Two federal prosecutors were put on leave, and the Department of Justice quickly scrubbed all mention of January 6 and Donald Trump sharing Barack Obama’s address from a key sentencing memo, all in an apparent effort to protect a convicted, gun-toting ‘patriot’ from a 27-month sentence. This feels like they’re tampering with information to influence a court.
The man at the center of this fiasco is Taylor Taranto. He’s a pardoned January 6 rioter who was later found guilty of possessing illegal guns, a machete, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition near former President Barack Obama’s Washington, D.C., house in June 2023. On the other hand, he was also convicted of false information and hoax charges for a video where he claimed he was on a “one-way mission” to blow up a facility in Maryland, per MSNBC.
This guy was clearly a public threat. Investigators found two guns, a machete, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in his van when he was arrested, and court records say Taranto repeatedly said he was trying to get a “shot” and wanted to get a “good angle on a shot.” But what’s awful is how the Justice Department seems to have caved to pressure.
Trump will literally bend history to get his way, and MAGA will believe him
The two suspended prosecutors, Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White, filed a detailed sentencing memo arguing for a 27-month prison term. They didn’t pull any punches, either, directly linking Taranto’s actions to his extremist ideology, his participation in the January 6th Capitol riot, and his reaction to a social media post by Trump.
Their memo argued that the 27-month sentence “reflects the gravity of Taranto’s conduct, his lack of remorse, and the need to deter him and others from engaging in similar threatening conduct.” This is exactly the kind of strong, responsible statement you want to see from the people prosecuting these cases.
They weren’t afraid to include a clear description of the January 6 events, calling it a day when “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.” They also noted that Taranto was accused of entering the U.S. Capitol during the riot, after which he returned home and continued to promote conspiracy theories about the day.
However, the most damning part of their original argument was the direct and undeniable connection they drew to a political figure. They detailed how Taranto posted outside Obama’s residence the same day in June 2023 that Donald Trump shared a screenshot on social media that included what he said was Obama’s Washington address.
They even had the evidence that Taranto saw and reposted what Trump had shared, writing the chilling words, “We got these losers surrounded!” The prosecutors rightly pointed out that his whole escapade “caused the evacuation of a residential neighborhood and forced law enforcement agents from multiple agencies to respond to his false bomb hoax.”
Shortly after Valdivia and White filed that strong, detailed memo, they were placed on leave at the direction of the White House. Then, later the very same day, different prosecutors posted a new sentencing memo. The replacement memo completely vaporized any reference to the January 6 attacks. It also completely removed the specific, crucial detail about Trump posting Obama’s address and Taranto’s reaction to it.
The original memo tried to hold Taranto fully accountable for his violent ideology and the political rhetoric that drove him to a former President’s house with an arsenal; the new one feels like a political edit designed purely to avoid mentioning a January 6th-related pardon or the former President’s specific actions on social media.
