WASHINGTON — An elected official in Connecticut has admitted publicly for the first time that he entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.
Gino DiGiovanni, a GOP alderman in Derby, was interviewed by an NBC Connecticut reporter after online sleuths investigating the attack on the Capitol told NBC News they had identified him as one of the approximately 3,000 individuals who entered the building that day.
"I was there, I went inside there, and, you know, I didn’t damage or break anything," DiGiovanni told NBC Connecticut following a recent Board of Aldermen meeting. "Obviously, you got the pictures to prove it."
Photos and images from the riot appear to show DiGiovanni, a construction worker by trade, wearing a jacket featuring his last name. That footage also indicated he entered the Capitol near where some of the most brutal violence took place. Numerous rioters who entered through the same door have already been charged.
Nearly 900 people have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, but there are still hundreds more arrests expected. The Justice Department has asked Congress for more resources to bring the cases to fruition.
DiGiovanni was elected to local office in Derby, a small city near New Haven, about 10 months after the Jan. 6 attack. He ran on a platform of "integrity, accountability, transparency."
DiGiovanni said that he had not been contacted by the FBI in connection with Jan. 6.
“If somebody calls me and says, ‘Hey, Gino, we’re going to arrest you for trespassing in the Capitol that day,’ then I’m going to have to deal with that at that time,” he said.
"I wouldn’t want to be arrested for it," DiGiovanni said. "I guess hindsight is 20-20."
An FBI official declined to comment.
