Washington (US), 4 June (LaPresse/AP) – A man convicted of storming the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, Elias Irizarry, has been hired by the Trump administration to work in the Pentagon’s policy office. Internal Pentagon records show that Irizarry has been assigned to the office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy, tasked with providing advice on national security matters. At the time a 19-year-old freshman at The Citadel military academy, Irizarry was convicted in 2023 of the minor offence of trespass in connection with the Capitol riot, for which he was sentenced to two weeks’ imprisonment. During sentencing, the young man expressed regret for his actions, as court documents reveal; he told the judge that he had brought “great shame upon myself, my family and even my country”. “The idea that Americans are willing to fight against other Americans and destroy the very institutions that millions of other Americans have sacrificed for, built and protected is horrifying. It is something I have to live with, having been a part of it,” he said.
US: Man convicted of storming the Capitol now hired by the Pentagon
Washington (US), 4 June (LaPresse/AP) – A man convicted of storming the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, Elias Irizarry, has been hired by the Trump administration to work in the Pentagon’s policy office. Internal Pentagon records show that Irizarry has been assigned to the office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy, tasked with providing advice on national security matters. At the time a 19-year-old freshman at The Citadel military academy, Irizarry was convicted in 2023 of the minor offence of trespass in connection with the Capitol riot, for which he was sentenced to two weeks’ imprisonment. During sentencing, the young man expressed regret for his actions, as court documents reveal; he told the judge that he had brought “great shame upon myself, my family and even my country”. “The idea that Americans are willing to fight against other Americans and destroy the very institutions that millions of other Americans have sacrificed for, built and protected is horrifying. It is something I have to live with, having been a part of it,” he said.
