Trump appointee among nine rioters charged with assaulting cops in Capitol tunnel

A former Donald Trump appointee was among nine U.S. Capitol rioters hit with new charges for allegedly assaulting police officers.

State Department appointee Federico Klein was charged with six counts of assaulting police after federal investigators identified him in bodycam video pushing to the front of a crowd in the Capitol tunnel and trying to grab an officer's riot shield before picking up a large metal pole, reported WUSA-TV.

"We need fresh people," Klein says in the video, according to investigators.

Two previously uncharged men, David Mehaffie, of Kettering, Ohio, and Steven Cappuccio, of Texas, were added to the government's case against the mob of Trump supporters who attacked police in the tunnels beneath the Capitol, including D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges, who pinned against a door frame by rioters.

"It was absolutely my pleasure to crush a white nationalist insurrection," Hodge said a week afterward, "and I'm glad I was in a position to help. We'll do it as many times as it takes."

Mehaffie was charged with five counts, including assaulting officers, civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony that carries a possible 20-year prison term.

Six other men -- David Lee Judd, Patrick McCaughey III, Robert Morss, Christopher Joseph Quaglin, Geoffrey William Sills and Tristan Chandler Stevens -- were also charged in the newly unsealed indictment.

McCaughey, of Connecticut, is charged with using a stolen riot shield to crush Hodges against the doorframe, and Morss, a substitute teacher from Pennsylvania and former U.S. Army Ranger, was charged with leading and assault on police and organizing support from other rioters.

"Each of these defendants was an active participant in the first wave of rioters to enter the tunnel between 2:40 and 3:18 p.m.," the Justice Department said in a filing last month. "Moreover, several of the defendants, including Mr. Klein, committed additional crimes on the first landing of the Lower West Terrace before reaching the tunnel for the first time."

Klein, who now faces 12 total counts, was released to home detention in April after a federal judge found no evidence he had injured police officers or anyone else, but the new charges could allow prosecutors to ask for his return to jail as he awaits trial.

Cappuccio appeared virtually for an arraignment Thursday morning and released on GPS monitoring and $50,000 bond.