BREAKING: DOJ erases all January 6th case records from its website, calls prosecutions “partisan propaganda”
The Trump Justice Department confirmed over the weekend that it had quietly purged its website of every news release connected to January 6th criminal prosecutions, wiping from public view years of charges, convictions, and sentencings tied to the Capitol attack. When a journalist flagged the removals on social media, the department’s rapid response account fired back, insisting it was doing nothing quietly at all.
“We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration,” the account posted. “We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.”
Gone from the site are the records documenting seditious conspiracy cases against members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, the far-right extremist organizations convicted of coordinating the assault on the Capitol. Beyond scrubbing the website, the department also moved Friday to formally dismiss those seditious conspiracy cases altogether, following an appeals court decision to vacate the convictions, a decision the department itself had requested.
The scale of what has been dismantled is staggering. Trump issued pardons to all 1,500-plus individuals charged in connection with January 6th on his very first day back in office, including those convicted of battering law enforcement officers with flagpoles, hockey sticks, and crutches. His Justice Department then announced the creation of a $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund that could make those same rioters eligible to collect taxpayer money. Acting Attorney General Blanche has declined to rule out that people found guilty of violence against officers would receive payments from that fund.
Convictions are being erased. Cases are being thrown out. A fund is being constructed to potentially reward the people who carried out the attack. And now the agency responsible for prosecuting them has deleted its own documentation of what they did, on Memorial Day weekend, and called the entire effort propaganda. The police officers who were beaten on that day are still waiting for something that looks like accountability.