I am a paid contributor to Fox News, so I’m hesitant to comment on whether it was prudent for Speaker Kevin McCarthy to make available to Tucker Carlson, for selective airing on his nightly program, thousands of hours of Capitol-riot video, much of it never publicly broadcast before. I would note that no one at Fox has ever asked me to bend my opinions one way or the other, even when I’ve been critical (as I was, for example, when Tucker raised the specter of entrapment in connection with the Capitol riot). But being a contributor nevertheless presents a conflict for obvious reasons. Although I have reached the unfortunate age and am in the fortunate circumstances that enable me to say what I think without much worry about the grief it may cause, ethics always counsel avoiding the appearance of impropriety.
To the extent that the media–Democrat critique is that Carlson is an opinion journalist who is apt to present a skewed picture, this is the price they must have known they’d have to pay for the January 6 committee. That panel was a blatantly partisan, monochromatically anti-Trump political exhibition that presented the country with a skewed picture, eschewing cross-examination and perspectives that deviated from its relentless theme: “Trump’s incitement to insurrection had our democracy hanging by a thread.”
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