Convicted Jan. 6 rioter hired for sensitive counterterrorism job in Trump’s Pentagon
Convicted Jan. 6 rioter hired for sensitive counterterrorism job in Trump’s Pentagon
In 2023, Elias Irizarry pleaded guilty to a Jan. 6 charge. In 2026, he was hired to work in an office that manages highly classified military operations.
Two weeks after Election Day 2024, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama assured the public that Donald Trump wouldn’t choose “a criminal” to serve in any key positions. Soon after, the president (himself convicted of a felony) started adding politically aligned ex-cons to his administrative team.
But of particular interest are the Jan. 6 rioters who have been hired by the Republican administration, despite — or quite possibly because of — the role they played in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Last summer, for example, Trump’s Justice Department hired Jared Wise, a former FBI agent who not only participated in the Jan. 6 riot, he was also filmed urging his fellow insurrectionists to “kill” police officers. (Though Wise was criminally charged, federal prosecutors didn’t have time to proceed with the case before Trump started handing out pardons to rioters, including violent felons who clashed with police officers.)
Wise parted ways with the administration a couple of months ago, but as it turns out, he wasn’t the only Jan. 6 rioter to get a job on Team Trump. The Washington Post reported:
A convicted Jan. 6 rioter who later said that he regretted his participation in the U.S. Capitol attack has been hired by the Trump administration to work inside a Pentagon office that manages highly classified military operations, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The appointment of Elias Irizarry, who was 19 at the time of the riot in 2021, to a post in the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office has raised alarm internally among staff who question how anyone convicted in the assault on American democracy could be trusted for such a sensitive role in the U.S. government, these people said.
Though it’s unclear specifically who hired the rioter who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to 14 days in jail in 2023, the Pentagon made no effort to deny the accuracy of the reporting. In fact, a spokesperson for the department described Irizarry as “a qualified, patriotic young professional,” adding that the Defense Department is “proud to have him as a political appointee.”
The Pentagon’s pride notwithstanding, the Post’s report noted that the position Irizarry now holds requires a top-secret security clearance, and that he’s part of a team that handles some of “the most delicate” work the Pentagon performs.
The timing of these developments could have been better: When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth once again intervened in a military branch’s promotion list, disproportionately targeting women and minority officers, a Pentagon spokesperson said personnel decisions are entirely “merit based.”
One day later, we learned that the department’s “merit-based” approach to employment includes hiring a convicted Jan. 6 rioter for a sensitive job in the Pentagon’s counterterrorism section.
As for the broader pattern, Trump and his team have now pardoned Jan. 6 rioters, taken steps to pay Jan. 6 rioters, celebrated Jan. 6 rioters, released a song with Jan. 6 rioters, helped fundraise for Jan. 6 rioters and, in at least two instances, hired Jan. 6 rioters to serve in influential federal positions.
The day after the insurrectionist assault on the Capitol, Trump told the public, “Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem.” He went on to describe the riot as a “heinous attack.”
Reading from a prepared text, Trump added, “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy … To those who engage in the acts of violence and destruction: You do not represent our country, and to those who broke the law: You will pay.”
Five days later, the Republican condemned the “mob [that] stormed the Capitol and trashed the halls of government.” On the final full day of his term, again reading from a script, Trump went on to say, “All Americans were horrified by the assault on our Capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated.”
At the time, the idea that Trump would actually give rioters federal jobs was unthinkable. Five and a half years later, here we are.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Jan. 6 rioter who encouraged violence against police hired to work in Trump’s DOJ
A Jan. 6 rioter was caught on video encouraging insurrectionists to "kill" police officers. Now he has a job in the Justice Department.
Two weeks after Election Day 2024, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama assured the public that Donald Trump wouldn’t choose “a criminal” for a governmental position. Soon after, the president started adding politically aligned ex-cons to his administrative team.
But the latest example of the phenomenon is the most breathtaking. The New York Times reported:
A former F.B.I. agent who was charged with encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to kill police officers has been named as an adviser to the Justice Department task force that President Trump established to seek retribution against his political enemies. The former agent, Jared L. Wise, is serving as a counselor to Ed Martin, the director of the so-called Weaponization Working Group, according to people familiar with the group’s activities.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Wise’s new role.
For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that there is no need for a Weaponization Working Group — the existence of which is rooted in baseless conspiracy theories — and Martin’s role in the administration is itself indefensible.
Rather, let’s talk about Wise.
The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added, “Even in a Justice Department that has often been pressed into serving Mr. Trump’s political agenda, the appointment of Mr. Wise to the weaponization task force was a remarkable development. His selection meant that a man who had urged violence against police officers was now responsible for the department’s official effort to exact revenge against those who had tried to hold the rioters accountable.”
It’s worth appreciating what “urged violence against police officers” means in this context. According to a June 2023 DOJ statement after Wise’s criminal indictment, body-cam footage from the assault on the Capitol showed Wise upbraiding police officers.
But that’s not all he did. From the statement: “When violence against law enforcement began in front of Wise, including officers being knocked to the ground directly in front of him, Wise turned in the direction of the violence and shouted, ‘Yeah, f— them! Yeah, kill ‘em!’ A few seconds later, as assaults continued, he shouted in the direction of the rioters attacking the police line, ‘Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em!’”
He was later seen celebrating after breaching the Capitol.
Wise might very well have been convicted, but prosecutors didn’t have time to proceed with his case before the president handed out pardons to rioters.
Two years after this information came to light, Wise — the man who was caught on video encouraging rioters to kill police officers — was hired to work in Trump’s Justice Department.
I realize that Trump has already found a variety of ways to reward Jan. 6 rioters — with pardons and praise — but this is ridiculous. The next time a Republican tries to pretend that the president is an ally of law enforcement, keep this development in mind.
Trump’s self-declared reputation as a world-class dealmaker continues to collapse
As Iran backed away from the negotiating table, one longtime observer raised an underappreciated point: “Trump is perhaps the world’s worst negotiator.”
Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump boasted that a “peace” agreement with Iran had been “largely negotiated,” and the world could expect to learn more about the breakthrough deal “shortly,” officials from Tehran effectively walked away from the negotiating table. The American president with a notoriously short attention span told CNBC, “I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less,” adding that he thought the protracted talks had become “very boring.”
As for why exactly Iran backed away from the diplomatic efforts, there were three apparent causes. One was the increased U.S. military strikes, coupled with Israel’s ongoing incursion in Lebanon. But The Washington Post reported that Iranian negotiators were also surprised and displeased when Trump made last-minute changes to the terms of the deal that had been previously worked on by members of his own team.
This, alas, was not the first time the American president had undermined what U.S. negotiators had presented to Iranian officials.
It led Joe Cirincione, the vice chair of the Center for International Policy and a longtime expert on nuclear policy, to highlight an underappreciated observation: “Trump is perhaps the world’s worst negotiator.”
To be sure, Republicans not only reject this fact, the entire party’s vision of the GOP is built around the idea that Trump is a dealmaker without equal. During her tenure as the State Department’s chief spokesperson, Tammy Bruce told Fox Business, “President Trump is, as we know, the best dealmaker in the world.” Around the same time, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins made related on-air comments, telling Fox Business that Trump’s dealmaking abilities are “unlike anything I think any of us have ever seen.”
But has anyone seen any evidence at all that Trump has had any success as a political dealmaker? The hype is certainly obvious and ubiquitous — I could retire if I had a dollar for every Republican who has referred to the president’s ghostwritten “Art of the Deal” — but proof that bolsters the partisan assumptions is elusive.
As The Atlantic’s David Graham explained last week:
Donald Trump’s reputation and political career were built on his dealmaking prowess, yet the president keeps demonstrating that he is a terrible negotiator.
Repeatedly over the past nine years, Trump has gotten rolled by counterparts during high-stakes exchanges. North Korea, Russia, Russia again, China, and China again have gotten the better of the United States. Trump has had to slink back to Washington without much to show except empty talk about friendship with whatever dictator has just run circles around him. He’s had some success in brokering agreements when acting as a third party (though not nearly as much as he pretends) but much less luck when his own government is a participant.
Unfortunately, the problem isn’t limited to foreign affairs and international diplomacy. As a candidate in 2016, Trump told Fox News, “The problem with Washington, they don’t make deals; it’s all gridlock. And then you have a president that signs executive orders because he can’t get anything done. I’ll get everybody together.”
It was a familiar boast. Indeed, shortly before launching his Republican candidacy, he identified this as his greatest strength. “Deals are my art form,” Trump claimed. “Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.”
After the election, the White House bought into and amplified the hype. In 2019, then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters, “The president is, I think, the ultimate negotiator and dealmaker.”
But the evidence of Trump actually succeeding on this front does not exist. There were literally zero instances in which he successfully brought Democratic and Republican leaders together and negotiated a major legislative breakthrough during his first term. Indeed, after a few years in the White House, Trump largely gave up on even trying to make deals with Congress, and in his second term, we’ve seen more of the same.
The Washington Post reported in August 2020, “The president who pitched himself to voters as the consummate negotiator and ultimate dealmaker has repeatedly found his strategies flummoxed by the complexities and pressures of Washington lawmaking.” In a related Post column, Jackson Diehl explained, in reference to Trump, “He’s not up to serious negotiation. He can’t be expected to seriously weigh costs and benefits, or make complex trade-offs. He’s good at bluster, hype and showy gestures, but little else. In short, he may be the worst presidential deal maker in modern history.”
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Diehl’s column was published eight years ago this week. The evidence to bolster the case is even more obvious now.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
