Trump appointee charged for Jan. 6 assault ordered detained until trial

Federico Klein, the Trump-appointed State Department aide charged with assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, will remain in jail awaiting trial, a federal magistrate ruled Tuesday.

Zia Faruqui, the magistrate overseeing the case, rejected Klein’s effort to cast doubt on whether he was really the person observed in videos attacking police with a riot shield. And he also dismantled an effort by Klein’s team to portray his actions amid the mob as a product of chaos — rather than violence toward law enforcement.

“The defendant placed himself in that chaotic riot, and this was not a riot with many people on different sides,” Faruqui said. “There was a chaotic riot of law enforcement trying to protect democracy of the United States of America and people trying to breach the line and prevent that from occurring.”

Klein, 42, is the only known appointee of former President Donald Trump to face charges connected to the Capitol breach. He was seen on Capitol security and police-worn cameras repeatedly attacking police in a tunnel underneath the Capitol’s west front entrance. Prosecutors say Klein spent 30 minutes inside the tunnel at the front lines of a mob “fanatically” engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat with officers. While in the crowd, he repeatedly called for “fresh people” to rotate in and press into the Capitol, the government contends.

Faruqui pointed to that exhortation, saying it showed Klein taking a “position of leadership,” proving he remains a danger to the community — particularly while the Capitol remains in a heavily militarized posture amid ongoing security threats.

“There is a real danger of violence,” he said, “and if someone is an organizer or leader or someone’s in a position of authority and they are not detained they may go back and seek to conduct such violence.”

Faruqui also ridiculed the defense’s claim that it was unclear how Klein obtained the riot shield he allegedly jammed into a door as police were trying to close to lock out the rioters.

“I think it is fairly self-evident unless you’re a police officer you should not be handling the tools of the trade of a police officer,” the judge said.

Klein, who worked on the Trump campaign in 2016 before he was posted in the Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs in the State Department, was arrested last week after a former colleague helped authorities identify him. Klein, who holds a Top Secret security clearance, remained employed at the State Department until he resigned on Jan. 19.

Prosecutors argued that Klein’s position at the department underscored the need to detain him pending trial. He took an oath to the Constitution, they argued, and then violated it to commit a violent assault at the Capitol.

“The government trusted him,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Bond. “He really squandered that.”

Klein’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, argued that the government had not proven that his client was the one seen in the videos committing the assault on officers. He also said prosecutors had not shown that Klein was seeking to overturn the election results, despite asserting it as his motive. And he noted that Klein served in the Marine Corps in Iraq.

Klein has made his displeasure with his confinement known. During his initial appearance in court last week, he complained of cockroaches at the cellblock where he had slept overnight. On Tuesday, he pointedly noted that he was appearing in the hearing from a “cinderblock room.”