A young man who pleaded guilty in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and apologized for his “foolish” actions during what he said was “without a doubt one of the most embarrassing days in modern American history” now works at the Pentagon.

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Elias Irizarry, Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez said in a statement to NBC News, “is a qualified, patriotic young professional, and we are proud to have him as a political appointee.”

Valdez did not specify the job. The Washington Post first reported his appointment.

Irizarry was a 19-year-old student at The Citadel military college in South Carolina at the time of the riot.

Federal prosecutors presented images of Irizarry entering the building through a broken window holding a metal pole, making his way into a conference room before entering the rotunda.

“Irizarry joined the mob for many hours. After he armed himself with a metal pole, Irizarry watched as rioters violently assaulted officers who were trying to make their way through the crowd,” prosecutors wrote in court documents related to his case. “He then climbed scaffolding to reach the upper West terrace and encouraged and directed rioters by excitedly waving rioters up the stairs to gain access to the building.”

He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and was sentenced to 14 days behind bars.

Irizarry wrote a five-page letter to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, apologizing for his actions and telling her that he had “brought great shame upon myself, my family, and, unfortunately, my country.”

“I have come to appreciate, through all this, how fortunate we are to have a stable government,” he wrote.

Trump pardoned Irizarry alongside hundreds of other Jan. 6 defendants on his first day back in office in 2025.