The FBI announced Thursday that it had arrested Federico Klein, a former State Department official appointed by Donald Trump, on multiple felony charges in connection to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as first reported by Politico. This makes Klein the first known member of the Trump administration to face legal trouble for the insurrection.
According to a court document first published by the New York Times, Klein, 42, began working for the State Department in 2017 in the Office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs. Klein was employed by the department on January 6 and, at that time, even possessed a top-secret security clearance.
Klein was observed on Capitol surveillance videos and Metropolitan Police Department body cams on the day in question wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, dress shirt, dress pants, and a green jacket.
The FBI alleged that Klein was seen in a tunnel near a Capitol entrance trying to force his way through a line of law enforcement officers.
Klein “quickly pushed his way to the front-left side of the crowd and to the doorway to the Capitol building, where he physically and verbally engaged with the officers holding the line, thereby affecting their ability to disperse the crowd,” the document read.
At one point, Klein obtained a riot shield that had been taken from one of the officers and allegedly “pushed the riot shield in between the doors to the Capitol, preventing officers from closing the doors.”
In another moment, Klein “violently shoved the shield into an officer’s body in an attempt to breach the police line.”
In other videos posted to YouTube that showed the crowd fighting with law enforcement, Klein could be seen “calling back to the crowd behind him, ‘We need fresh people,’” the FBI said.
Cecilia Klein, the mother of the accused, told Politico that her son had said he was on the Mall that day, but that she wasn’t sure if he had entered the Capitol itself.
“As far as I know, he was on the Mall. That’s what he told me,” she said.