Kevin McCarthy Breaks Silence On Giving January 6 Tapes To Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ host, was granted access to the Fox News website two days after breaking the news. Tens of thousands hours of U.S. Capitol surveillance footage from January 6, 2006Kevin McCarthy (R, CA) spoke out about the reasons he made this disclosure.

“I promised,” McCarthy said it to The New York Times On Wednesday “I was asked in the press about these tapes, and I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment.”

The speaker claimed that last month he was Looking to release the tapes Because of the “politicization” He believed that he had been encouraged by Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), former Speaker, and the January 6, Committee. The Committee focused heavily on former President Donald Trump in their final report but McCarthy didn’t reveal how he planned to do this.

Axios first reported McCarthy will be available Monday 41,000 hours shared with Carlson Surveillance footage taken January 6, 2021. This was the day that a crowd of people entered Capitol to disrupt lawmakers who were trying to verify President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. A Fox News spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Wire that Axios’ report was correct.

Carlson later said, hours later, on his program, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” His team has been granted what it believes to be “unfettered” He has access to the tapes and plans to share what he finds next week.

“Some of our smartest producers have been there looking at this stuff, trying to figure out what it means and how it contradicts, or not, the story that we’ve been told for more than two years,” Carlson stated. “We think already that in some ways it does contradict that story.”

Tucker Carlson Announces His Show Now Has 44k Hours Of Footage

“We believe that access is unfettered. We believe we have secured the right to see whatever we want to see.”

“We’re going to spend the rest of this week taking a look at it,… https://t.co/sK7691S0n8 pic.twitter.com/GnPvtbENg5

— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) February 21, 2023

Some Republicans cheered the move, including Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who had opposed McCarthy’s bid for speaker earlier this year. “Thank you [McCarthy] for following through on this!” she tweeted Monday. “The public deserves to see everything that was hidden.”

But silence from McCarthy’s camp up until now gave Democrats room to issue myriad alarming statements about the nature of the disclosure and risks to Capitol security without any pushback from the source.

In a letter to House Democrats on Tuesday, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said his team is “working to confirm the precise nature of the video transfer,” which he called a “reported breach,” and he stated there was “no indication” that McCarthy and Carlson followed the same protocols adopted by the January 6 Committee in handling the footage.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) followed with a letter to his colleagues on Wednesday that warned McCarthy is making available “a treasure trove of closely held information about how the Capitol complex is protected and its public release would compromise the safety of the Legislative Branch and allow those who want to commit another attack to learn how Congress is safeguarded.”

McCarthy boasted of giving Carlson the tapes in a fundraising email reported Wednesday by a Bloomberg Government journalist. “I promised I would give you the truth regarding Jan. 6, and now I am delivering,” he said.

McCarthy fundraising off of giving Tucker Carlson access to 1/6 Surveillance tapes pic.twitter.com/raptge3F5C

— Emily Wilkins (@emrwilkins) February 22, 2023

That appeal to donors led to a rebuke from at least one of McCarthy’s Democratic colleagues.

“Kevin McCarthy undermines security on Capitol Hill – in ways officials say could endanger the safety of Capitol Police officers – to feed January 6 footage to a propagandist who downplayed the attack on the Capitol,” tweeted Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). “Now McCarthy is using that to raise money. Absolutely appalling.”

The New York Times report said McCarthy stated that he planned to share the footage with other news outlets after Carlson’s exclusive. In addition, McCarthy insisted to the newspaper that his team staff members were taking the matter “very seriously.”

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