The Justice Department removed press releases detailing the charges against hundreds of people who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, and confirmed on Friday that the material had been taken down. By Friday evening, NBC News found that the vast majority of Jan. 6-related press releases had disappeared from the department’s website.
The deletions come as the Trump administration pushes to recast the attack on the Capitol and its aftermath. President Donald Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day back in office, and after he returned, Justice Department officials and FBI agents who worked on the investigation and prosecutions were fired. The removed pages had documented the charges filed against hundreds of defendants and served as a public record of how the government described the riot while the cases were active.
A Justice Department Rapid Response account on X answered criticism by saying, “Nothing ‘quiet’ about it,” and adding, “We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration,” “We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes,” and “This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.” The language was a blunt signal that the removals were not an accident or a routine site cleanup, but part of a deliberate effort to rewrite the department’s public account of Jan. 6.
The deletions landed the same week the department announced a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund aimed at compensating people who “suffered weaponization and lawfare.” The money set off immediate backlash in Congress. Sen. Dick Durbin wrote Wednesday that the notion of paying rioters was “absurd and offensive,” and Sen. Thom Tillis called the proposal a “payout pot for punks” on Thursday.
The fund is now facing court challenges as well. A fired Jan. 6 prosecutor and a law professor who was acquitted in a federal case filed suit Friday over the program, while CREW filed a separate lawsuit Friday calling it “a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption.” Two officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 filed another suit on Wednesday. Together, the cases put the administration’s effort to compensate people tied to the riot on a collision course with those who prosecuted the attacks and those who protected the building.
The broader picture is clear: the removals are part of an effort to strip the Jan. 6 siege from the institutional record and replace it with a narrative that treats rioters as victims. Ed Martin had previously led the Justice Department’s weaponization working group before being removed from that role earlier this year, underscoring how quickly the personnel and the message have shifted. The department may have erased much of the paper trail from its website, but the fight over who the government says was harmed on Jan. 6 is now moving into court and Congress at the same time.
