US President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to lead a key government agency was among the violent mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, it has been revealed.

Video footage archived from the right-wing social media site Parler and posted online by a Republican-led congressional subcommittee shows EJ Antoni among the crowd about half an hour before the MAGA mob began breaching barricades, attacking police, and swarming the Capitol.

He is also seen walking away from the crowd.

Trump nominated Antoni – an economist at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, the think-tank behind the Project 2025 blueprint for his second term – to head the US Bureau of Labor Statistics this week.

It follows his sacking of former chief Erika McEntarfer two weeks ago. Without evidence, he accused her of manipulating employment statistics to discredit him and other Republicans.

The White House attempted to downplay the Antoni news on Thursday (local time). Spokesperson Taylor Rogers said “these pictures show EJ Antoni, a bystander to the events of January 6th, observing and then leaving the Capitol area”.

“EJ was in town for meetings, and it is wrong and defamatory to suggest EJ engaged in anything inappropriate or illegal,” Rogers said.

Other Trump supporters figures also defended Antoni. Felonious fraudster Steve Bannon, who pleaded guilty in a border wall fundraising fraud case this year, said Thursday on his War Room podcast: “They came up with a photo of EJ Antoni in the crowd outside the Capitol on January 6, and NBC went absolutely nuts over it. I think it makes EJ even more based. I didn’t know that about EJ—makes us want him even more.”

Critics, however, expressed alarm, given the important post to which Antoni was nominated.

“We just discovered a Trump [Department of Justice] official was at January 6, telling other traitors to ‘kill’ police,” journalist and attorney Adam Cohen wrote on the social media site Bluesky, referring to Jared Wise, who was pardoned by Trump.

“Now we learn Trump’s BLS nominee, EJ Antoni – apart from being totally unqualified – was ALSO part of the insurrection,” Cohen said. “The inmates are not only running the asylum. They’re bringing in MORE inmates to help.”

The West Virginia Federation of Democratic Women noted on the social media site X that “Trump fired the vetted woman who reported honest stats on job losses. His new guy was in the mob on January 6 and wrote Project 2025”.

Journalist Ahmed Baba wrote on X: “So, EJ Antoni is the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, a contributor to Project 2025, and was literally outside the Capitol on January 6. This is who Trump wants to be in charge of the BLS data that shapes global decisions and moves markets – an extremist sycophant.”

This article first appeared on Common Dreams. Read the original here