A group of nine news outlets is suing for access to more than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage taken during the Jan. 6 riot that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has only made available to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson.
The outlets filed the lawsuit on Wednesday against the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s offices at the Justice Department, demanding access to the surveillance footage and arguing it should be made available to all media outlets. The group is requesting access to the footage through the two government agencies, seeking to circumvent approval from McCarthy and Congress in their request.
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“Plaintiffs here are among the many news organizations that have been denied access to the Capitol Surveillance Videos by the Speaker’s Office,” the lawsuit states. “That denial of access is a stark change of pace for these Plaintiffs, as over the past two years they have diligently, cooperatively, and successfully pursued and obtained access to thousands of videos of the Capitol riot that have been used as evidence or otherwise become judicial records in more than a hundred cases in this District against those charged with organizing or participating in the riot.”
Nine news outlets signed on to the lawsuit, including the Associated Press, Advance Publications, CNN, CBS Broadcasting, the E.W. Scripps Company, Gannett Company, Politico, Pro Publica, and the New York Times Company.
McCarthy agreed to give Carlson access to the tapes after demands from Republican lawmakers who pushed the party leader for weeks to release the video. McCarthy has repeatedly defended his decision to share the footage, arguing the release was important to ensure a transparent investigation into the Capitol riot.
The House speaker vowed to make the footage available to other news outlets once Carlson’s crew finished sifting through it, but no other organization has been able to access the tapes since then.
A slate of news organizations wrote a letter to McCarthy in late February demanding access to the footage, arguing it should be made available to other outside groups as well. Several media outlets later submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the FBI for access to the footage, but the agency was “unable to identify” the requested records, according to the lawsuit.
“It defies belief that the FBI would be unable to locate the Capitol Surveillance Videos given that the FBI is leading the investigation into the Capitol riot, that the Department of Justice has represented in court that it has ‘accumulated … more than 14,000 hours of camera footage from the U.S. Capitol Police’s extensive system of cameras on U.S. Capitol grounds,’ and that the FBI has published clips and still images from the Capitol Surveillance Videos on its own website,” the lawsuit states.
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Carlson debuted his first segment on the Capitol riot tapes in early March, using the footage to portray the riot as “mostly peaceful chaos.” Democrats denounced Carlson’s coverage and McCarthy’s decision to provide the footage, with several lawmakers calling the move dangerous to national security.
"Giving someone as disingenuous as Tucker Carlson exclusive access to this type of sensitive information is a grave mistake by Speaker McCarthy that will only embolden supporters of the Big Lie and weaken faith in our democracy," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote in a letter in February. "Let me be clear, the Senate strongly objects to the release of this sensitive security footage to Tucker Carlson and Fox News. The speaker — nor any elected official — does not have the right to jeopardize the safety of senators nor Senate and Capitol staff for their own political purposes. Period."