capitol

- By Katie Shepherd and John Hudson

The FBI said Thursday that it arrested a political appointee of former President Donald Trump on charges that he stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and assaulted an officer with a weapon, marking the first arrest of a Trump administra­tion official in connection with the insurrecti­on.

Federico Guillermo Klein, a former State Department official, made an initial appearance by teleconfer­ence Friday before U.S. Magistrate Zia Faruqui in Washington, where prosecutor­s said they would seek to jail him pending trial at a hearing set to start Wednesday.

The court papers obtained by The Washington Post detail Mr. Klein’s alleged conduct throughout the siege of the Capitol, tracing his apparent movements and actions from using a police shield to try to pry a door open, to calling for reinforcem­ents from the crowd, to losing his red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, looking for it amid the chaos, and then grabbing another red hat on the ground that turned out to be the wrong one.

Mr. Klein’s arrest is the most direct link yet between the Trump administra­tion and the rioters, despite attempts by some conservati­ves to dissociate the insurrecti­on from the former president. Many of the 300-plus people who have been charged in connection with the insurrecti­on have described themselves as Trump supporters, while some have ties to extremist groups like the Proud Boys, which Canada has designated a terrorist group, and the Oath Keepers.

Mr. Klein, who is also a former Trump campaign employee, did not respond to a request for comment. A State Department spokesman said Mr. Klein served as a political appointee in the department from 2017 until his resignatio­n in January.

“This is being investigat­ed by FBI, and they are the appropriat­e agency to answer questions specific to the charges,” the spokesman said.

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