Chris Lange, FISM News
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Wednesday that he plans to release tens of thousands of hours of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot surveillance footage to the public in its entirety.
Seemingly unperturbed by the maelstrom of outrage directed at him for handing over more than 40,000 of never-before-seen footage to Fox News Host Tucker Carlson, including from within his own party, McCarthy announced his intentions to make the videos public to Breitbart News.
“We just want to make sure we go through them all, and it takes time,” McCarthy said.
Carlson produced segments of the footage in Monday’s installment of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that contrasted sharply from the left’s narrative of a violent “insurrection.” Several clips showed Capitol Police officers appearing to calmly escort Trump supporters through the Capitol building in what Carlson labeled as a “sightseeing” tour, as opposed to a violent attack.
McCarthy said that he released the footage to Carlson for the sake of transparency and to counter the “politicization” fomented by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Jan. 6 Committee.
“This is all about transparency,” McCarthy said. “I think it’s better for transparency that anyone can make their own decision up, and as we walk through these, there are many more hours of tapes than the January 6 committee told us,” he continued, adding: “It’s not 14,000. It’s 42,000 hours.”
McCarthy also asserted that Capitol Police were consulted on the footage shared with Carlson’s producers before it aired to ensure that it did not pose any security risks. The speaker said that officers expressed one concern, which Carlson’s team mitigated. Capitol Police told The Hill on Monday, however, that they had “only been given the ability to preview a single clip out of the multiple clips that aired.”
WATCHDOG GROUP FILES ETHICS COMPLAINT AGAINST MCCARTHY
Meanwhile, a nonprofit watchdog group has filed an ethics complaint against McCarthy over the release of the security camera footage to Carlson.
The Washington Examiner reported on Tuesday that Members of Public Citizen filed a complaint against McCarthy requesting that the Office of Congressional Ethics investigate the speaker for possible House rules violations in releasing the films to Carlson.
“The Speaker’s release of security footage exclusively to Tucker Carlson is pure and simple using congressional resources for partisan gamesmanship — the very type of polarizing gamesmanship that has caused such damage to the public’s perception of the integrity of Congress,” the group wrote in its letter.
This article was partially informed by RedState, TownHall, Washington Examiner, and Daily Wire reports.