By Tristan Justice | The Federalist
More footage from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, further contradicts the left-wing narrative that the dayâs events constituted a âviolent insurrectionâ wherein democracy itself was placed in jeopardy at the hands of virulent demonstrators.
Last week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana began releasing tapes containing more than 40,000 hours of footage from the Capitol, which were buried for three years while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and lawmakers on the partisan Jan. 6 Committee worked to dramatize the riot with prime-time show trials.
âWhen I ran for Speaker, I promised to make accessible to the American people the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill security taken on January 6, 2021. Truth and transparency are critical,â Johnson said in a statement. âThis decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials.â
With a bulk of the footage made available by Friday, the rest of the tapes will be made public on a rolling basis. Cameras captured demonstrators peacefully marching through the halls of the Capitol while police officers stood by.
Jan 6 defendants have long argued that the initial entrants were peaceably escorted into the building by Capitol Police, and therefore had no reasonable expectation that their conduct was unlawful
This video, suppressed for almost 3 years, confirms itpic.twitter.com/F24MAf0mXS
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) November 18, 2023
In another clip, a Capitol police officer is seen removing restraints on one demonstrator after walking him down a hallway out of sight from the crowd â before another officer bizarrely congratulates him with a fist bump.
I donât think Capitol Police would take restraints off of a protester, FIST BUMP him, and then let him go if this were an actual âinsurrectionâ
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2023
The footage corroborates what was shared by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in March before his abrupt exit from the network. Johnsonâs Republican predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, gave Carlsonâs producers access to the footage that had been kept under seal by the Democrat majority.
âThat video,â Carlson said, âtells a very different story about what happened on Jan. 6.â
The tapes aired by Carlson showed Jacob Chansley, the infamous âQAnon Shaman,â being escorted by police around the complex; revealed deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick âhealthy and vigorousâ after allegedly being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher; and unearthed new contradictions in Ray Eppsâ testimony. The tapes also exposed outright fabrications by the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, which was established by House Speaker Pelosi ostensibly to probe the Capitol turmoil while concealing her own failures.
Democrat Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the partisan Select Committee, bizarrely conceded that over the course of the panelâs two-year investigation, lawmakers never reviewed the blockbuster footage that was later published by Fox News.
âIâm not actually aware of any member of the committee who had access,â Thompson said. âWe had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.â
Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, meanwhile, who was vice chair of the Select Committee before an overwhelming primary defeat by Rep. Harriet Hageman, tried to downplay Fridayâs release by resharing some of the panelâs carefully selected footage of the mob.
âHereâs some January 6th video for you,â she wrote on X, previously known as Twitter.
Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, whom Cheneyâs Soviet-style committee sought to frame as a collaborator in an apparent insurrection, pushed back on Cheneyâs narrative.
âLiz, weâve seen footage like that a million times. You made sure we saw that â and nothing else,â Lee wrote on X. âItâs the other stuff â what you deliberately hid from us â that we find so upsetting.â
Categories: U.S. News