Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Monday that footage of the Capitol riot “demolishes” claims by Democrats that an “insurrection” occurred on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We are about to show you surveillance footage from inside the United States Capitol. The images you will see were recorded 26 months ago today on January 6th, 2021,” Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and honorary board member of the Daily Caller News Foundation, said. “Until now, politicians have kept this tape hidden from the public. There is no legitimate justification for that and there never has been.” (RELATED: ‘The Public Should See What Happened’: Tucker Praises Kevin McCarthy For Promising To Release Jan. 6 Footage)
Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the speaker of the House provided Carlson access to over 41,000 hours of video footage of the Capitol riot, Axios reported. Previous reports indicated that the amount of footage was 14,000 hours.
Hundreds of people stormed the Capitol building during the certification of the electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. A Capitol Police officer shot and killed one of those who stormed the building.
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“Once you see the video, you will understand why. Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that January 6th was an insurrection,” Carlson said in a voice-over showing some of the released footage. “In fact, it demolishes that claim.”
“That is exactly why the Democratic Party and its allies in the media prevented you from seeing it,” Carlson continued. “By controlling the images you are allowed to view from January 6th, they control how the public understood that day.”
Carlson also addressed claims from Democrats and liberal media outlets who criticized the release of the footage to him.
“Our producers had unfettered access to the Capitol surveillance video. Neither the speaker’s office or the bosses at Fox News interfered in any way with our investigation. And the 40,000 or so hours of tape, most of it turned out to be irrelevant,” Carlson said. “Static shots of empty rooms and in some cases far from the Capitol itself. To find relevant videotape our producers were given the use of Capitol computers with advanced mapping software that made it easy to find what we were looking for.”
“The usual hyenas in Congress and on cable news have been howling about we are putting lives at risk by showing this tape to the public. Given that these are the very same people who support open borders and defunding the police, it is hard to take their complaints seriously. We do take security seriously,” Carlson added later. “Before airing any of this video we checked first with the Capitol police. We are happy to say the reservations were minor and for the most part they were reasonable.”
Carlson noted that the only change that was made was to obscure details of an interior door in the Capitol building.
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