Tucker Carlson should not be attacked for releasing more footage: They say that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Tucker Carlson’s release of additional footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by pro-Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol provides further questions about how the Capitol Police behaved that day and why there was inadequate security.
The Tucker Carlson Footage: What Should We Think
The Capitol Police were, by all reports, unprepared and overwhelmed by the course of events on January 6.
The day before ton January 5, the FBI field office in Norfolk, Va., issued a bulletin warning that extremists planned violence at the Capitol the next day.
The FBI shared the information with the Capitol Police and the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department through the Joint Terrorism Taskforce.
The FBI found scant evidence of an organized conspiracy to storm the Capitol, Reuters reported in August 2021.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave Carlson 44,000 hours of security camera footage of the Capitol on January 6 that Tucker Carlson said showed the entry into the Capitol was peaceful. Carlson claimed that it challenged the official narrative that a violent insurrection occurred. The hallmark of journalism is providing differing points of view and giving the view or the reader every possible angle to make his or her own decision about what happened.
“The video record does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim,” Carlson said, accusing Democrats and the media of selectively editing the video for political purposes. “By controlling the images that you were allowed to view from January 6, they controlled how the public understood that day. They could lie about what happened and you would never know the difference.
Carlson continued: “The crowd was enormous. A small percentage of them were hooligans. They committed vandalism. We’ve seen their pictures again and again, but the overwhelming majority were peaceful.”
Emotions Overloaded a Bad Situation
Many were bystanders from out of town who were swept up in the emotion and followed the crowd into a restricted space. Republicans in Congress have also questioned the role of possible FBI agent provocateurs in inciting the riot.
This still doesn’t change the fact that those who entered the Capitol broke the law.
The video shown by Carlson shows Capitol Police officers enabled the so-called “Q-Anon Shaman” Jacob Chansley, giving him access to the U.S. Senate chamber and doing nothing to prevent him from touring the U.S. Capitol once he was inside.
On a typical day, the Capitol building is closed to the public, excepting those on official business or on a guided tour.
Chansley was not arrested until after he returned home to Phoenix. Federal prosecutors convicted Chansley of “knowingly enter or remain in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority” due to Vice President Mike Pence’s presence there.
“If he was committing such a grave crime, why didn’t the officers who were surrounding him put him under arrest?” Carlson asked.
Democrats held up Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day of natural causes from two strokes, up as a martyr killed by the pro-Trump rioters with a fire extinguisher.
However, a video unearthed by Carlson’s staff showed Sicknick alive and walking around the Capitol after supposedly being beaten by the rioters.
“He was wearing a helmet, so it is hard to believe that he was killed by a head injury; whatever happened to Brian Sicknick was evidently not the result of violence he suffered at the entrance to the Capitol,” Carlson said.
“This video overturns the single most powerful and useful lie the Democrats have told us about January 6.”
Releasing the video gives Americans a broader view of what happened so they can make up their minds. Tucker Carlson should not be attacked for that.
MORE: Could Joe Biden Pardon Hunter Biden?
MORE: Kamala Harris Is Just a Disaster
MORE: Joe Biden’s Biggest Weakness
MORE: Donald Trump Has a New Russia Problem
MORE: Liz Cheney Looks Lost
John Rossomando has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award in 2008 for his reporting.
