WASHINGTON – A former Trump political nominee, accused of fighting the police during the Capitol rebellion, told a federal judge that his cell is full of insects.
Federico Klein, 42, was arrested Thursday in Washington, DC. During a brief telephone appearance in court on Friday afternoon, he was informed of six charges against him, two of which carry a maximum of 20 years in prison.
A hearing was scheduled for Tuesday, March 9, on whether he should be detained pending trial.
When told that he would remain in custody until next week’s hearing, he said: “I am wondering if there is a place where I could be detained where there were no cockroaches crawling everywhere while I try to sleep. I have not slept much.”
A public defender said he would be in a different cell on Friday night.
Records show that Klein worked on the Trump campaign and became a low-level political nominee in the State Department shortly after the inauguration of former President Donald Trump. Klein resigned on January 19, so he was still a federal official on the day of the Capitol riot.
The FBI said in court documents that Klein can be seen on video recorded during the January 6 riot, resisting police officers, trying to take items from them and attacking them with a riot shield. The documents claim that he “violently pushed the shield against a policeman’s body in an attempt to breach the police line.”
It appears to be the first criminal case connected to a member of the Trump administration stemming from the January 6 riot.
