Copyright Anchorage Daily News
The Justice Department has placed two federal prosecutors in Washington on leave a day after they filed a document in court that referred to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as a “riot” carried out by a “mob,” four people familiar with the matter said. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White were told they were being suspended just hours after they submitted a sentencing recommendation in a case against Taylor Taranto, a Washington state man accused of participating in the Capitol attack who is now facing sentencing for unrelated weapons charges, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. It remains unclear what specifically in the sentencing memo prompted the decision to place Valdivia and White on leave. But the suspensions are the latest disciplinary actions meted out to prosecutors in cases tied to the riot. In addition to referring to the attack as one carried out by “thousands of people comprising a mob,” the document noted that Taranto had shown up armed outside former president Barack Obama’s D.C. home in 2023 after President Donald Trump posted the address to social media. Though Valdivia and White were the primary signatories to the sentencing memo, the document also bore the name of their boss, Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, as is standard in most court filings out of her office. By Wednesday afternoon the filing had been removed from public court dockets and replaced by a new sentencing memo. All references to Jan. 6, Trump’s social media post, Valdivia or White had been removed. The replacement filing was signed by two new prosecutors, including Jonathan R. Hornok, the head of the criminal division in the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office. Neither Valdivia nor White returned requests for comment Wednesday. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to discuss what he described in an email as a “personnel decision.” “We want to make very clear that we take violence and threats of violence against law enforcement, current or former government officials extremely seriously,” the email read. “We have and will continue to vigorously pursue justice against those who commit or threaten violence without regard to the political party of the offender or the target.” The suspension of Valdivia and White comes as Trump and his allies have sought to rewrite the narrative of the Capitol attack. Trump, in one of his first executive orders after his return to the White House in January, pardoned hundreds of people who had been convicted of playing a role in the riot and ordered the dismissal of charges against those whose cases were still pending, including Taranto. Since then, the Justice Department has dismissed or reassigned several of the prosecutors who led cases against those accused in the riot, particularly in the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C., where Valdivia and White have worked for more than five years. Prosecutors charged Taranto, a 39-year-old married father of two, in 2023 with misdemeanors stemming from his role in the attack on the Capitol. In court filings, they said he had entered the building with the crowd of Trump supporters and later tussled with Metro Police officers who were trying to repel the crowds. Once forced outside, court documents allege, Taranto fought with other riot participants on the Capitol steps, using his cane to fend them off. All charges related to Taranto’s conduct at the Capitol that day were dismissed as a result of Trump’s clemency orders. By that time, however, prosecutors had charged Taranto with additional crimes stemming from a return trip he made to D.C. in June 2023. During that trip, he live-streamed himself making threats against several high-profile people and the headquarters of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, according to the arrest affidavit in his case. Taranto said on video that he had outfitted his van with a car bomb and threatened to detonate it outside the headquarters building. He also filmed himself driving around the city, saying he was searching for tunnels that would provide access to the homes of Obama and lawmakers, according to government court filings. In their now-withdrawn sentencing memo Wednesday, Valdivia and White said that Taranto’s search for those tunnels began after Trump posted what he said was Obama’s home address on a social media site. When Secret Service agents noticed Taranto in a wooded area nearby, he fled. Investigators later found two firearms and several rounds of ammunition in his van. Taranto was convicted earlier this year on counts of making false threats and unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition. Valdivia and White had urged U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to sentence him to 27 months in prison at a hearing scheduled for Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether the prosecutors’ suspensions would affect Taranto’s sentencing date or the government’s recommendation on the punishment he should receive. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. Taranto’s attorney, Carmen Hernandez, also declined to discuss the original prosecutors’ removal from the case, saying she only knew what she had read in news reports about the decision. Still, she added, she was confused by the move. “This case really has little to do with Jan. 6,” she said.
