Ex-Trump official accused of being in Capitol on Jan. 6 has new transition job: report

A former official in Donald Trump’s first administration, who online sleuths allegedly caught on camera at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, is back at work for his former boss, according to a new report.

Pete Marocco, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for African Affairs, has been spotted at Trump’s transition headquarters in Florida, where he is at work with the president-elect’s transition team on “national security personnel matters,” sources told Politico on Monday.

That includes interviewing candidates this week to fill administration positions, including in the State Department, the report added.

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Marocco found himself a controversial figure during his stint in Trump’s first administration. He drew “international fire” for his work in the first term and has since emerged as a conservative activist in Dallas, Politico reported.

He was also identified, along with his wife, by the online sleuth group Sedition Hunters as allegedly being among the Trump-inspired rioters inside and outside of the Capitol on Jan. 6, the report said. But Marocco told the publication that the allegations were nothing more than “petty smear tactics and desperate personal attacks,” and neither he nor his wife have been charged.

In a statement, Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt praised Marocco’s “valuable knowledge on national security policy” and added that he “has been a tremendous benefit to the Trump-Vance transition effort.”

“Democrats and their allies in the media who think they are going to obstruct our ability to deliver on this mandate by going back to the same January 6 playbook of smears and faux outrage that was soundly rejected by the American people will be disappointed,” Leavitt told Politico.