A diplomatic security officer with the U.S. Department of State was arrested Tuesday on allegations related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Kevin Alstrup was taken into custody by the FBI in Washington, joining more than 1,200 individuals who have been charged for their connections to the Capitol breach, which disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress in the process of affirming the previous year’s presidential election results.
Like many other non-violent participants of the Jan. 6 incident, Mr. Alstrup faces four misdemeanor charges: disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, unlawful picket and parading, entering and remaining in a restricted building, and disorderly conduct in the Capitol building.
According to an arrest affidavit, Mr. Alstrup entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing doors that had already been forced open by others, spent about 28 minutes inside the building before exiting through the same doors, all while alarms “audibly and continuously sounded” and a Capitol police officer ordered everyone to leave.
While Mr. Alstrup was inside the building, a security camera captured him “moving around the lobby and continuing to take photos of the surrounding activity,” including individuals entering and exiting the lobby through a broken window.
The FBI said they have also found two videos live streamed on Jan. 6 to Mr. Alstrup’s Instagram account. One of those videos demonstrates the “obvious presence of barriers” outside the Capitol building, which the FBI said marked a “restricted area” not meant for him to enter.
Mr. Alstrup’s arrest came after his Gmail address appeared in Google’s response to the FBI’s search for devices inside the Capitol parameter within the time frame of the breach. The FBI said Google “produced subscriber information” to identify Mr. Alstrup as the account’s owner.
“Through its investigation, FBI personnel obtained information that Alstrup was employed by the United States Department of State as a Diplomatic Security Officer,” the affidavit read. “FBI personnel also determined that Alstrup, as part of his employment, is familiar with providing security and protection for high-ranking government officials or sensitive locations, like embassies.”
After learning that Mr. Alstrup was working at the State Department, FBI agents sent photographs purportedly showing him at the U.S. Capitol to one of his supervisors, who confirmed that those were indeed images of him.
It is unclear whether the State Department still employs Mr. Alstrup. The Epoch Times has contacted the department for clarification.
The arrest comes as House Republicans announced a resolution to “authoritatively express” that former President Donald Trump “did not engage in insurrection or rebellion,” an effort to counter the mostly Democrat-led efforts to disqualify him from running for a second term in the White House.
President Trump, the challengers argued, was responsible for the breach of the U.S. Capitol that took place after his “Stop the Steal” rally challenging presidential election results in states where election integrity had come under question. Characterizing the event as an “insurrection,” they claimed that President Trump should be banned from seeking public office under a clause of the 14th Amendment.
President Trump has been disqualified from the ballot in Colorado and Maine. The Maine decision has been suspended as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on the constitutionality of the Colorado decision.
The non-binding resolution was introduced by Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.). It has 63 cosponsors and a companion bill in the Senate, introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).
“We are here today to authoritatively express that President Trump did not commit an insurrection, and we believe Congress has a unique role in making that declaration,” Mr. Gaetz said Tuesday. “It’s not the job of the states and especially not the job of some bureaucrats in Colorado to make this assessment and interfere with the right of voters to cast their vote for the candidate of their choice.”
“As President Donald Trump continues to dominate in the polls, extreme Democrats will stop at nothing in attempt to prevent President Donald Trump from returning to the White House,” Ms. Stefanik said.
