House Republicans on Tuesday defended their plan to provide Fox host Tucker Carlson and his producers unfettered access to more than 40,000 hours of video footage from Jan. 6 2021, but said the release is coordinated and that it will go through a process before it is ultimately released.

It's still not clear when Carlson plans to air the footage or what specific footage he intends to show, but his team does not have the ability to record the footage and is required to view the material in a controlled environment and cannot take footage with them.

Without elaborating, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said at a news conference that what gets released "is going to obviously be scrutinized" and accused former Houser Speaker Nancy Pelosi of exposing sensitive information through the footage that was played during the Jan. 6 hearings.

The Jan. 6 investigators didn't release the video without close consultation with the Capitol Police and their general counsel, however, according to sources familiar with their work. The general counsel would review footage that the committee wanted to show and then come back with specific requests of what video to trim or what video they did not want to be used publicly. Committee investigators also had to view the video in a dedicated terminal set up by the Capitol Police.

"Well, of course, if you watch what the January 6 committee did, under Speaker Pelosi, they actually released a lot of video that was very sensitive," Scalise said. "I mean, they literally released video of Vice President Pence exiting the Capitol showing the route that he takes. I didn't hear a lot of concern about that back then. We were concerned how selective they were."

"So, people should ask the J6 committee if they were concerned about national security aspects when the released a ton of footage," Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said.

Behind closed doors during a conference meeting on Tuesday, McCarthy defended the arrangement with Carlson and the importance of "transparency," according to sources in the room.

McCarthy has ignored reporters' questions regarding the Jan. 6 tapes, including a number of times on Tuesday. He dodged ABC News' questions about releasing the tapes and potential security concerns.

A lawyer representing media outlets, including ABC News, has sent a letter to congressional leaders requesting that the footage be made available to additional media outlets and not just the opinion arm of Fox News.

The Justice Department has already made public hundreds of hours of surveillance and body camera footage as part of their more than 900 prosecutions of rioters charged in the attack on the Capitol. But at times, the DOJ has joined with the Capitol Police in expressing concerns over the release of some footage that could disclose sensitive areas in the Capitol, the location of closed-circuit cameras, and other sensitive security movements.

Separately, a coalition of media outlets, including ABC News, has also fought in court for the release of exhibits from those prosecutions, in many cases over the objections of defendants.