[As President Donald Trump sought to rewrite the history of his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol, a database detailing the criminal charges and successful convictions of January 6 rioters was removed from the Department of Justice’s website. The searchable database had served as an easily accessible and up-to-date repository of all January 6, 2021, cases prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The removal of the database coincides with Trump’s decision to pardon all convicted January 6 defendants and release early from prison 14 people convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Judges have pushed back on what they called Trump’s “whitewashing” of the mob’s attack on the Capitol, and the DOJ site’s removal was celebrated by those convicted for their actions on January 6 and their supporters. Brandon Straka, who was among those pardoned by Trump, wrote that the site’s removal was a “huge victory” for those targeted by the government and credited the new Trump-appointed acting US attorney, Ed Martin, for the removal.
The database’s removal leaves thousands of pages of information inaccessible, although details of January 6 cases are still accessible on the DOJ’s website in the form of press releases about charges and convictions. The FBI also took offline its compendium of wanted Capitol rioters, which had included images and other information of suspects it was still seeking.
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