BBC apologizes to President Trump over documentary editing issues
The BBC has apologized to President Donald Trump for misleading edits to its news documentary “Panorama.”
The Department of Justice confirmed that it has removed a webpage detailing charges, convictions, and other information related to numerous defendants involved in the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
When Washington Post reporter Merrill Cornfield posted on X on May 22 that the Justice Department was “quietly removing information about the Capitol attack” from its website, the official Department of Justice Rapid Response X account fired back, saying, “There’s nothing ‘quiet’ about it.” The account posted that it was “proud to reverse” the “weaponization” of government agencies under former President Joe Biden.
The Justice Department’s Office of Rapid Response wrote on its X account that it is “doing everything we can to bring sanity to those who have been persecuted for political purposes.” “This includes removing partisan propaganda from the Department of Justice’s website.”
What remains of the history of January 6th?
Kornfield said among the deleted documents was a news release about a man who went to the Capitol with bear spray and is currently facing a child solicitation case. she too Attached links to two other news releasessaved using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
A search of Justice Department archives by USA TODAY on May 24 found that some news releases related to January 6 were still available, including when members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys pleaded guilty to inciting conspiracy charges, the announcement two days after the incident that 13 people had been indicted in federal court, and Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen’s public statement regarding the riot released on January 7. 2021.
More generally, an archive search for the term “Capitol invasion” returned just 11 results. A search for the same term in press releases issued after January 20, 2025, the first day of President Trump’s second term, yielded zero results.
Looking back on the events of January 6th
The Justice Department’s swift response characterized the news release as partisan propaganda, but critics argue that the Trump administration is systematically working to rewrite the events of January 6th. As one of the first acts of President Trump’s second term, more than 1,500 people involved in the riot were granted full, complete, and unconditional pardons.
USA TODAY reported in April that the Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to throw out seditious conspiracy convictions handed down to leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their involvement in the Capitol riot. This is a step further than the commutation President Trump granted in January 2025.
The Trump administration also oversaw significant layoffs for prosecutors, FBI agents and other personnel who worked on cases related to the riots by his supporters that rocked the country in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, USA TODAY previously reported.
Payment on January 6th?
More recently, the January 6th defendants have been thrust back into the spotlight after President Trump announced a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” that could be used to pay those involved in the riot. The money is part of a $10 billion settlement of a lawsuit brought by President Trump and his family against the Internal Revenue Service.
The Justice Department said the funds would be available under the Biden administration for “victims of law violations and weapons use.” President Trump has repeatedly used the term to refer to supporters who have been indicted or convicted after storming the Capitol on January 6th.
“These are people who were armed and actually brutalized by a very corrupt system run by corrupt people,” President Trump said earlier this month. “They are being compensated for their legal costs and other suffering.”
Drew Pittock covers trending news from around the country for USA TODAY. He can be reached at DPittock@usatodayco.com.
