The White House confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday that EJ Antoni, the conservative economist Donald Trump has chosen to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was in the crowd of Trump supporters that surrounded the Capitol on January 6 2021.
A man of Antoni’s appearance, wearing a red varsity jacket, was caught on video posted on the conservative social network Parler walking through the crowd of Trump supporters massed outside the west side of the Capitol about 10 minutes before the mob broke through police lines and into the building.
That video, archived by ProPublica, shows the man in what appears to be a varsity jacket with the University of Pennsylvania crest on it walking away from that entrance to the Capitol at about 1.51 pm that day.
According to NBC News, the man also appears in other footage recorded on the east side of the Capitol building during the riot.
Approached for comment by NBC News, the White House confirmed that the man in the images was Antoni.
“These pictures show EJ Antoni, a bystander to the events of January 6th, observing and then leaving the Capitol area,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers wrote to NBC News. “EJ was in town for meetings, and it is wrong and defamatory to suggest EJ engaged in anything inappropriate or illegal.”
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