The decision by the Trump‑led Department of Justice to scrub its website of January 6 prosecution records has become a proxy battle over who gets to define the attack—and what counts as “propaganda.”

Conservative coverage centers the idea that the deleted information reflects a deliberate effort to dismantle what they see as a politicized legacy of the Biden years. The Washington Times frames the move as the DOJ removing “data on Biden-era prosecutions of Jan. 6 rioters from [its] website,” describing the department’s characterization of those public case summaries as “partisan propaganda.”¹ In this telling, the removals are part of “revers[ing] the justice department’s weaponization under the Biden administration,” with officials claiming they will “do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes.”²

Liberal reporting, by contrast, casts the same actions as a historic whitewash and a direct threat to accountability. The Guardian highlights that the DOJ has “removed from its website news releases about criminal cases related to the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack,” again noting the department’s label of the prosecutions as “partisan propaganda.”³ It situates the purge as “the latest step by the Trump administration to dramatically rewrite the history of the assault on the US Capitol,” in which “hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump stormed the building in an effort to halt the congressional certification of his 2020 election loss.”³

Where conservative framing emphasizes rectifying past “weaponization,” liberal coverage stresses the erasure of public records, including releases on “seditious conspiracy cases against members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, far-right extremist groups.”³ Both sides acknowledge the same underlying facts—records were removed, and they were called propaganda—but diverge sharply on whether this is a long‑overdue correction or an alarming rewrite of January 6 history.

1. Washington Times – "Justice Department removes data on Biden-era prosecutions of Jan. 6 rioters from website". "The Department of Justice has removed information about Biden-era prosecutions of Jan. 6 rioters from its website, calling the details of criminal indictments and convictions 'partisan propaganda.'" https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/may/24/justice-department-removes-data-biden-era-prosecutions-jan-6-rioters/

2. The Guardian – "Trump's Justice Department Scrubs Its Website of News Releases About January 6 Defendants". "We are proud to reverse the justice department’s weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes.” the post said. “This includes stripping the justice department’s website of partisan propaganda." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/23/trump-justice-department-scrubs-website-january-6-defendants

3. The Guardian – "Trump's Justice Department Scrubs Its Website of News Releases About January 6 Defendants". "The Department of Justice is acknowledging it has removed from its website news releases about criminal cases related to the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack, calling the information about the prosecutions 'partisan propaganda' … the latest step by the Trump administration to dramatically rewrite the history of the assault on the US Capitol … Among the releases removed from the site were those concerning seditious conspiracy cases against members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, far-right extremist groups." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/23/trump-justice-department-scrubs-website-january-6-defendants