(Adrienne Ferguson, Headline USA) Alarmed at the prospect of video from the Jan. 6 protest being released to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Democrats lashed out at House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for providing what he said the public has a right to see.
That would include thousands of hours of security camera video from the uprising in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, inciting outrage from the chairman of the increasingly irrelevant J6 Inquisition, Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who branded the potential public disclosure as dangerous.
“It’s hard to overstate the potential security risks if this material were to be used irresponsibly,” Thompson said in a statement to The Hill.
Carlson disclosed during his Monday night show that he had been provided with more than 40,000 hours of footage. He said that his producers will analyze and study all of the film, releasing the discoveries in the coming weeks.
McCarthy defended the decision to release the J6 video as making good on a promise to deliver transparency and accountability.
“I was asked in the press about these tapes, and I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment,” McCarthy told the New York Times.
That didn’t sit right with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who claimed that releasing any footage that he thinks shouldn’t be made public “poses grave security risks to members of Congress and everyone who works on Capitol Hill.”
In a letter to his peers, Schumer proclaimed that, “The speaker is needlessly exposing the Capitol complex to one of the worst security risks since 9/11,” reported The Guardian.
Schumer also was alarmed that a conservative news outlet was provided the J6 video, declaring that “giving someone as disingenuous as Tucker Carlson exclusive access” to the footage “is a grave mistake by Speaker McCarthy.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., had a decidedly different view.
For all of you that doubted we would release the tapes.
Here you go!
I’m very happy to be right again in my support for Kevin McCarthy as our Speaker.
Americans deserve to see the truth, not a one sided narrative and unfair two tiered justice system.https://t.co/EkVvbTwxcP
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) February 20, 2023
Headline USA’s Mark Pellin contributed to this report
