Trump DOJ Mass-Deletes Jan. 6 Riot Records, NPR Reveals

The Trump administration has mass-deleted information about prosecutions tied to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol from government websites, according to an NPR investigation. The purged materials include news releases detailing criminal charges, guilty pleas, jury verdicts, and prison sentences — including records of some of the most violent assaults on law enforcement officers that occurred during the riot.

What Was Deleted

Hundreds of Justice Department press releases documenting the largest federal criminal investigation in U.S. history abruptly vanished from the DOJ website last week. Previously accessible pages now display “Page not found” errors. Among the deleted records were cases against defendants who used electroshock weapons, pepper spray, metal flagpoles, and wooden pallets to attack police officers.

Specific cases identified by NPR include:

Daniel Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty to driving an electroshock device into the neck of former Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison
Albuquerque Head, who pleaded guilty to grabbing Fanone by the neck and pulling him into the mob while yelling “I got one!” — sentenced to more than seven years
Thomas Webster, a retired NYPD officer convicted of assaulting law enforcement with a metal flagpole and sentenced to 10 years
Christopher Alberts, convicted of assaulting police with a wooden pallet while carrying a loaded handgun — sentenced to seven years
Peter Schwartz, convicted of assaulting police with pepper spray and throwing a metal chair — sentenced to 14 years

DOJ Confirms and Defends the Purge

Far from denying the deletions, the Justice Department publicly acknowledged and defended them. The DOJ Rapid Response X account posted on May 22-23: “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. This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.”

The characterization of official prosecutorial records as “partisan propaganda” marks an extraordinary break from the norm of transparent record-keeping by the Department of Justice. NBC News confirmed that the vast majority of Jan. 6 press releases had been removed as of May 23. A search of the DOJ archives for the term “Capitol breach” returned only 11 results, USA TODAY reported, while a search for the same term in press releases published after January 20, 2025 — the first day of Trump’s second term — returned zero results.

A Systematic Rewriting of History

The information purge is the latest and most aggressive phase of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reframe the narrative of the January 6 attack, in which a mob of Trump supporters injured 140 police officers and threatened the lives of members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence.

According to CBS News/AP, the administration’s actions since Trump returned to office in January 2025 have followed a consistent pattern:

Mass Pardons: On his first day back, Trump granted full, complete, and unconditional pardons to all 1,500+ Jan. 6 defendants, including those convicted of violent assaults on police
Prosecutor Firings: DOJ fired dozens of career prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases
Hiring of a Rioter: A former Jan. 6 defendant who was seen on video urging the mob to “kill” police was hired by the DOJ
Conviction Erasure: DOJ asked a federal appeals court to vacate seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders
White House Propaganda: The White House created a website describing rioters as “patriots” and blaming police for causing “chaos”
Babbitt Settlement: The administration settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the estate of rioter Ashli Babbitt for nearly $5 million
Anti-Weaponization Fund: A $1.776 billion fund was announced that may compensate Jan. 6 rioters for “persecution”

Bipartisan Backlash and Legal Challenges

The Anti-Weaponization Fund has drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called the notion of “the federal government doling out compensation to rioters” as “absurd and offensive.” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called the fund a “payout pot for punks.”

Multiple lawsuits have been filed to block the fund. Two police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 filed suit alleging the fund would “directly finance the violent operations of rioters, paramilitaries, and their supporters.” A fired Jan. 6 prosecutor and a law professor also filed suit arguing the fund creates a politically discriminatory process. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) called the fund “a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption.”

The Human Cost

Police officers who were violently assaulted on Jan. 6 have described suffering lifelong physical and psychological injuries. Former Capitol Police Sgt. Federico Ruiz said in a victim impact statement: “I have been sentenced to a lifetime of medical issues that include physical pain and mental and emotional distress. There is not a day that goes by that pain, discomfort, and/or a mental health issue do not flare up to remind me of that day.”

Brendan Ballou, a former federal prosecutor who worked on Jan. 6 cases, told NPR: “It’s clear there is an ongoing fight to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, because these people know if they can successfully get people to forget about Jan. 6 — or worse yet, condone it — then they will be able to convince people to accept any attack on democracy.”

Preserving the Record

While the government continues to remove information about the attack, NPR’s independently maintained database and visual archive of Jan. 6 prosecutions remains accessible. The searchable database covers all nearly 1,600 criminal cases, including charges, convictions, and sentencing outcomes. NPR is currently taking legal action to obtain additional video evidence held by the government that has not been previously disclosed.

Archived versions of the deleted DOJ pages remain accessible through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, providing verifiable evidence of what was removed.

What to Watch For

Several key questions remain unanswered: Will the deleted information be permanently lost, or will archives preserve it? Will Jan. 6 rioters actually receive payouts from the Anti-Weaponization Fund? What legal recourse do police officers injured on Jan. 6 have? And will Congress take action to prevent further deletions of government records? The courts are now grappling with these questions as multiple lawsuits proceed.

President Trump has consistently described his supporters as victims rather than perpetrators. “I pardoned people that were assaulted themselves. They were assaulted by our government,” Trump said last year. “They didn’t assault. They were assaulted.” The mass deletion of official records represents the administration’s most direct attempt yet to make that revisionist account the only one on the public record.