Trump's Justice Department purges information about convicted Jan. 6 rioters from Pennsylvania

The Justice Department removed hundreds of pages from its website detailing prosecutions and convictions of people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on the U.S. Capitol, including many from Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania.

It’s the latest move by President Donald Trump’s administration to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, a failed attempt by his supporters to overturn the 2020 election results.

News releases outlining a variety of components of Jan. 6 cases — including announcements of indictments, convictions, and sentences — were removed from the Justice Department’s website ahead of Memorial Day weekend. The agency confirmed the purge Friday, saying in a statement posted to its “rapid response” account on X there was “nothing ‘quiet’” about the decision.

“We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration,” the Justice Department said. “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.”

Trump has taken a variety of steps to effectively re-write the record of what happened that day. One of his first moves after taking office again in Jan. 2025 was pardoning nearly every Jan. 6 defendant, describing them as “hostages” who had been “treated so badly.” And even though a pardon does not erase a criminal case — it’s is added to the record of the case, and any restrictions stemming from a conviction are reversed — it nonetheless displayed his willingness to try and eliminate consequences for those who were charged with participating.

Months after that, the Trump administration unveiled a Jan. 6 page on the White House’s official website that blamed Democrats for “certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters.” And it said Trump’s acts of clemency “corrected a historic wrong — freeing Americans who were unjustly punished and restoring fairness under the law.”

Among the documents the DOJ recently deleted was a news release announcing the conviction of Zach Rehl, the former leader of the Philadelphia Proud Boys. He and four other Proud Boy leaders were found guilty for helping incite the insurrection at the Capitol, and Rehl has been sentenced to 15 years in prison before Trump commuted his sentence.

“The government’s evidence at trial demonstrated the crucial role that these men and their followers played in breaking through the multiple security lines that protected the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” former U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in a now-deleted statement. “Their crimes, and the crimes of other members of the mob that descended on the Capitol, struck at the very heart of our democracy.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to questions Tuesday about when it began removing the information from its website, or whether it had ever conducted similar actions for other defendants who were later pardoned. Still, the effort appeared to be an ongoing — or imperfect — endeavor.

A news release announcing the indictment of Ryan Samsel — a Bucks County man found guilty of assaulting an officer, participating in a civil disorder, and obstructing an official proceeding of Congress — was deleted from the department’s website. But a release hailing the role of prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego in convicting Samsel was still visible Tuesday.

There was also still a news release online detailing charges against two people who were accused of assaulting police officers at the Capitol. One of the men, Julian Khater, was a Somerset, N.J. native who later ran a smoothie shop in State College, Pa., and was sentenced in 2023 to six years in prison after pleading guilty to deploying pepper spray against the officers.

In addition, while the department had pulled down news releases detailing charges against Harrisburg native Riley Williams — who was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for helping steal the laptop of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — there was still a webpage visible that linked to a lengthy document detailing her actions that day.

The Justice Department’s purge came as the administration was embroiled in another controversy tied to Jan. 6 — the intent to establish a $1.7 billion fund that could offer compensation to people prosecuted over their roles in the melee.

The fund was established by the department earlier this month as part of a settlement with Trump involving his unprecedented lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

The so-called “anti-weaponization fund” already faces at least two lawsuits — one from two law enforcement officers attacked during the Capitol riot, and another from a group of plaintiffs that includes former federal prosecutors fired after working on the Jan. 6 investigation and New Haven, Conn., who lost federal funding due to its “sanctuary policy.”

The fund also faces bipartisan criticism on Capitol Hill. Philly-area Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.) said he was “going to try and kill” Trump’s fund, while Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) called it “stupid on stilts” and a “payout for punks.”

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), the former GOP leader, told reporters Friday. “Utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick.”

Despite winning reelection in 2024, Trump continues to falsely claim he won the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.

In the past six months, Trump as made at least 107 references to the 2020 election being stolen or rigged, according to a new Reuters analysis of the president’s public remarks and social media posts.

“If we had Jesus Christ come down and ​count the votes, I would have won California,” Trump told Republicans earlier this month. “But it’s a rigged vote.”

Biden defeated Trump in California by more than 5.1 million votes in 2020, a margin of nearly 30 percentage points. He lost to Kamala Harris by 3.2 million votes in 2024.

Trump defeated Harris in Pennsylvania in 2024, but has continued to falsely claim he also won the commonwealth in 2020 after losing to Biden by just 81,000 votes. On Christmas Eve, during a call with a five-year-old from Pennsylvania, Trump falsely said he won the state “three times.”