Just a few days after getting his gavel, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters that he intended to release Capitol Hill security footage from the Jan. 6 attack. The bipartisan select committee that investigated the riot had already presented excerpts, but under pressure from his members, the California Republican planned to release everything.
The public, the GOP leader said, “should see what happened.”
By some accounts, McCarthy committed to the release as part of the negotiations with his far-right detractors who initially stood in the way of him becoming speaker.
More than a month later, we’re starting to get a better sense of McCarthy’s unfortunate plan. Axios was first to report on how, exactly, the Republican intends to share the sensitive footage with Americans.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News’ Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 riot, McCarthy sources tell me. 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.
Axios’ report has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, but some other major news organizations, including CNN, have run related reports, and Fox News confirmed the accuracy of the Axios report. What’s more, several members of Congress have commented on the story in such a way as to bolster its legitimacy.
Just so we’re all clear about the nature of the process, the video tapes in question are official government materials. They don’t belong to one member, one party, or one cable channel; they belong to all of us. And yet, there’s the new House speaker, who apparently made a unilateral decision to give one controversial Fox News host exclusive access to 41,000 hours of surveillance footage.
What could possibly go wrong?
Part of the problem with McCarthy’s move is that Carlson lacks…
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