Despite the U.S. Mint’s removal from its website of bronze duplicate versions of the congressional gold medal recognizing law enforcement that protected the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault, orders for the two sizes of bronze medals may still be placed from the nation’s coin producer.

Shortly after the official 2.75-inch congressional gold medals were presented in the Capitol Rotunda Dec. 6, 2022, by the congressional leadership, the Mint’s website at www.usmint.gov opened sales for the 1.5-inch and 3-inch bronze duplicates at $20 and $160, respectively.

Public Law 117-32 (details found at https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3325/text), signed and enacted by President Biden on Aug. 5, 2021, authorized awarding congressional gold medals to the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia in recognition of the law enforcement agencies that protected the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The law allowed for Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to direct the U.S. Mint to strike bronze duplicates of the gold medals for sale to the general public.

Following intense pressure exerted on the Mint by members of President Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) constituency, a decision was made to remove the featured presence of the bronze medals from the Mint’s product pages online circa Feb. 28, but the medals remain available for purchase.

The Philadelphia Mint, where the bronze medals have been struck without the facility’s P Mint mark, continued to strike the medals and numbers of them remain in inventory to fill orders.

Coin World has repeatedly requested from the Mint, for several weeks, the number of medals of each diameter that the bureau sold between when the medals were first put on sale and when they were  removed from placement on the website. Coin World was informed the sales numbers were small without providing specific numbers.

Public affairs offices in all major federal government agencies are restricted on what information they can release to the media and the public, following direction from the White House.

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