Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) announced Friday he would start “immediately” releasing the U.S. Capitol Police’s January 6 footage as one of his first significant moves since assuming the House speakership.
The previously withheld tapes showing exactly what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, will be posted on a public website starting Friday. Approximately 44,000 hours of footage will be made available once most of the footage is published over time, Johnson said in a statement.
“This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials,” he added.
The House leader noted the tapes will show blurred faces to “avoid any persons from being targeted for retaliation of any kind.” Five percent of the footage won’t be released because it “may involve sensitive security information related to the building architecture,” Johnson said.
About 90 hours of footage were initially made public on Friday, with the rest to come in the next several months. Representative Barry Loudermilk (R., Ga.), chairman of the House Administration Committee’s oversight subcommittee, said all footage previously released to the media will eventually be posted to a page on the committee’s website.
“The goal of our investigation has been to provide the American people with transparency on what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and this includes all official video from that day,” Loudermilk said. “We will continue loading video footage as we conduct our investigation and continue to review footage. As I’ve said all along — the American people deserve transparency, accountability, and real answers supported by facts instead [of] a predetermined political narrative.”
“Following the initial tranche of footage, the Subcommittee will continue to populate the viewing room with additional footage for public view,” the committee’s statement read.
The announcement of the footage’s release comes less than a month after Johnson secured the gavel as House speaker following Representative Kevin McCarthy’s (R., Calif.) ouster from the position. Prior to succeeding McCarthy, Johnson vowed to release the tapes if he won the speaker election — a promise to his Republican colleagues that is now coming to fruition.
The released videos show protesters walking through the Capitol building peacefully as officers facilitate their passage, countering the narrative that an insurrection occurred on January 6.
BREAKING: Newly released January 6 tapes show Capitol Police unfazed by “insurrectionists.” pic.twitter.com/d1zcBQGB9O
— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) November 17, 2023
Early Saturday morning, Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah) called for an investigation into the House January 6 Select Committee and questioned whether former and current congressmen who served on the committee “deliberately” hid or destroyed some of the Capitol Police’s footage that day.
“Why didn’t Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger ever refer to any of these tapes? Maybe they never looked for them,” Lee posted on X. “Maybe they never even questioned their own narrative. Maybe they were just too busy selectively leaking the text messages of Republicans they wanted to defeat.”