OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has just started to feel the legal fallout from the January 6 videos being aired on Fox News by host Tucker Carlson.
An attorney for one of the people imprisoned has filed a motion on behalf of his client, claiming that the government is promoting a false narrative.
“We just filed a motion in USA v RYAN TAYLOR NICHOLS to prevent the Government from advancing the false narrative that police were killed by protestors on J6,” attorney Joseph McBride tweeted on Friday, adding: “NO MORE LIES.”
We just filed a motion in USA v RYAN TAYLOR NICHOLS to prevent the Government from advancing the false narrative that police were killed by protestors on J6.
RT & follow J6 Attorney Brad Geyer @FormerFeds to show your support!
NO MORE LIES! pic.twitter.com/S4GqHgo689
— Joseph D. McBride, Esq. (@McBrideLawNYC) March 10, 2023
In a follow-up tweet, he wrote, “They lied about everything!” in a post containing a link to a DC Metropolitan Police Report. “They knew MAGA Republicans were coming to protest, so they entrapped them,” he charged.
They knew MAGA Republicans were coming to protest, so they entrapped them. pic.twitter.com/9buZhunNgm
— Joseph D. McBride, Esq. (@McBrideLawNYC) March 11, 2023
The January 6 committee has essentially acknowledged that it failed to provide the American public with a just and precise evaluation of the Capitol riot that occurred in 2021 ahead of certifying then-President-elect Joe Biden.
In a statement to CNN, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) declared that the group never scrutinized the J6 footage, which Fox News aired this week and had not been viewed before.
“I’m not actually aware of any member of the committee who had access,” Thompson said. “We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.”
Thompson said he doesn’t think any of the Jan. 6 members themselves ever had access to the footage — they let only staff view it. "I'm actually not aware of any member of the committee who had access. We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video."
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) March 8, 2023
Regardless of whether the panel members’ staff simply skimmed through the video or were already aware of it but opted to keep it hidden, the January 6 investigation was supposedly tasked by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for delivering an impartial and precise account of the event.
Carlson’s team was given access to some 41,000 hours of previously undisclosed video footage taken in and around the U.S. Capitol on the day of the riot, and he aired some of it on Monday. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who provided Carlson’s team the access, defended his decision to do so earlier this week.
“Do you regret giving him this footage so he could whitewash the events of that day?” one reporter asked the California Republican.
McCarthy responded by citing “transparency” as a major reason why he gave Fox News first access.
“I said at the very beginning – transparency. And so what I want to produce for everybody is exactly what I said, that people can actually look at it and see what’s gone on that day,” McCarthy noted.
“Each person can come up with their own conclusion [about the footage], but what I just want to make sure is I had transparency,” he added.
McCarthy took specific aim at CNN for its coverage, which he said had raised significant security concerns for lawmakers like himself in the past. He reiterated that his goal is to ensure transparency moving forward.
Kevin McCarthy doesn't regret giving Tucker the J6 footage:
"I said at the very beginning: transparency. What I wanted to produce for everyone was exactly what I said so people could look at it and see what went on that day." pic.twitter.com/uYJHyWuhuv
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) March 8, 2023
Carlson said during his Monday show that Americans had been “lied” to about at least some of the events of Jan. 6, and he called out specific members of the January 6 Committee in particular.
“If there’s one takeaway from the corpus of footage that we spent three weeks looking at, it’s that the January 6th committee lied,” he said. “Its members are liars, and as the result of those lies, core civil liberties in this country were eroded, people went to prison. They’re in prison as of right now, unjustly. So those lies had consequences.
“So you have to ask yourself, whatever happened to the members of the January 6th committee, these liars who hurt people and the country?” he added. “Well, let’s see, Adam Schiff is running for Senate. Adam Kinzinger got a job at CNN. Liz Cheney somehow wound up a professor at the University of Virginia, the august University of Virginia. They’re all still there. Benny Thompson. Ooh, listen to his wisdom. But they’re liars, and above all,” he added.
Last month, McCarthy honored his promise to release the surveillance footage filmed during the Jan. 6 incident at the US Capitol. Axios co-founder Mike Allen reported:
“Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.”
