Pentagon hires convicted Jan. 6 rioter for sensitive counterterrorism job
Source: Washington Post
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. All spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of retaliation.
Irizarry is assigned to the office’s irregular warfare and counterterrorism section, the people familiar with the matter said. The team comprises about 40 people, and its portfolio includes operations such as embassy security, personnel recovery and hostage rescue.
Two people characterized the work as among the most delicate that the Pentagon performs. All positions, they said, require a top-secret security clearance.
“In the case of rescue/extraction missions, it can place our special operators in some of the most complex and dangerous environments we ask of them,” said one person familiar with Irizarry’s hiring. “To put someone so junior and new to DOD, and with such a checkered background, into such a sensitive portfolio raises serious questions for leadership.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/06/02/pentagon-hires-convicted-jan-6-rioter-sensitive-counterterrorism-job/
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An image of Elias Irizarry looking over a wall outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, filed in a criminal complaint. (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia)
...........After traveling to Washington with two other men, Irizarry joined the mob of Donald Trump supporters who breached police lines and broke into the building while members of Congress attempted to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Prosecutors said that, along with the crowds, he entered through a broken window while wielding a metal pole, but that he never struck anyone.
Irizarry pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and was sentenced to 14 days in jail, court filings show.
In those legal filings, Irizarry was described as attending Trump’s rally at the Ellipse before ending up at the riot by happenstance and quickly disavowing his involvement.
Irizarry, wearing a maroon sweatshirt and holding a pole in his right hand in the foreground, in the Capitol rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
But the judge in his case also described him as someone who at critical moments on Jan. 6 — such as when one of his traveling companions, Grayson Sherrill, struck a police officer with a pole — did nothing to stop the violence. Sherrill was sentenced to seven months in custody in 2023 after pleading guilty to assaulting federal officers. ..............
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Irizarry, wearing a maroon sweatshirt and holding a pole in his right hand in the foreground, in the Capitol rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
