Judges in Jan. 6 cases and watchdog groups recoil at Justice Department’s deletion of records

A decision by the acting leadership at the U.S. Justice Department to delete its public webpages and case summaries of the Jan. 6 siege at the Capitol prosecution has triggered a legal challenge from a watchdog group and blowback from a federal judge who oversaw some of the cases.

The controversial decision has also drawn the ire of one of the rioters who pleaded guilty.

The Justice Department had built a comprehensive database of the approximately 1,600 defendants from the U.S. Capitol attack and had produced a monthly set of reports updating the prosecution, which was the largest in the agency’s long history. Last week, the database and designated public web pages went dark, as the agency halted its prosecutions of the rioters, under orders from President Trump.

The erasure of the public resources and information occurred during a period of transition at the agency, with confirmation votes still pending for Attorney General-nominee Pam Bondi and FBI Director-nominee Kash Patel.

In an opinion issued Thursday, U.S. District court judge Paul Friedman noted the deletion of the public information by the acting Justice Department leadership. Friedman included a recent version of the lengthy database in his public ruling, which can be accessed on the federal court system’s website.

The list in Friedman’s order mirrors the purged Justice Department database, listing riot defendants in alphabetical order and noting their conviction and sentences.

Friedman also blistered the proclamation by Mr. Trump that the Jan. 6 prosecutions were a “national injustice perpetrated” on the American people. Friedman wrote, “The proclamation’s assertion if factually incorrect. There has been no ‘grave national injustice.’ And just because the proclamation was signed by the President does not transform up into down or down into up as if peering through the glass in ‘Alice in Wonderland.'”

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a D.C.-based government watchdog groups that frequently scrutinizes Mr. Trump, has issued a public letter seeking an investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General and the Archivist of the United States to determine if the deletion of the Jan. 6 public data was a violation of law.

The letter said, “The Department of Justice’s removal of this vital information about its prosecutions arising from the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol is consistent with President Trump’s ongoing efforts to rewrite or erase the insurrection, and also a likely violation of federal law.”

The watchdog group’s letter also read, “Despite the agency’s requirement to notify the archivist of the deletion of these records, there is no indication that they reported this matter to NARA, and a list of open ‘unauthorized disposition cases’ on NARA’s website does not reveal any such reporting. Given DOJ’s apparent failure to report this matter to NARA as required by law, we are doing so now and request that NARA take appropriate action, including instructing the agency to issue a report in accordance with 36 C.F.R. § 1230.14 and § 1230.16.”

Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress have been accused of their own efforts to erase the history of Jan. 6. House Republican leadership has defied a 2022 law requiring the hanging of a formal plaque on the US Capitol grounds to honor police heroes who saved the Capitol and Congress from the attack.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has declined to specify if or when the plaque will ever be hung.

Democrats also blasted Republicans for failing to acknowledge the Capitol Insurrection and its victims on the four-year mark of the attack, on Jan. 6, 2025. Republican leaders in the House and Senate did not hold a vigil or commemoration for the victims, which had previously been staged at the Capitol in prior years.

Pam Hemphill, an Idaho woman who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for her role in the US Capitol breach, told CBS News that the deletion of Jan. 6 public records “is just the latest step in rewriting history for his benefit and is more proof of his utter contempt for the Rule of Law.”

“I would not be shocked if he goes as far as trying to ban books and articles that document the facts about the Capitol Riot,” Hemphill said.