A Trump Commerce Department official has been jailed for five-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to possession of child sexual abuse images.
Adam Hageman was arrested in November 2020 when Homeland Security agents executed a search warrant at Hageman’s Washington home.
Prosecutors stated that Hageman was accused of “sharing a child pornography video and commenting several times on sexually abusing children” in an online group chat.
The name of the website that the chat took place on has not been given by prosecutors.
But according to an affidavit filed in the case, Hageman claimed to have abused a child as young as 12, and wrote that he wanted to sexually assault children between the ages of 12 and 16.
Prosecutors stated that they found “dozens” of videos of children being sexually abused on his phone.
In a pre-trial memo, prosecutors called Hageman a “danger to the community” and detailed how in messages to the group chat he complained how the Covid pandemic had limited his ability to expose himself to children in public bathrooms.
Before working at the Commerce Department, Hageman worked for Charlie Kirk’s right-wing Turning Point USA organisation.
Under the terms of his plea deal, Hageman will be on parole for five years after his release and will have to register as a sex offender.
He was sentenced on 22 September in US District Court by Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
