Trump Hires January 6 Rioter for Bonkers Role on Transition Team

Donald Trump isn’t just planning to pardon his supporters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6—he’s also asking them to shape his administration.

The president-elect has apparently included one January 6 rioter—Pete Marocco—in his transition team, Politico reported Monday. Marocco, a conservative activist, does come with extensive Trumpworld experience: He wore several hats during Trump’s last administration and had stints at the Defense, State, and Commerce departments, as well as USAID. His new role on Trump’s transition team focuses on national security personnel matters, according to three unidentified sources who spoke with the outlet.

Last month, the sleuth organization Sedition Hunters spotted Marocco and his wife in footage from inside and outside the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 riot. An anonymous member of the group claimed that they had become aware of Marocco’s participation in early 2023 and had subsequently tipped off the FBI. Marocco has not been charged with a crime.

In an interview with D magazine, Marocco refused to directly acknowledge the allegations that he was present at the Capitol building during the riot.

​​“Petty smear tactics and desperate personal attacks by politicians with no solutions have no bearing on the urgency of voting in these charter amendments from 170,000 Dallas citizens for more accountability and public safety,” Marocco told the Dallas-area publication. “Our commitment to strengthening our city through the will of the people is resolute.”

In a statement, Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that Marocco’s “valuable knowledge” on national security matters 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 added.

A person of interest was taken into police custody on Monday for questioning  regarding the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. If the man in question is in fact the alleged shooter, his digital footprint raises many more questions than answers.  

Luigi Mangione, 26, from Baltimore County, Maryland, was apparently apprehended at a Pennsylvania McDonalds on Monday. Mangione went to Gilman, a private all-boys high school in Baltimore, and then studied at University of Pennsylvania, where he acquired a master of science in engineering degree and a bachelor of science in engineering degree in computer science. 

Perhaps of greatest note, his cover photo on X contains an image of an X-ray, leading to speculation about the status of his own health. 

His X account is rife with mostly right-leaning, slightly nihilistic, tech bro-y takes concerning AI, mental health, altruism, ancient history, and society in general. Mangione follows Ezra Klein, Sam Altman, AOC, Edward Snowden, and Robert F. Kennedy, among others. 

In April, he posted that “modern Japanese urban environment is an evolutionary mismatch for the human animal. The solution to falling birthdates isn’t immigration. It’s cultural.” He reshared another video from June of Republican megadonor Peter Thiel talking about people with Asperger’s running start-ups. He reposted a pseudo-motivational quote, “Netflix, door dash, and true crime podcasts have stolen more dreams than failure ever will.” And he reposted several messages railing against “wokeism.”

His Goodreads is also of interest. He reviewed the Unabomber’s book, writing that “when all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution. Fossil fuel companies actively suppress anything that stands in their way and within a generation or two, it will begin costing human lives by greater and greater magnitudes until the earth is just a flaming ball orbiting third from the sun.”

His Goodreads also noted that he read Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry. Perhaps Mangione, who again was 26 years old, was recently off his parents’ health care, injured, and radicalized by his struggle to figure out a convoluted system.

Mangione was also allegedly found with a gun similar to the one used by the CEO shooter and a written manifesto criticizing health care companies. He has yet to be charged.

The far right is rejoicing at Daniel Penny being found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 New York City subway strangling death of Jordan Neely.

Penny, who is white, put Neely, a Black man, in a chokehold for six minutes while other train passengers captured the incident on film. Penny’s lawyers argued that he believed Neely was a volatile, mentally ill man who posed a threat to the public. Neely was unarmed and had a muffin in his pocket, but Penny quickly became a hero to the right wing. 

Right-wing figures, including one Donald Trump staffer, immediately took to social media and rejoiced at the verdict on Monday.

Some took aim at the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, for bringing charges against Penny in the first place. Bragg is also hated by MAGA for successfully prosecuting Donald Trump for paying off an adult film star to hide their affair before the 2016 election.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Penny’s acquittal was “clearly the just and correct verdict.

“I must admit I was skeptical that a jury in New York City would reach a unanimous not guilty verdict, and the jury deserves credit for doing the right thing,” DeSantis said. “Meanwhile, is there a worse prosecutor in America than Alvin Bragg?”

The right-wing reaction to Penny’s acquittal seems to echo the rulings exonerating Kyle Rittenhouse for shooting demonstrators in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, and George Zimmerman for shooting unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, in 2012. In all three cases, the perpetrator was lionized by the far right as making justified killings against criminals, rather than enacting vigilante justice fueled by racism. 

Donald Trump’s criminal cases may be behind him, but that doesn’t mean his legal woes are over.

The president-elect is still on the hook for eight civil cases relating to his involvement in the January 6 attack. The cases, which come from congressmembers and injured police officers, could be the last bastion in holding Trump to account for failing to intervene as his supporters ransacked the U.S. Capitol.

“These cases, unlike the criminal case, will not be affected by the election,” Joseph Sellers, a lawyer representing 10 current and former Democratic House members suing Trump and the far-right groups that led the January 6 riot, told Politico. “Our clients suffered real injuries that entitle them to relief, but also I think are seeking some measure of accountability given President Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 events and the events leading up to it.”

The criminal cases against Trump died overnight after the MAGA leader won the presidential election, effectively allowing him to skirt all responsibility by resuming an office that cannot be criminally prosecuted. Trump faced 91 criminal charges across four cases that prosecutors waited years to take to court. Separately, he was convicted on 34 criminal counts relating to covert hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election—but that sentencing dissolved just days after Trump won the election.

Some of those near-election trial delays were thanks to a game-changing Supreme Court decision in July, in which the nation’s highest court ruled 6–3 to expand a president’s immunity and redefine what constitutes an “official act,” nearly allowing Trump to get off scot-free.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor feared for the future of a country that legally permits the executive branch authority to commit crimes under the cloak of the office, arguing that the court’s decision made a “mockery” of the constitutional principle that “no man is above the law.” She warned that the court’s “own misguided wisdom” gave Trump “all the immunity he asked for and more.”

The Supreme Court has once again declined to remove the gag order placed on President-elect Donald Trump in his hush-money case. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito rejected the request on the court’s behalf on Monday.

“The application for stay addressed to Justice Alito and referred to the Court is denied,” the orders list read, with no additional comments or explanation.

Trump was found guilty in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records regarding hush-money payments he made during his first campaign in 2016 to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, with whom he had an affair.

New York Judge Juan Merchan imposed a gag order at the start of Trump’s trial that banned him from talking about witnesses, jury members, and courtroom staff during the trial. Trump nonetheless violated the order countless times and was fined $9,000 for doing so. He is still fighting to get the felony convictions overturned, claiming his guilty verdict would lead to “disruptions to the institution of the Presidency.” Merchan has so far refused to toss out the case entirely, instead indefinitely delaying sentencing.