By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A judge on Thursday lauded two federal prosecutors who were suspended after referring to supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as “a mob of rioters” in a court filing.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, D.C., said assistant U.S. attorneys Samuel White and Carlos Valdivia did a “commendable and excellent job” and held to the “highest standards of professionalism” prosecuting the case against Taylor Taranto. Taranto was convicted on gun and hoax charges after he was arrested near former President Barack Obama’s Washington home in 2023.
Nichols on Thursday sentenced Taranto to 21 months in prison, but he will not serve any additional prison time given that he was held in custody for about 22 months before his trial earlier this year. Nichols said Taranto engaged in “dangerous conduct” by suggesting his van was rigged with explosives during an online live stream.
A lawyer for Taranto argued he did not commit any violence and that some of his statements were intended as “dark humor.”
Taranto was initially charged for participating in the Capitol riot, but those charges were dropped as part of Trump’s sweeping grant of clemency for all nearly 1,600 January 6 defendants on the first day of his second term.
White and Valdivia were placed on administrative leave by the Justice Department on Wednesday after their sentencing memo for Taranto described the attack on the Capitol and referred to Trump posting what he asserted was Obama’s address online shortly before the June 2023 incident.
Two new prosecutors, including a senior official in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, later took over the case and appeared in court on Thursday. The initial sentencing memo was removed from the public docket and replaced with a second filing that made no mention of the attack on the Capitol and removed the reference to Trump posting Obama’s address.
The move to suspend White and Valdivia was the latest to target prosecutors who have worked on cases condemned by Trump and his supporters and marked the latest attempt by the Trump administration to downplay the violence of the Capitol riot.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis)
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