Tucker Carlson has D.C. spinning as he prepares another batch of never-seen Jan. 6 video turned over by Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The Fox News host aired his first installment Monday night and is promising to release more.
The effort dovetails with the work of Republicans on Capitol Hill, led by McCarthy. The Republicans are trying to claw back the findings of the House Jan. 6 investigation — with former President Donald Trump in their sights.
Trump on Tuesday contended that Carlson’s presentation was “irrefutable” evidence that rioters have been wrongly accused of crimes and he thanked the host and the speaker for their work. Carlson praised McCarthy as having “rectified” the official record.
Trump is seeking re-election in 2024.
Trump called anew for the release from custody of people who have been convicted or have pleaded guilty to charges from the attack.
At the same time, criticism poured in from Democrats — and some top Republicans, too — over the GOP’s attempt to amplify falsehoods about the attack that was seen around the world as Trump supporters laid siege to the seat of U.S. democracy.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said it was a “mistake” for Fox News to depict the footage as it did — at odds with what he and others witnessed first hand at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In the roughly 30-minute segment, Fox distilled the thousands of hours of footage of the gruesome scenes at the Capitol that day and did show some of the hand-to-hand combat as rioters laid siege to the building, broke windows and kicked down doors to gain entry.
But he also emphasized imagery of the invaders, some in combat gear and wielding flagpoles, merely milling about the gilded halls, taking pictures of the surroundings during pauses in the hours-long attack.
“These were not insurrectionist. They were sightseers,” Carlson said.
The footage he aired focused on one of the highest-profile rioters, Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman,” garbed in his horned hat and bare-chested, as he poked around the building, officers standing by or opening doors. Chansley pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
Capitol Police officers who were defending against the mob have testified to their harrowing experiences — one said she was slipping in other people’s blood, while another told of being crushed in the mob — as they worked and ultimately failed to block the rioters from storming the Capitol.
Among those who died in the riot and its aftermath were Trump supporter Ashli Babbit who was shot by police and Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick who died after fighting the mob.
Carlson aired footage of Sicknick inside the Capitol picking up posters and politely ushering protesters out the door, portraying that as evidence the officer was not killed in the crush.
That last was denounced by Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger as “the most disturbing accusation from last night.”
“The Department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day,” Chief Manger said in a memo to his police force.
He said the program “cherry-picked” from calmer moments of the day, ignoring “the chaos and violence that happened before or during.”
The Sicknick family said in a statement that the footage simply showed that Brian Sicknick bravely resumed his duties for a time after he had been attacked by a chemical agent.
Ken Sicknick, Brian Sicknick’s brother, said in an interview that the family is “at a loss” about how to fight back against a network with millions of viewers and the speaker of the House who gave access to the footage.
Law enforcement failures on Jan. 6 have been investigated in Congress and acknowledged: Police failed to heed signs of a looming attack and were slow to provide an adequate response, including reinforcement from the National Guard stationed nearby.
Nearly 1,000 people have been charged by the Justice Department in the siege, with members of the extremist Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups facing rare charges of sedition for their roles at the front of the assault. Several members of the Oath Keepers have been found guilty of sedition
Most of the defendants face lesser misdemeanor charges for having been on hand during the siege.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are mounting an effort to retell the history of Jan. 6 through the House Administration Committee, which has opened an online portal for submissions from the public.
Some GOP leaders, however, appeared uncomfortable with McCarthy’s move and the way the footage was being used.
Senate Republican leader McConnell quickly distanced himself from the endeavor, saying he wanted to “associate myself entirely with the opinion of the chief of the Capitol Police about what happened.”
McConnell said, “Clearly the chief of the Capitol Police correctly describes what most of us witnessed firsthand on Jan. 6.”
Pressed about Jan. 6, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2. Republican, said, “It was an attack on the Capitol.”