Two federal prosecutors have been placed on administrative leave just hours after describing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as perpetrated by “thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters,” according to two people familiar with the move who were granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
The accurate description of the attack came in a sentencing recommendation for Taylor Taranto, who was among those pardoned by President Donald Trump for his role in the riot. But Taranto had also been charged for unrelated threats and firearms crimes for which he is slated to be sentenced Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White urged U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to sentence Taranto to more than two years in prison for a hoax threat against the National Institute of Standards and Technology and for driving through former President Barack Obama’s neighborhood with a van full of firearms and ammunition.
In their 14-page memo, the prosecutors briefly note Taranto’s involvement on Jan. 6 and indicate that after the riot “Taranto returned to his home in the State of Washington, where he promoted conspiracy theories about the events of January 6, 2021.”
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
Valdivia and White noted that after Taranto returned to Washington, D.C., in June 2023, he made livestreamed threats to blow up his van outside the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
“The next day, on June 29, 2023, then-former President Donald Trump published on a social media platform the purported address of former President Barack Obama,” the prosecutors noted. “Taranto re-posted the address on the same platform and thereafter started livestreaming from his van on his YouTube channel. Taranto broadcast footage as he drove through the Kalorama neighborhood in Washington, D.C., claiming he was searching for ‘tunnels’ he believed would provide him access to the private residences of certain high-profile individuals, including former President Obama.”
The memo also describes an incident the same month in which Taranto visited an elementary school in Maryland while seeking Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a top Trump adversary.
“Taranto’s menacing rhetoric harms public discourse and encourages others to use threats and violence to advance their views or silence their perceived political opponents,” the prosecutors wrote.
It’s unclear which portion of the memo triggered the move by Justice Department officials to place Valdivia and White on leave. However, they’re the latest Jan. 6 prosecutors to face punishment for their involvement in related cases. Dozens of others were either terminated or demoted. One of them, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon, is suing over his termination.
Taranto was among a slew of Jan. 6 defendants who argued that Trump’s pardon also covered crimes unrelated to the Capitol attack. Though the Justice Department sided with the defendants in several cases, Taranto was one of the few in which prosecutors said the pardon did not apply. Nichols, a Trump appointee, ultimately agreed.
