Fox News host Tucker Carlson sent the news cycle into a frenzy when he released never-before-seen footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol.

The Biden administration , Democrats in Congress, and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reacted with anger. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) warned Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch to restrain Carlson from releasing any further footage claiming, "Our democracy depends on it."

Missing from all these criticisms is the "why?" Why do these folks believe that transparency is a bad thing? They just say the video releases are dangerous and wrong. Is that because when direct footage is released, people can form their own conclusions rather than get their opinions from preapproved media sources?

The Jan. 6 committee was formed to "investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol." Countless subpoenas, interviews, hearings, 19 months, and an 800-page report later, one segment on Tucker Carlson challenged the carefully shaped narrative of that day. It called into question whether ordinary Americans could be treated fairly by our government and the media. Instead of transparency and discourse, congressional leaders immediately called for draconian censorship.

Nobody is here to defend the violence and intimidation applied against the Capitol Police and others on Jan. 6. But it's now clear the Jan. 6 committee did not want you to believe that the vast majority of protesters were completely peaceful.

We know that the protesters from Jan. 6 had just lived through two years of national precedent when it came to public riots. Two years of often violent Black Lives Matter riots destroyed small businesses and led to the deaths of at least 19 people. Yet these events were met with passivity and accommodation from law enforcement. The media were generally loath to report on the violence.

We also know that FBI informants were among the crowd that entered the Capitol on Jan. 6. We know that many in the media and the Democratic Party lied when they said that Officer Brian Sicknick was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher by Trump supporters. In reality, Sicknick died from strokes the next day, a death which the Washington Medical Examiner classified as "natural causes."

We know the Jan. 6 committee was an exercise in performance theater, intent on hiding the full truth from the public and instead motivated by a desire to weaponize the organs of the federal government against former President Donald Trump and his supporters. And we know that the trials, legal fees, subpoenas, pretrial detentions, solitary confinement, and imprisonment of Trump supporters who merely walked into the Capitol building, sometimes after being pointed in that direction by Capitol police, amounts to nothing short of political persecution. Again, violent rioters on the Left have consistently gotten away without punishment for far more violent activity. This isn’t another case of whataboutism but rather an expectation of truth, justice, and fairness from our institutions.

Over a century ago, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis remarked, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." Transparency, not selectively released and deceptively edited media, is the way our government should be run. There are still a lot of questions about the events of Jan. 6. The public deserves honest answers. Unfortunately, we can no longer rely on our government to provide us with the truth.

Releasing some of the Jan. 6 tapes to the public, however, Carlson has provided more opportunities for insight. Rather than resort to calls for censorship, our divided nation needs more transparency, which can help restore trust in our institutions.

Dr. Ben Carson is the founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute.