A retired New Jersey state trooper facing criminal charges for entering the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021 is claiming that he only breached police barricades because he was looking for a bathroom.
Michael Daniele, a resident of Holmdel, New Jersey, is currently facing five felony charges and a misdemeanor charge for his conduct on Jan 6. A newly unsealed criminal complaint, however, reveals that Mr Daniele told FBI agents who interviewed him at his home on 19 April 2021 that his stay in the Capitol building was a short one.
According to the complaint, Mr Daniele “admitted that he ultimately entered the Capitol building through a broken doorway that was next to a broken window… [but] only entered one large space of the building and after looking for a bathroom and not finding one, left immediately thereafter”.
Mr Daniele, despite being one of the first people to breach the barricades and enter the Capitol, was only inside the building for around seven minutes. He is accused of stepping on one police barrier and removing another barrier on the Capitol’s West Plaza before entering through the building’s broken door next to a broken window.
Mr Daniele said he took a chartered bus from Washington, DC, to the riot. The Cherry Hill Courier-Post reported he was first identified as a suspect in March 2021; the FBI interviewed him the next month.
Photographs from Jan 6 show Mr Daniele wearing a black jacket and standing at the front of the crowd that breached the barricades in front of the entrance to the Capitol building.
New Jersey 101.5 reported that more than 30 people with ties to New Jersey have been faced charges in connection with the events of that day. More than 1,000 people have been charged in total for their alleged roles in the riot, with more charges still possible in the future.
