The Department of Justice confirmed Friday that it has removed from its website a press release detailing charges against hundreds of people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
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“There is nothing ‘quiet’ about it,” the Justice Department Rapid Response
“We are proud to de-weaponize the Department of Justice under the Biden Administration,” the post continued. “We will do everything in our power to bring sanity to those who have been persecuted for political purposes. This includes removing partisan propaganda from the Department of Justice’s website.”
An NBC News investigation found that the majority of the Jan. 6 press release about the defendants had been removed from the Justice Department’s website as of Friday night.
The move to delete hundreds of press releases from official government websites is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to reconstruct the January 6 siege and paint the rioters who took part in it as victims.
President Donald Trump pardoned rioters en masse on his first day in office. Shortly thereafter, Justice Department and FBI officials who participated in the January 6 investigation and prosecution were fired.
And this week, the Justice Department announced a $1.8 billion “anti-weapons” fund aimed at compensating those who “suffered the consequences of weapons use and legal treatment.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s failure to disqualify participants in the Jan. 6 riot from receiving payments from the fund sparked outrage from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a letter to Branch on Wednesday that “the idea of the federal government paying reparations to rioters” is “ridiculous and repugnant.” Sen. Thom Tillis (RN.C.) on Thursday called the fund a “dividend pot for punks.”
Lawmakers aren’t the only ones fighting back against the fund.
A prosecutor who was fired on Jan. 6 and a law professor who was acquitted in a federal lawsuit brought by the Trump administration filed a lawsuit Friday alleging that the fund creates a politically discriminatory process that excludes certain individuals who say they have been unfairly treated by Republican officials.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, D.C., a watchdog group, also filed a lawsuit Friday against the fund, calling it “an astonishing act of presidential corruption.” It argued that unlike previous funds aimed at compensating victims, this fund was not authorized by Congress.
And on Wednesday, two police officers who guarded the Capitol on Jan. 6 filed a separate lawsuit alleging that the fund “directly funds the violent activities of rioters, militia groups, and their supporters.”
The lawsuit comes after Ed Martin, who was removed from his role as head of the Justice Department’s Use of Weapons Task Force earlier this year, predicted that the Justice Department would award millions of dollars to those charged in the Jan. 6 actions.
