Reportedly, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has handed over close to 41,000 hours of exclusive U.S. Capitol surveillance footage taken from the January 6 riot to Tucker Carlson, a host for Fox News, who is expected to start airing all of the findings from the highly anticipated release as part of his show in the next few weeks.
As explained via a report from Axios, sources have claimed that the TV producers for Carlson have started to go through the footage this past week at Capitol Hill.
“[T]here was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret,” stated Carlson in an interview with Axios. “If there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on January 6.”
Back on January 6, 2021, a large crowd of people pushed their way into the U.S. Capitol building, resulting in heavy disruption to the legislators present at a meeting to certify the 2020 election victory for President Joe Biden. A number of previous reports have stated that cameras both in and around the Capitol were able to capture well over 14,000 hours of footage between the period of noon and 8 p.m. that day, as expressed in a report from Capitol Police forces. Despite that claim, Axios has reported to the actual number sits at close to 30,000 hours higher than what was stated when it comes to footage.
“By definition, this video will reveal it,” explained Carlson. “It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that.”
Despite the fact that a number of congressional committees manned by Democrats, law enforcement, and many others were allowed access to this giant video archive, officials with Capitol Police put out a warning that the attorneys for the January 6 defendants should not be allowed access to the footage without “safeguards in place to prevent its copy and dissemination,” which shock and concerned numerous government officials enough to raise concerns for national security.
Now, after almost a year and a half of hearings and investigations which have used select clips from the security videos, the January 6 Committee put out its own final report as of this past month in which it issued a commendation that charges be officially drawn up against former President Donald Trump, and start releasing the various witness materials. Additionally, McCarthy was one of quite a few House Republicans which were marked by the January 6 Committee for also being issued ethics sanctions in the wake of ignoring subpoenas.
Just last month, McCarthy announced that he would be pushing for the full disclosure of all unreleased U.S. Capitol security camera footage from the fateful day.
