The Pentagon’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office is a sensitive Defense Department branch responsible for uncovering and defending against terrorism plots and asymmetric warfare, and making sure that U.S. commandos have everything they need to carry out their missions.
The office now has a new asset: a Jan. 6 rioter who pleaded guilty to climbing through a broken window at the Capitol and to other offenses. Elias Irizarry, who was 19 on Jan. 6, 2021, eventually apologized for his actions.
President Trump pardoned Mr. Irizarry on Inauguration Day last year when Mr. Trump began his second term by granting blanket clemency to Jan. 6 rioters.
It was unclear who was responsible for the appointment of Mr. Irizarry, which was reported earlier by The Washington Post. But the Pentagon’s acting press secretary, Joel Valdez, said in a statement that Mr. Irizarry “is a qualified, patriotic young professional, and we are proud to have him as a political appointee.”
Political appointees usually are selected by the office of the defense secretary or, in some cases, the White House.
Mr. Irizarry could not be reached for comment.
But one of the former leaders of the Special Operations office said the move could degrade public trust in the Pentagon.
“The office he was hired for works with our most elite military units and on extremely sensitive national security issues,” said Michael Lumpkin, the assistant defense secretary for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict in the Obama administration. “It used to be that any possible negative perception about a hire like this would prevent it from happening. Today, it seems fealty is often more valued than expertise, sound judgment, or a strong moral compass.”
On Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors said, Mr. Irizarry, a former student at the Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, entered the Capitol through a broken window on the Senate side, and roamed through the building armed with a metal pole. He found his way to a private conference room, where he was videotaped by one of his friends, Elliot Bishai, sitting in an armchair with the pole across his lap.
Mr. Irizarry, Mr. Bishai and a third man, Grayson Sherrill, ended up in the Capitol’s Rotunda, where they took photos and videos of one another climbing on statues, prosecutors said. While Mr. Irizarry was not charged with committing violence, he stayed on the Capitol grounds until after dusk, and later pleaded to a charge of federal trespassing.
Prosecutors said that his participation in the riot violated the oath he took as a student at the Citadel to abide by the virtues of “honor, duty and respect.” At the time, Mr. Irizarry was also a member of the Civil Air Patrol, and the crimes he committed were a betrayal of his duty to “keep the homeland safe,” prosecutors said.
After he was arrested in March 2021, Mr. Irizarry showed no remorse, prosecutors said, but tried instead to figure out who had turned him in to the authorities. He sent text messages to Mr. Bishai about joining the Russian military if he could not eventually join the U.S. military. He also took part in a group chat titled “Civil War,” prosecutors said, in which he discussed “using small planes to cross borders undetected.”
Mr. Irizarry’s lawyers said that he was a top student at the Citadel who later trained as a volunteer firefighter. He was also deeply interested in politics. “Not the ‘politics’ spewed by Infowars and the MyPillow guy, but international relations through the Model United Nations and Boys State,” his lawyers wrote in a memo asking the judge who handled his case for lenience.
“And as many adolescents do,” the memo said, “he zigzagged between political views — he may be the only person from January 6th who attended Black Lives Matter protests as a participant and not to hunt down the ghost of Antifa.”
When Mr. Irizarry appeared in Federal District Court in Washington in March 2023 to face sentencing, he apologized for his role in the events of Jan. 6, telling Judge Tanya S. Chutkan that his participation in the riot had brought “great shame” on himself, his family and the country. He said that he had no idea that police officers would be attacked that day, and that he was horrified to later watch videos of the violence.
“January 6th represented something truly horrible,” he told the judge. “It was the largest attack on our democracy since the Civil War. The idea of Americans being willing to fight other Americans and tear down the very institutions that millions of other Americans sacrificed and built and protect is horrible. It is something I have to live with being a part of. I don’t know what I can do to make it right.”
Judge Chutkan ultimately sentenced Mr. Irizarry to 14 days in prison, but also told him that she was so impressed by his remorse that she would personally write him a letter of recommendation if he reapplied to the Citadel. Then she sent him on his way with words of encouragement.
“Life is like that. It takes us on strange journeys,” she said. “You are at such an early stage in yours, you don’t know what road lies ahead for you. I suspect you are going to make something very remarkable of your life. I hope you do.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
