According to an FBI spokesman and documents, a former State Department assistant was arrested during the Trump administration in connection with the pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Federico Klein was arrested by the FBI in Virginia on Thursday, but the agency did not want to discuss the charges or the case, and it does not appear that court documents are online.
Politico first reported the arrest.
Government surveys show that Klein worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and was appointed to the State Department in January 2017.
Government records show that Klein was a political appointee to the State Department at least until 2020 as a special assistant in the Bureau for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
An FBI spokesman referred further questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbia District.
An email address from the office was not immediately returned Thursday night.
The Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cecilia L. Klein said her 42-year-old son told her after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that he was at the Mall, but that he did not go to the Capitol site.
“I asked him – he said, ‘I was at the Mall. “I said, ‘Did you go to the Capitol Ground?’ He said ‘no, I was not at the Mall’, ‘Cecilia Klein said by telephone on Thursday night.
She said her politics are very different from those of her son and that he was not a top official in the Trump administration.
“We are not talking about an official or a Cabinet official,” she said. “My son was a Schedule C,” she said, referring to a classification in government.
Justice Department officials said they had filed charges against more than 300 people at the Capitol, some of which are under seal because the accused have not yet been arrested. Federal prosecutors allege a wide range of motives and behaviors, from extreme violence to apparent ignorance, that what they were doing was illegal.
Some are accused of assaulting police officers and threatening to attack lawmakers, while others are charged with lesser violation of the unlawful entry of a protected building.
A study by George Washington University this week found that more than half of the accused were not affiliated with extremist groups or with each other.
Michael Kosnar contributed.