Trump DOJ Fires Prosecutors, Scrubs Court Records Of Mention Of January 6 Insurrection

from the every-villain-a-patriot dept

Nothing survives a purge. Especially not the truth.

The DOJ secured a conviction for Washington state resident Taylor Taranto. According to the DOJ’s May 21, 2025 press release, Taranto had committed several federal crimes, including carrying two guns without a license and engaging in “false information and hoaxes.”

Here are the details:

On June 28, 2023, near National Harbor, Maryland, Taranto broadcast a livestream of himself as he sat behind the wheel of his van. He stated that he had been “working on a detonator” and indicated to his audience that he would drive a car bomb into the National Institute of Standards and Technology. His target was a neutron reactor housed at the NIST campus. He then drove over the Wilson Bridge to Alexandria, Virginia, where he parked his van in the middle of the street and ran away from it, demonstrating to his audience how he would create the appearance of an emergency.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Joint Terrorism Task Force mobilized immediately to find Taranto, alerting regional law enforcement agencies of the potential bomb threat. The following day, the FBI discovered Taranto’s location when he broadcast another livestream that showed him driving around D.C.’s Kalorama neighborhood. Law enforcement officers arrested Taranto at Kalorama and discovered that the bomb threat was a hoax. When law enforcement officers searched his vehicle, they found two firearms, multiple magazines, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Those are the facts. But they’re not all of the facts.

First, “driving around DC’s Kalorama neighborhood” may be factually correct, but the DOJ deliberately refuses to state who Taranto was targeting.

A federal judge has sentenced a man to time served for making a hoax threat near the D.C. residence of former President Barack Obama two years ago, prompting a massive law enforcement response that included a bomb squad and sniffer dogs.

Second, it ignores who Taylor Taranto is, much like the presiding judge was forced to do thanks to previous actions by Donald Trump:

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols noted that Taranto had no criminal history — partly because the Justice Department had previously moved to dismiss several charges related to Taranto’s participation in the siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But just because Trump gave Taranto (along with pretty much every other participant in the 2021 raid on the Capitol building) clemency doesn’t mean he didn’t do the things he did on that date. You have to be convicted to obtain a pardon. And you have to be accused of criminal acts to secure clemency.

The Trump DOJ would rather no one remember Taranto for who he was on January 6, 2021. It wants everyone to pretend Taranto was just some guy driving around DC who had never previously supported Trump so hard he felt compelled to commit federal crimes two years before he committed these federal crimes.

The sentencing memo originally submitted by the DOJ in this case contained mentions of Taranto’s history as an insurrectionist.

On January 6, 2021, thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol while a joint session of Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Taranto was accused of participating in the riot in Washington, D.C., by entering the U.S. Capitol Building. After the riot, Taranto returned to his home in the State of Washington, where he promoted conspiracy theories about the events of January 6, 2021.

The DOJ has clawed back this memo and replaced it with one that excises this and any other reference to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building. In doing so, it severs Taranto from his support for Trump and Trump’s election conspiracy theories. Its official press release does the same thing, removing anything that might suggest former president Obama was the target of Taranto’s malicious acts.

Not only is the administration actively removing the truth from court records, it’s removing the people who put these facts in their sentencing menu. First, the government came for the words. Then it came for the people who said them.

Two federal prosecutors were informed Wednesday that they will be put on leave after filing a legal brief that described the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as being carried out by “thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters,” sources familiar with their removals told ABC News. 

The two prosecutors, Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White, were locked out of their government devices and informed Wednesday morning they will be placed on leave, just hours after they filed a sentencing memorandum in the case of Taylor Taranto, the sources said.  

The prosecutors also made the mistake of suggesting Trump had aided Taranto’s vengeful search for Barack Obama.

The sentencing memo Valdivia and White filed also noted that Taranto appeared to zero in on a home belonging to former President Barack Obama after Trump published “the purported address” of Obama’s home on Truth Social. Taranto re-posted that address and ranted on video and on Telegram about “tunnels” he could use to reach the homes of Obama and others.

And so it keeps on going. The Trump administration continues to shed talent, replacing it with insurance lawyers and other sycophants who don’t possess the minute amount of legal acumen needed to indict a ham sandwich.

The prosecutors ousted by this latest shitty little purge are AUSAs Carlos Valdiva and Samuel White. The judge presiding over Taranto’s case praised them both as they were replaced by other prosecutors who, if they’re smart, are already seeking other employment. Anyone not completely subservient will recognize they can’t possibly serve both justice and the Trump administration. And this administration demands nothing but blind loyalty, so even just trying to do your job competently has the chance of placing your head on the chopping block.

While it’s one thing for an administration to oust anyone it feels stands in the way of its desires, it’s quite another to ask a court to swap out public records for something with a bit less truth in it. But that’s how this administration rolls. Anything that might reflect poorly on it must be removed from the permanent record. The original memo will live on at other sites. But as far as the federal record is concerned, Taylor Taranto never raided the Capitol or rolled up with a bunch of guns and ammo near Barack Obama’s house. He’s just some random guy who did threatening stuff for no particular reason. The Ministry of Truth, of course, will always have his back.

Filed Under: doj, donald trump, insurrection, orwell, purges, rewriting history, taylor taranto, trump administration