The unseen Capitol building surveillance footage that was finally released by now-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has blown up the intended accusations that there was a planned “insurrection” and is providing proof of the peaceful crowd and the benign interactions with Capitol police that day. As the footage was secreted away, it was not used in the trials of those accused of violence that day, and only short, partial footage that may have been altered was shown in court.
As the House and its then-Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had been given the task of investigating the events of the day it seems that their “investigation” did not run very deep, and may have been slanted or manipulated.
McCarthy released the now-available footage to FOX News’ Tucker Carlson, who is on top in the cable ratings and reaches the most viewers of one host in the ratings. Carlson’s team was given access to some 41,000 hours of previously undisclosed video footage taken in and around the U.S. Capitol on the day of the riot, and he aired some of it on Monday. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who provided Carlson’s team the access, defended his decision to do so earlier this week.
“Do you regret giving him this footage so he could whitewash the events of that day?” one reporter asked the California Republican. McCarthy responded by citing “transparency” as a major reason why he gave Fox News first access.
“I said at the very beginning – transparency. And so what I want to produce for everybody is exactly what I said, that people can actually look at it and see what’s gone on that day,” McCarthy noted. “Each person can come up with their own conclusion [about the footage], but what I just want to make sure is I had transparency,” he added.
Kevin McCarthy doesn't regret giving Tucker the J6 footage:
"I said at the very beginning: transparency. What I wanted to produce for everyone was exactly what I said so people could look at it and see what went on that day." pic.twitter.com/uYJHyWuhuv
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) March 8, 2023
During his program, Carlson called out a number of people — members of the House Jan. 6 Committee, hand-selected by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi — as well as Biden administration officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland. “Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland is a liar. He just lied about something that is provably false. No police officers died that day on January 6. None. Not one,” he said.
.@TuckerCarlson Calls Merrick Garland a Liar After Alleging Five Officers Were Kill on January 6
"Joe Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland is a liar. He just lied about something that is provably false."
"No police officers died that day on January 6. None. Not one." pic.twitter.com/9AxItgX8xT
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 9, 2023
And Carlson’s comments hold legal weight. An attorney for a prisoner still being held in jail after being arrested on charges related to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building has now filed a motion with the Justice Department following Carlson’s airing of the video footage from that day on his Monday show, Conservative Brief reports.
“We just filed a motion in USA v RYAN TAYLOR NICHOLS to prevent the Government from advancing the false narrative that police were killed by protestors on J6,” attorney Joseph McBride tweeted on Friday, adding: “NO MORE LIES.”
We just filed a motion in USA v RYAN TAYLOR NICHOLS to prevent the Government from advancing the false narrative that police were killed by protestors on J6.
RT & follow J6 Attorney Brad Geyer @FormerFeds to show your support!
NO MORE LIES! pic.twitter.com/S4GqHgo689
— Joseph D. McBride, Esq. (@McBrideLawNYC) March 10, 2023
In a follow-up tweet, he wrote, “They lied about everything!” in a post containing a link to a DC Metropolitan Police Report. “They knew MAGA Republicans were coming to protest, so they entrapped them,” he charged.
They knew MAGA Republicans were coming to protest, so they entrapped them. pic.twitter.com/9buZhunNgm
— Joseph D. McBride, Esq. (@McBrideLawNYC) March 11, 2023
Carlson said during his Monday show that Americans had been “lied” to about at least some of the events of Jan. 6, and he called out specific members of the January 6 Committee in particular.
“If there’s one takeaway from the corpus of footage that we spent three weeks looking at, it’s that the January 6th committee lied,” he said. “Its members are liars, and as the result of those lies, core civil liberties in this country were eroded, people went to prison. They’re in prison as of right now, unjustly. So those lies had consequences.
“So you have to ask yourself, whatever happened to the members of the January 6th committee, these liars who hurt people and the country?” he added. “Well, let’s see, Adam Schiff is running for Senate. Adam Kinzinger got a job at CNN. Liz Cheney somehow wound up a professor at the University of Virginia, the august University of Virginia. They’re all still there. Benny Thompson. Ooh, listen to his wisdom. But they’re liars, and above all,” he added.
The house of cards of the Jan 6 committee is tumbling, as in a stunning admission last week, the chairman of the Committee confessed that, to his knowledge, no member of the panel had even seen any of the footage that Carlson aired. In a statement to CNN, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) declared that the group never scrutinized the J6 footage, which Fox News aired this week and had not been viewed before.
“I’m not actually aware of any member of the committee who had access,” Thompson said. “We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.”
Thompson said he doesn’t think any of the Jan. 6 members themselves ever had access to the footage — they let only staff view it. "I'm actually not aware of any member of the committee who had access. We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video."
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) March 8, 2023
ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1633578749374464005%7Ctwgr%5Edbc0f6f28863b5b4a36fa2b991cc137d78bc77d5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fconservativebrief.com%2Flegal-motion-71545%2F
Regardless of whether the panel members’ staff simply skimmed through the video or were already aware of it but opted to keep it hidden, the January 6 investigation was supposedly tasked by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for delivering an impartial and precise account of the event, Conservative Brief noted.
