
The United States Justice Department has deleted from its official website the conviction record of a January 6 rioter who was subsequently found guilty of soliciting a child online, and declared itself proud of doing so.
Andrew Taake, from Houston, Texas, was sentenced in 2024 for a savage assault on police officers during the Capitol insurrection, during which he used bear spray and attacked officers with a metal whip.

The Justice Department’s own press release on the case had noted a pending child solicitation charge against him.
Taake was later also convicted on that charge. Both facts have now been scrubbed from the DOJ website.
The deletions were uncovered last week by a Washington Post journalist, who made them public.
The administration’s response removed any remaining doubt about intent.
The DOJ’s official rapid response account on X declared that the department was “proud” of the removals, framing the erasure of its own conviction records as the correction of “partisan propaganda” left behind by the Biden administration.
The administration is simultaneously preparing to disburse nearly $1.8 billion in compensation to individuals it claims were unjustly prosecuted over January 6, rioters included.





