CNN anchor Jake Tapper couldn’t believe the Department of Justice‘s excuse for scrubbing documents detailing violence by a January 6 rioter.
“Just a reminder that we’re talking about a guy who pleaded guilty to attacking police with bear spray and a metal whip,” Tapper explained. “The Justice Department is painting that guy as a victim of a partisan witch hunt. Unbelievable.”
Tapper was speaking about Andrew Taake, a 35-year-old Texan who was sentenced to more than six years in prison for his violent attacks against police officers.
Last week, the Trump administration scrubbed online DOJ records detailing the violent crimes by Taake and other convicted January 6 rioters. One of the documents removed was a 2024 DOJ press release that mentioned Taake was also facing child solicitation charges, for which he was later arrested.
Taake later received a Trump pardon.
Paula Reid, the CNN chief legal affairs correspondent, read to Tapper the Trump DOJ’s explanation for removing the online documents.
“We will do everything in our power to make whole those who are persecuted for political purposes,” Reid said, quoting the DOJ. “This includes stripping the DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.”
Reid said after a decade of covering the DOJ, she was surprised to see the move.
“It’s surprising to me that they take the press release off, right, because those are official documents,” Reid told Tapper. “That’s what happened. That’s what the jury decided, the judge decided, and the individual pleaded to. But here, they’re calling it partisan propaganda.”
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