Federico Klein, a State Department employee with top-security clearance, was convicted in July 2023 of ten felony charges involving violent confrontations with multiple law enforcement officers and obstruction of the electoral vote count.
The New York Times reported that Klein was the first former Trump appointee arrested in connection to the insurrection. Court documents said that Klein, wearing a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, used a stolen Capitol Police shield to assault officers and then used the shield to open one of the Capitol doors for other rioters.
“We need fresh people, need fresh people,” Klein yelled as he charged at the police who were defending the Capitol, the FBI reported.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/us/politics/federico-klein-capitol-riot-trump.html
Klein served in the Marine Corps Reserves in Iraq before working on Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/07/20/federico-klein-guilty-jan-6-trump-appointee/
Soon after President Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, the White House told State Department officials to find a job political appointee for Klein.
A senior State Department said Klein was not qualified for any job in the office. But the White House overruled the State Department official. Klein was put in an obscure position and forgotten about.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/us/politics/federico-klein-capitol-riot-trump.html
Until January 6, 2021 . . . when he participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Klein was arrested in March 2021 and charged with obstructing Congress and assaulting a police officer in the deadly siege of the U.S. capitol. Klein was then detained in a jail cell. He complained that conditions were unsanitary and cockroaches crawled over him as he slept.
This may have been unsettling for Klein.
But being around so many cockroaches brought back warm memories of working on Trump’s presidential campaign.
