The Government Is Erasing January 6 Records While Building a Fund to Pay the Attackers

The DOJ deleted the records today

On May 26, 2026, the Department of Justice mass-deleted its public database of nearly 1,600 criminal cases related to the January 6 Capitol attack. The database contained charges and convictions, including documentation of some of the most severe attacks on law enforcement officers in the building that day.

The deletion happened nine days after the DOJ announced a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that could compensate the same people whose records were just erased.

Here is what those records documented.

140 officers injured. 5 dead.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves called it “likely the largest single day mass assault of law enforcement” in American history.

Officer Caroline Edwards suffered a skull fracture and permanent traumatic brain injury. Officer Michael Fanone had a heart attack and burns from being Tasered repeatedly. Rioters beat him with pipes and dragged him down the Capitol steps. Sergeant Aquilino Gonell was pulled into the mob by his shoulder straps and nearly suffocated.

Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer, was attacked with pepper spray and suffered two strokes. He died the next day.

Four more officers who responded that day later died by suicide. Howard Liebengood three days after the attack. Jeffrey Smith nine days after. Kyle DeFreytag and Gunther Hashida within six months.

“I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood.”

Officer Caroline Edwards, January 6 Committee testimony, June 2022

Every person who did this was pardoned

On January 20, 2025, President Trump granted blanket clemency to nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack. Most received full pardons. Fourteen members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, including leader Enrique Tarrio, had their sentences commuted. Tarrio had been serving 22 years for seditious conspiracy, the longest sentence of any January 6 defendant.

More than 600 of those pardoned had been convicted of assaulting, resisting, or interfering with the law enforcement officers who defended the building.

“I do not understand why you would mass-pardon people who assaulted police officers. I don’t get it. I never will.”

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith, congressional testimony, January 22, 2026

He predicted there would be more crimes. He was right.

33 pardoned defendants have been rearrested

According to CREW and the 19th News, at least 33 pardoned January 6 defendants have been arrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes. One was sentenced to life for child molestation. Another threatened to kill the House Minority Leader.

These are not abstract categories. Here are five of the named cases:

The New York Times reported the pattern in March 2026 under the headline “The People Trump Pardoned Are on a Crime Spree.”

Now the government wants to pay them $1.776 billion

On May 17, 2026, the DOJ announced the Anti-Weaponization Fund: a $1.776 billion compensation program for people who believe they were “improperly targeted by the federal government.” The amount was chosen to reference 1776.

Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. He settled it with his own DOJ. He received no money. The fund was the tradeoff.

“Trump sued his own government. Trump reached a settlement with Trump. And now Trump has access to nearly $2 billion slush fund.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, May 2026

PBS reported the Judgment Fund “has never been used for potential claims outside of an actual or imminent lawsuit.” No one who applies for the Anti-Weaponization Fund is required to have sued the government.

The officers who survived are suing to stop it

On May 20, Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, two officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, filed a federal lawsuit to block the fund. Dunn is a former Capitol Police officer now running for Congress in Maryland. Hodges is a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer who was repeatedly assaulted by rioters.

Their complaint calls the fund “the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century” and argues it violates the 14th Amendment. Section 4, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, reads:

“Neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States… but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”

The Framers who wrote that provision had just lived through a war where the losing side expected compensation. They added a constitutional prohibition to prevent it.

“If they get this payout, then they’ll have significant financial resources and they have no ethical qualms about it, so what would stop them from carrying out any more violence?”

Officer Daniel Hodges, NPR, May 2026

They are not alone. The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Trump in all three presidential campaigns. They still condemned the pardons.

Five House Republicans broke ranks publicly. Rep. Don Bacon became the first Republican to co-sponsor a constitutional amendment limiting presidential pardon power. Sen. Bill Cassidy said: “The American people are concerned with rent or gas and not putting together a billion-dollar fund for the president and his allies.”

This is what it looks like historically

“As soon as he became dictator, he pardoned all the political criminals, meaning the black-shirt thugs who had helped him get to power.”

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU historian of authoritarianism, writing about Mussolini

The Financial Times described the pardons as “a hallmark of aspiring autocratic regimes.” After Turkey’s 2016 coup attempt, Erdogan released 38,000 prisoners to make room for journalists and teachers. In Chile, Pinochet’s 1978 amnesty law exonerated those responsible for the dictatorship’s worst abuses. The United Nations later found that such amnesty laws “undermined confidence in new democratic structures.”

In each case, the amnesty told the population that political violence carried no consequences. The January 6 pardons go further. They combine forgiveness with payment.

The math

The January 6 attack cost taxpayers $2.7 billion in damages and prosecution. Defendants were ordered to pay restitution. Most never did.

$2.7 billion to deal with the attack. $1.776 billion to reward it.

Sources

• NPR: Trump Administration Deletes January 6 Criminal Case Database
• CBS News: Judge Temporarily Blocks $1.7 Billion Anti-Weaponization Fund
• DOJ: Justice Department Announces Anti-Weaponization Fund
• PBS NewsHour: Biggest Takeaways From the January 6 Committee Hearings
• White House: Pardons and Commutations for January 6 Offenses
• Wikipedia: Pardon of January 6 Capitol Attack Defendants