More than two years after protesters breached the Capitol in Washington, D.C., the new Republican speaker of the House is making available thousands of hours of surveillance video related to the Jan. 6, 2021, event.
Most Americans were not happy with the work of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, which, after two years and spending $3.3 million, did little to convince citizens the protest was former President Trump’s attempt to overthrow the government. In November’s midterms, Americans expressed their dissatisfaction by voting Nancy Pelosi out of her position as speaker and four out of nine members of the committee out of office.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy is making good on his vow to investigate the propriety of the Jan. 6 Committee’s work. Last month, when asked if he would release the famed Jan. 6 video, McCarthy said, “We’re looking [into] that. I want to be very thoughtful about it. But yes, I’m engaged to do that.”
Last week, McCarthy released more than 40,000 hours of video to Fox News for review. Throughout 2021-2022, the then-Democrat-controlled House denied news outlets and investigative reporters access to the footage.
According to the Capitol Police, cameras in and around the Capitol recorded more than 14,000 hours of video between noon and 8 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.
McCarthy, however, released 41,000 hours of video, and Axios reported an additional 30,000 hours of video exists.
Tucker Carlson of Fox News told Axios:
“[T]here was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret,” Carlson told Axios. “If there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on Jan. 6.”
Fox News began its review last week and will incorporate portions of the video in their broadcasts “in the coming weeks,” according to The Daily Wire.
Questioning why the Jan. 6 Select Committee refused to make video available, Carlson said: “By definition, this video will reveal [what happened]. It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that.”
The Daily Wire reported that Capitol Police administrators had warned that attorneys for Jan. 6 defendants should not be given the footage without “safeguards in place to prevent its copy and dissemination.” Citing national security concerns, Democratic government leaders ordered video records sealed.
Republicans charged the Jan. 6 Committee of exhibiting an overt anti-Trump agenda as they carried out their work. New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who defied Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas and was reprimanded by the Committee, wrote that America “should see” what happened on that day and charged Nancy Pelosi and the Jan. 6 Team with “political bias.”
In Jan. 2023, Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Troy Nehls (R-TX), Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) drafted a 141-page investigative report. The report highlighted the multiple failures of the Democratic and Capitol Police lack of response that left the complex vulnerable.
Banks, the point person for the report, said the document “exposes the partisanship, incompetence, and indifference that led to the disaster on Jan. 6 and the leading role Speaker Pelosi and her office played in the security failure at the Capitol.”
Carlson has argued for releasing the Jan. 6 video for almost two years, saying that Democrat-controlled Washington, D.C., has “a regime of secrecy and deceit” and the Capitol riot itself was an “outbreak of mob violence, a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards.”
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