House Speaker Mike Johnson announced on Friday that nearly all of the surveillance footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion will be released.
And some of the initially released video showed non-violent protesters moving freely through the Capitol with Capitol Police monitoring the situation, but seemingly not too concerned.
Officers weren’t directing people out of the building, though there was an exit door right behind police.
“Insurrection”
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2023
In other surveillance footage posted on social media, Capitol Police officers released a man who had been taken into custody.
In the video, an officer can be seen freeing the detainee’s cuffed hands. The man then turns around and fist-bumps one of the officers before he appeared to head out of the Capitol.
I don’t think Capitol Police would take restraints off of a protester, FIST BUMP him, and then let him go if this were an actual “insurrection”
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2023
These videos stand in stark contrast to the footage the Jan. 6 Committee and the legacy media aired on a loop for public consumption.
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Many — the vast majority — of those who protested on Jan. 6 were exercising their First Amendment rights to “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
A relative few engaged in violence toward officers and damaged property. They should be prosecuted, as should the protesters on the left who tried to disrupt Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
“It was so terrifying, these rioters tried to overthrow the most powerful government on earth armed with cameras, selfie sticks and flags. I’m shaking just thinking about it..”
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2023
ABC News reported on Trump’s Inauguration Day, “Violence flared on some streets of Washington, D.C., today amid Donald Trump’s inauguration — with people smashing car and store windows, clashing with police and even torching a limo, leading to more than 200 arrests.”
In 2018, the DOJ dropped all remaining charges.
Then, in the summer of 2020, left-wing protesters sought to burn down the federal courthouse in Portland and sent nearly a dozen White House Secret Service officers to the hospital.
Protesters inside of the Capitol on January 6th at the supposed “Insurrection” vs. Pro-Palestine protesters at the DNC headquarters this week pic.twitter.com/0LPOexp2Ko
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2023
Politico headlined in April 2021, “Leniency for defendants in Portland clashes could affect Capitol riot cases.” That turned out not to be the case.
The news outlet said that “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer.
“The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records,” Politico added.
Would that the DOJ showed such leniency toward Jan. 6 defendants. Federal prosecutors are still trying to charge more people with Jan. 6-related crimes.
Johnson said one of the reasons he is releasing the footage is that it may provide exculpatory evidence to those facing Jan. 6 charges. One could also foresee that perhaps some might use it to appeal their cases.
“When 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,” he said in a statement Friday. “Truth and transparency are critical. Today, we will begin immediately posting video on a public website and move as quickly as possible to add to the website nearly all of the footage, more than 40,000 hours.”
When 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. Today, we will begin immediately posting video on a public website and move as quickly…
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) November 17, 2023
“This 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,” Johnson added.
The speaker said an estimated five percent of the video will not be released because it “may involve sensitive security information related to the building architecture.”
However, Axios reported, “Jan. 6 defendants and victims can request access to the withheld footage if it was not made available by prosecutors, contains exculpatory evidence and will be used in their legal cases but not shared publicly.”
Several accused Fox News host Tucker Carlson of cherry-picking Jan. 6 surveillance video footage in March of 2023 after then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave him access to it.
“The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress. Instead, it shows police escorting protesters through the building,” Carlson said.
Virtually no one in Washington, Republican or Democrat, wanted to see this tape released tonight. pic.twitter.com/YfpvaIZTbn
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 7, 2023
“But it turns out there’s quite a bit of video you haven’t seen, and that video tells a very different story about what happened on Jan. 6,” he added. “More than 40,000 hours of surveillance footage from in and around the Capitol have been withheld from the public. And once you see the video, you’ll understand why.”
“Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that Jan. 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim,” he concluded. “And that’s exactly why the Democratic Party and its allies in the media prevented you from seeing it.”
Thanks to Johnson, we’re all going to have access now.
May the whole truth of what happened that day prevail!
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
