Kinzinger Erupts After McCarthy Gives Carlson Jan. 6 Footage

This week, many critics of the House Jan. 6 Committee’s selective release of evidence from the 2021 protest on Capitol Hill celebrated House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to release a trove of surveillance footage to Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson.

Reports indicate the California Republican handed over about 41,000 hours of video.

“If there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on January 6,” Carlson said. “By definition, this video will reveal it. It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that.”

After spending months claiming that they wanted to get to the bottom of what many leftists inaccurately refer to as an “insurrection,” however, members of the House panel investigating the protest were outraged by McCarthy’s action.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) disparaged both the House speaker and Fox News host, tweeting: “Kevin McCarthy turned over Jan 6 videos to right-wing propagandist Tucker Carlson. A man who spews Kremlin talking points. Suggests Jan 6 was a false flag. And spreads the Big Lie. Make no mistake: This isn’t about transparency, it’s about fueling dangerous conspiracy theories.”

For his part, one of the two Republicans who sat on the committee continued to side with Democrats like Schiff. In his own tweet on the topic, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tacitly acknowledged that the committee on which he served chose not to demand the full scope of surveillance footage from the protest.

Comparing McCarthy unfavorably to House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), he complained that the House speaker did not turn the footage over to Congress or “investigators.”

As commentators pointed out, however, members of Congress — specifically those on the Jan. 6 committee — should have been able to access all of the evidence he is now so upset that Carlson has.

RedState writer Nick Arama concluded that Kinzinger’s reaction exposes the true intention of the Jan. 6 panel.

“If he cared about transparency, they would have put the footage out there,” Arama wrote. What they cared about was attacking Trump and that was their focus.”

Carlson himself said upon receiving the evidence that “there was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret.”

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