The Justice Department has confirmed it removed news releases documenting criminal cases tied to the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack from its public website, calling the material “outdated.”
The acknowledgment came after the Guardian reported the deletions Friday. The removed releases had detailed charges, guilty pleas, and sentencing outcomes across hundreds of federal prosecutions arising from the riot.
DOJ offered no detailed explanation beyond the outdated designation. The department did not specify how many releases were pulled or whether archived versions would be restored.
The scrub follows a broader rollback by the Trump administration of January 6 prosecutions. The White House issued pardons for a large number of defendants in the weeks after President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, and the department moved to dismiss remaining cases.
Legal watchdog organizations told the Wail the removal eliminates a contemporaneous public record of one of the largest domestic-security prosecution efforts in Justice Department history.
No congressional hearing on the website removals has been scheduled. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats sent a letter to the department requesting preservation of all January 6 prosecution records; DOJ has not publicly responded.