No, Kevin McCarthy Didn’t Release All Of The J6 Footage To The “American Public”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy is playing semantic games with the public in an effort to conceal the fact that the J6 footage has still not been released to the American public, despite his promise to do so.
Shortly after Congressman Kevin McCarthy finally won his election to become Speaker of the House, after 14 failed votes on the floor of the United States House, he and his political allies adamantly pronounced that he would be publicly releasing all 14,000 hours of the Capitol Hill footage from January 6th, 2021. At the time, I was highly skeptical that he would do this, in light of his track record of broken promises and political opportunism, which is why I traveled to Washington DC for the entirety of the Speaker vote, and urged Republican representatives to vote against McCarthy. That was several weeks ago.
Over the weekend, I broke the news that Speaker McCarthy had no intent to *publicly* release the footage in its entirety to the “American Public” due to alleged ‘national security concerns,’ and that counsel for defendants would have to work directly with Representatives from the districts where defendants reside to attempt to arrange for specific release of the footage relevant to their case. This information was given to both me and J6 attorney John Pierce by members of the United States Congress.
John Pierce, founder of National Constitutional Law Union (NCLU), currently represents dozens of J6 defendants. “As often is the case, Ms. Loomer’s investigative journalism had an immediate impact, as many Americans were immediately outraged by this revelation and demanded Speaker McCarthy release the tapes,” said Pierce.
Unsurprisingly, in a transparent attempt at damage control, shortly after my report and viral posts, an attempt to quell the outrage was carried out on social media, prompting members of Congress and some of their associates to try to discredit my report with subliminal accusations that people who are calling McCarthy out for not releasing the tapes are “grifters and liars”.
On Monday, Speaker McCarthy exclusively announced to Axios that over 42,000 hours of J6 footage from the Capitol had been provided exclusively to Tucker Carlson of Fox News (a network owned by Rupert Murdoch in which former Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan is on the board).
Although Kevin McCarthy’s attack dog, Marjorie Taylor Greene falsely stated that Kevin McCarthy had kept his promise by “releasing the tapes” to the American Public, her statement, which was echoed by many others, is simply not true.
Releasing the footage to Tucker Carlson in an embargo agreement with Fox News, is not a *public* release of the footage. It is totally insufficient and fails to protect the Constitutional rights of the January 6thdefendants, and it is an insult to the intelligence of the American People, who are smart enough to see right through this charade. Put simply, Tucker Carlson is not the “American Public”. While Tucker Carlson is a respected, right wing commentator who happens to work for the largest “consevative” mainstream media network, he is simply one person, who works for one network, and it is unreasonable to only give the footage to one news anchor.
I am not alone in my assessment either. Following the Axios report, numerous outlets and reporters, including Gateway Pundit, as well as defense lawyers who are representing J6 defendants, took to Twitter to point out McCarthy’s deception, and asked why only one network was being given access.
Norm Pattis, a criminal defense lawyer who is representing Joe Biggs in the Proud Boys trial tweeted, “I am a J6 lawyer. McCarthy promised to release tapes. Where are they, Kevin?”
Pattis, along with other J6 defense lawyers, including John Pierce, and Brad Geyer, are disputing the claims that the 42,000 hours of footage has been “released to the public” and made available to the defendants and their lawyers.
There are numerous January 6th trials happening right now and many more that are imminent. Every second of the 42,000 hours of January 6th footage that was turned over to Tucker Carlson must be publicly released immediately. It goes without saying that this is the right thing to do from a principled standpoint – both with respect to the public’s right to know, as well as to repair the integrity of Speaker McCarthy following yet another broken promise.
McCarthy advocates have unfortunately chosen to attack my reporting and intentions to help the J6 defendants as “lies and grifting”, when in reality, they are simply upset that this failed promise by McCarthy is being exposed in a very public manner on my Twitter account, and J6 lawyers and defendants are publicly agreeing with me and calling Kevin McCarthy and his establishment lackeys out for more failed promises.
McCarthy advocates argued that people who don’t have the footage are simply “bad lawyers” and that myself and others who are calling McCarthy out for not publicly releasing the footage “don’t understand how the process works”. However, it is evident to everyone who wants to be honest about this situation that Kevin McCarthy is playing semantic games with the public in an effort to conceal the fact that all of the J6 footage has still not been released to the American public, despite his promise to do so.
They argue that J6 defendants who want the footage need to contact the House Administrative Committee with their case number and request for footage, but that process doesn’t appear to be efficient or reliable.
When I posted the contact information for the House Administrative Committee with instructions for how defendants could request the footage, my post was replied to by Lloyd Cruz, a J6 defendant who said the Secretary at the office put him on hold, and appeared to have no idea what the defendant was talking about, and told him “the footage has already been released” by Tucker Carlson.
Lloyd tweeted, “The guy I talked to said he has no idea how I can get the footage. He tried to tell me some has already been released.”
Firstly, it is rather concerning that the phone operator at the office where J6 defendants and their lawyers are being directed to request the J6 footage is aloof and unable to properly satisfy the questions asked of them, and secondly, it is a blatant lie that Tucker Carlson has “released the footage”. In an episode of his show this week, Tucker Carlson said his team had received 42,000 hours of footage and that his “team” would be reviewing it. However, it is mathematically impossible to review 42,000 hours of footage in one week, and many members of the American Public have been quick to point this out.
However, it goes further than that. Every J6 defendant is facing potentially decades in prison in this Soviet Style Witch hunt of Trump supporters who attended the protest at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The current and future J6 defendants have an absolute right under the United States Constitution, as interpreted in the Brady case, to have access to all 42,000 hours of footage that is being embargoed by Kevin McCarthy with Tucker Carlson.
The Brady decision ruled that the defense has the right to examine all evidence that may be of an exculpatory nature. In light of the fact that many J6 trials are completed, ongoing, and imminent, the only way to ensure defendants’ Brady rights are protected is an immediate, public, complete, full and unconditional release of all footage in an open source format for the American public to review and see themselves.
With the amount of footage at issue, and it should be noted that the DOJ and Kevin McCarthy first claimed and told the American Public for over two years that it was14,000 hours, and now he’s saying it’s 42,000 hours (3 times the amount of footage originally claimed) then only a public release of the footage, with the ability of tens or hundreds of millions of people being able to review it immediately in an open-source format, will even come close to helping ensure that defendants’ Brady rights are protected and upheld, as well as ensuring that that American Public is given 100% transparency about what happened on January 6, 2021.
It is practically impossible for any small group of human beings – either at a law firm, or a “team” of producers who work for Tucker Carlson at anti-Trump Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News – to complete any meaningful review of the footage in time for the J6 trials.
And let’s be honest, Kevin McCarthy knows this. But he needs to deceive the American public into believing otherwise, or else he could possibly be subjected to a “Motion to Vacate the Chair” under the new concessions made during the 14 failed votes it took in order for McCarthy to strongarm and lie his way into the Speaker’s seat.
If Kevin McCarthy wants to play semantic games and Russian Roulette with the lives of J6 defendants and their families, then I will continue to ride his ass like a cowboy with spurred boots on a unbroken horse on a daily basis until all 42,000 hours of the J6 footage is released, not just to Tucker Carlson, but to the entire American Public. Until then, it’s just business as usual for Kevin McCarthy, MTG, and other House Republicans: Promises made, promises broken!
McCarthy is apparently withholding 3 thousand hours for nation security issues. It’s BS. Time to go on full on war of the words until McCarthy is removed and MTG is voted out of office.
I say we have ground to execute the Motion to Vacate the Chair for McCarthy.