The White House confirmed on Wednesday to NBC News that EJ Antoni, the conservative economist selected by Donald Trump to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was present among Trump supporters outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Video posted on the conservative social platform Parler shows a man resembling Antoni, wearing a red varsity jacket, walking through the crowd gathered on the west side of the Capitol about 10 minutes before the mob breached police lines.
Archived by ProPublica, the footage shows the man in what appears to be a University of Pennsylvania varsity jacket walking away from the entrance at about 1:51 p.m. that day. NBC News reported that he also appears in other video recorded on the east side of the Capitol during the riot.
When approached by NBC News, the White House confirmed Antoni’s identity. “These pictures show EJ Antoni, a bystander to the events of January 6th, observing and then leaving the Capitol area,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers wrote. “EJ was in town for meetings, and it is wrong and defamatory to suggest EJ engaged in anything inappropriate or illegal.”
Antoni attended a Catholic high school and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in the Philadelphia suburbs and likely has family ties to the University of Pennsylvania, also Trump’s alma mater.
His full name, as listed on a Northern Illinois University commencement program, is Erwin J Antoni III. University of Pennsylvania alumni records list an Erwin J Antoni, who played varsity baseball, basketball, and soccer, from the class of 1948, and an Erwin J Antoni Jr, class of 1978.
As interest grows in Antoni following his nomination, his taste in art has also drawn online attention. In a 2023 podcast appearance, Antoni confirmed that a painting behind him during the recording depicted a battleship from Nazi Germany’s fleet.
Asked by the host if the vessel was the Bismarck, which fought British forces in 1941, Antoni replied, “The Bismarck, yep, in all his glory.”
