The Trump administration went on the defensive Friday night after getting exposed for scrubbing online Justice Department (DOJ) records of those convicted of violent crimes related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including one Texas man who was later convicted of online solicitation of a minor.
In June of 2024, the Biden administration’s DOJ published a press release about Andrew Taake, a 35-year-old man from Texas who that month was sentenced to more than 6 months in prison after violently attacking police officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot armed with “bear spray and a metal whip.” At the time, Taake had another criminal case pending for child solicitation, a detail mentioned in the DOJ’s press release.
Maryl Kornfield, a staff writer with The Washington Post, noticed on Friday that the DOJ’s press release on Taake was removed, and called out the Trump administration in a social media post on X for “quietly deleting info about the Capitol attack from the DOJ website,” a move that coincides with the Trump administration preparing to dole out nearly $1.8 billion to those who believed they were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration’s DOJ, including Capitol rioters.
The Trump administration’s DOJ defended its actions, responding to Kornfield’s social media post with a message that left onlookers stunned.
“Nothing ‘quiet’ about it,” reads a social media post from the DOJ’s official “Rapid Response” account on X.
“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 DOJ’s admission left several critics shocked.
“Open admission here from the DOJ that they’re doing PR for people who weren’t just convicted of assaulting police officers but some of whom turned out to be pedophiles and Nazis,” wrote former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan Friday night in a social media post on X. “That’s who they’re defending.”
The progressive media outlet MeidasTouch bluntly asked the DOJ to clarify its statement about being “proud.”
“You are proud of being pedo protectors?” reads a post from the media outlet’s social media account on X. “They’re openly defending the deletion of DOJ records about a man accused in a child solicitation case who assaulted police on January 6. Truly the Epstein administration.”
And Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) taunted the Trump administration about the impending midterm elections, warning the DOJ that scrubbing online records would do little to erase the crimes of those convicted of storming the Capitol in 2021.
“How quaint, you think deleting stuff from a website makes it go away,” Lieu wrote Friday in a social media post on X. “The stain of Jan 6 is recorded and seared in American history. Nothing you do will erase it. And November is coming.”
You are proud of being pedo protectors? https://t.co/pdY8AahRFf — MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) May 23, 2026
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