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The Department of Justice acknowledged that it has removed webpages that detail charges, convictions, and other information related to the myriad defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.After Washington Post staff writer Meryl Kornfield posted to X on May 22 that the Justice Department was "quietly deleting info about the Capitol attack" from its website, the official DOJ Rapid Response X account fired back, saying there was "nothing ‘quiet’ about it." The account posted that it was "proud to reverse" the agency’s "weaponization" under former President Joe Biden."We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes," DOJ Rapid Response wrote on its X account. "This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda."What's left of Jan. 6 history?According to Kornfield, among the documents purged was a news release about a man who went to the Capitol with bear spray and is still facing an ongoing child solicitation case. She also attached links to two other news releases, which were preserved using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.A May 24 search of the DOJ's archives performed by USA TODAY showed that some news releases related to Jan. 6 were still available, including when members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges, an announcement that 13 people were charged in federal court two days after the incident, and then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen’s official statement about the riot published Jan. 7, 2021.More generally, an archival search for the term "Capitol breach" returned just 11 results. A search for the same term in press releases published after Jan. 20, 2025 — the first day of Trump’s second term — returned zero results.Reframing the events of Jan. 6While DOJ Rapid Response characterized the news releases as partisan propaganda, critics argue that the Trump administration is systematically working to rewrite the events of Jan. 6. As one of Trump's first acts in his second term, more than 1,500 people involved in the riot were granted full, complete, and unconditional pardons.USA TODAY reported in April that the Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to throw out seditious conspiracy convictions given to leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their involvement in the Capitol riot, going a step further than the commuted sentences Trump granted in January 2025.The Trump administration has also overseen sweeping cuts targeting prosecutors, FBI agents, and others who worked on cases related to the riot launched by his supporters that rocked the country in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, according to previous reporting by USA TODAY.Jan. 6 payouts?More recently, the Jan. 6 defendants have been thrust back into the spotlight, following Trump’s announcement of a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund," which could be used to pay those involved in the riot payouts. The money is part of a settlement of a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Trump and his family against the IRS.The Justice Department has said the money will be available for "victims of lawfare and weaponization" under the Biden administration — a descriptor Trump has repeatedly used for his supporters who faced charges or convictions after storming the Capitol on Jan. 6."These were people that were weaponized and really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt with corrupt people running it," Trump said earlier this month. "They’re getting reimbursed for their legal fees and the other things that they had to suffer."Drew Pittock covers national trending news for USA TODAY. He can be reached at DPittock@usatodayco.com.
