The Fox News host has pitched it as a “peaceful” gathering.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has released footage of the January 6 riot given to him by Speaker Kevin McCarthy in an attempt to rebrand the violent attack as a peaceful gathering.
This fresh assault on accepted truths around the events of the Capitol insurrection couldn’t have come at a tenser time. Carlson, along with other Fox News hosts, is currently under the microscope as testimony from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the company has revealed that they privately mocked former President Trump’s stolen election claims, even while amplifying them on their programs.
“Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” Carlson told Laura Ingraham of Trump’s election lie. He made it clear that he did not.
Apparently undeterred by these revelations, Carlson appears determined to fan the convictions of his far-right fans that the media portrayal of what happened on that fatal day in 2021 was false. Here’s how he’s doing that.
44,000 hours of “exclusive” video
Carlson pressured McCarthy to hand over security tapes from the Capitol when McCarthy was struggling to win the gavel back in January.
“First, release the January 6 files. Not some of the January 6 files and video — all of it,” Carlson said after McCarthy’s third failed vote. “So that the rest of us can finally know what actually happened on January 6, 2021.”
Since becoming Speaker, McCarthy has reportedly given Carlson exclusive access to 44,000 hours of security video. McCarthy has said that they prove the media lied about the attack, and that most of the people gathered in the Capitol were “sightseers,” not “insurrectionists.”
“The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” Carlson told Fox viewers during his show on Monday. “Instead it shows police escorting people through the building, including the now-infamous ‘QAnon Shaman.’”
The missing audio
As CNN notes, the video Carlson played on his show didn’t include sound, so it isn’t clear from the footage whether Jacob Chansley, known as the “QAnon Shaman,” spoke to the officers he encountered inside the Capitol, or what was said. According to court documents, officers repeatedly tried to engage with Chansley and asked him to leave. In September 2021, Chansley pleaded guilty to a single count of obstructing a proceeding of Congress, a charge which carries a potential 20-year sentence.
“More than 44,000 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,” Carlson asserted nevertheless. “Taken as a whole, the video does not support the claim that Jan. 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim.”
Carlson’s Capitol police claim
Carlson repeatedly attempted to minimize the severity of the day’s violent events, even claiming that he’d asked Capitol Police to review the footage in advance.
“We do take security seriously, so before airing any of this video we checked first with the Capitol Police,” he said. “We’re happy to say their reservations were minor and for the most part they were reasonable. In the end, the only change that we made was in blurring the details of a single interior door in the Capitol building.”
Sources on Capitol Hill reportedly told CNN that Carlson’s show only provided one clip to review, rather than the full selection.
Footage of Brian Sicknick
The footage includes images of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died in the aftermath. Carlson claims Democrats lied about the manner of Sicknick’s death, and that “he was not murdered by the mob.”
Sicknick died of natural causes on January 7 after suffering two strokes at the base of his brain stem. Video from January 6 showed him and other officers engaging with the rioters, who sprayed them with chemicals. They fell back as the rioters rushed them, attempting to break through the barricade. A later video shows Sicknick washing his eyes out.
Two rioters pleaded guilty to pepper-spraying Sicknick, and neither was charged with his death. Julian Khater, is serving a six-year prison term at the moment. His friend, George Tanios, served five months, and is now free.
The D.C. medical examiner, Dr. Francisco Diaz, told The Washington Post that while Sicknick didn’t have an allergic reaction to the spray, “all that transpired [on Jan. 6] played a role in his condition.”
