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Tucker Carlson and the Forbidden Tapes

State of the Union: Takeaways from the first part of Tucker Carlson’s investigation of January 6 security footage.

2022 FOX Nation Patriot Awards
HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 17: Tucker Carlson speaks during 2022 FOX Nation Patriot Awards at Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood on November 17, 2022 in Hollywood, Florida. (Photo by Jason Koerner/Getty Images)

On Monday, Tucker Carlson released the first part of his team’s investigation into about 40,000 hours of security footage from the U.S. capitol from January 6, 2021. The video footage Carlson played for his large nightly audience proved the uniparty narrative surrounding the events of January 6 was a massive hoax. 

“Democrats in congress, assisted by Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, lied about what happened that day. They are liars. That is conclusive, and that fact should prevent them from ever being taken seriously again,” Carlson said Monday night.

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Carlson certainly has a way with words—it’s no secret why his nightly program constantly tops the ratings, and by a wide margin. But on Monday, the footage Carlson played said more than Carlson ever could.

The first series of clips Carlson played was additional footage not previously made public of January 6 demonstrators nonviolently milling about the capitol, often right alongside Capitol security staff and Capitol police officers. Certainly, some of the first to enter the capitol broke windows and forced open the door. But for the hundreds that followed, they seemed unaware of the damage and were clearly nonviolent. Police simply let them in. Some are seen stopping to clean up some damage caused by previous individuals. Others milled about tables in halls with literature displayed. Many followed the stanchions often found in the capitol rotunda and elsewhere on the capitol grounds. The focus then shifted to Jacob Chansley, better known as the QAnon Shaman. Capitol police officers, on their own volition, guided Chansley throughout the Capitol and came into close contact with many other officers. Even when police outnumbered Chansley nine to one, they did not move to arrest or remove Chansley. Chansley later would thank the officers in prayer on the Senate floor.

Over at National Review, Noah Rothman writes that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation to all of this:

This is hardly the only excruciatingly well-documented example of outmanned police officers calmly engaging with demonstratorsclearing the way for or corralling intruders in the Capitol complex, or retreating to more defensible terrain. Nor is this specific act of deference by Capitol Police officers remarkable.

But if January 6 was what the media and the January 6 Select Committee say it was—a violent insurrection meant to break the peaceful transfer of power and forcibly take control of the federal government in the name of Donald Trump—is that a scenario in which Capitol Police should not only stand aside, but guide January 6 participants around the Capitol? Of course not. By their actions, the officers on the ground clearly did not interpret the protestors making their way into the Capitol as some assault on American democracy. If I am wrong—if officers did understand this as an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, then the Capitol Police Department should be gutted. Their cowardice would make the Afghan security forces' defense of Kabul look like the Battle of Thermopylae.

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The second installment focused on the death of Brian Sicknick, once and for all debunking the claim that Sicknick died from a blow to the head from a fire extinguisher wielded by a January 6 protestor. The story of Sicknick’s alleged murder was first published by the New York Times. The Times was eventually forced to quietly edit their continued coverage of Sicknick's death. Yet, the narrative had already taken root—many in the uniparty still claim that January 6 protestors, and more specifically former President Donald Trump, are somehow to blame for Sicknick’s death. But video footage obtained by Tucker Carlson Tonight should put the narrative to rest for good; it depicts Sicknick wearing a helmet walking through the capitol supposedly after he was murdered by January 6 protestors. Nevertheless, the January 6 Committee, who had access to the same footage Carlson showed Monday night, knowingly lied about the circumstances of Sicknick’s death.

Later, Carlson honed in on one of the biggest questions surrounding January 6: the involvement of a man named Ray Epps. Officials have admitted that federal agents were at the Capitol on January 6, though the Fox News program was not able to figure out how many and what involvement they had over the course of the day. Nevertheless, the story of Epps is peculiar. Footage already made public of January 6 and the day prior showed Epps whipping up demonstrators into frenzies, imploring them not only to march to the Capitol, but to go inside. Unlike hundreds of others at the Capitol on January 6, Epps was never indicted. The January 6 Committee eventually caved to public pressure to interview Epps, and Epps told the committee he had not committed a crime because he never entered the Capitol. Yet, in text messages, Epps boasted about “orchestrat[ing]” January 6. Epps testified that when he sent that text, Epps had already left the Capitol complex and was headed back to his hotel room, but time stamped surveillance footage showed that Epps was there a half an hour after he had sent the text—right at the front lines of the demonstration. As Carlson pointed out, “Democrats had access to the same tape, but they defended Ray Epps. No honest investigation would do that.”

“But the point of the January 6 Committee was never to investigate anything. The point was to stage a made-for-T.V. show trial,” Carlson said. 

It's no wonder why the uniparty, so clearly reflected in the members selected to serve on the January 6 Select Committee, fought hard to keep these tapes from the public. 

And the media was in on it too. As the events of January 6 unfolded, the corporate media thought they found the silver bullet that would finally kill Trump’s political career. The narrative outran the facts.

Much like the Russia hoax, as claims about the circumstances and events of January 6 slowly dripped out, they were bent and twisted to fit into the preexisting narrative. Each proclaimed development provided another rush of schadenfreude-induced serotonin for the media. “The walls are finally closing in around Trump,” they exasperatedly exclaimed yet again.

The Biden administration’s subsequent crackdown on January 6 participants provided a steady stream of January 6 related coverage. But when news broke that many January 6 participants were being kept in deplorable conditions in pretrial detention, conditions the Biden administration felt fit the deplorables that occupied these jail cells, the media fell silent. Calling for transparency or accountability would contravene the narrative.

So, too, could scrutinizing the January 6 Committee or its findings. The media bought the line from Democrats and the January 6 Committee that security footage from January 6 had to remain hidden from the media and the public because of unspecified security concerns.

Only when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy decided to hand the security footage, with oversight from the Capitol Police, over to Tucker Carlson did the media rediscover their “journalistic integrity.” The media complained that Carlson, the only major corporate media figure who seemed at all interested in what actually happened on January 6, would use the footage to spread fake news. Simply showing the public the unedited tape constituted disinformation—don’t believe your lying eyes. 

The real reason the media was outraged at McCarthy giving the security footage to Carlson was because they knew Carlson cannot be controlled by the regime and would reveal the media’s complicity in yet another hoax perpetrated on the American people. As Carlson reminded viewers Monday, the January 6 Committee even brought in professional producers, including James Goldston, a producer for ABC’s Good Morning America, to make the production as emotionally provocative as possible. Scenes, including the infamous clip of Josh Hawley allegedly running from the mob he supposedly supported, were deceptively edited. The committee and its media producers even added rambunctious crowd audio to dramatize the footage.

In the January 6 Committee’s final report, the committee made a series of salacious and already provably false claims about Trump’s involvement in January 6. The committee claimed they had uncovered a plot fit for a supervillain “devised” by Trump “to overturn the 2020 election and block the transfer of power.” The January 6 “insurrection” was Trump’s failsafe, according to the committee: “When his scheme to stay in power through political pressure hit roadblocks, [Trump] relentlessly pushed ahead with a parallel plan: summoning a mob to gather in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.” But Trump was not alone in this supposed masterplan. He had co-conspirators, some of them Republican members of the House.

The January 6 Committee’s report accused Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican from Georgia, of giving January 6 demonstrators a tour of the Capitol on January 5 so they could case the joint. But the alleged tour to case the Capitol was nothing more than a standard tour given by Rep. Loudermilk to a group of his constituents—the kind readily offered by every Congressional office. Furthermore, Loudermilk didn’t even take the group into the Capitol building—rather, they toured an adjacent Capitol office building.

“If there’s one takeaway from the corpus of footage that we spent three weeks looking at, it’s that the January 6 Committee lied. Its members are liars, and as a result of those lies, core civil liberties in this country were eroded, people went to prison, they’re in prison as of right now unjustly,” Carlson said Monday night. “Those lies had consequences.”

Carlson continued:

You have to ask yourself, whatever happened to the members of the January 6 Committee? These liars who hurt people and the country? Well, let’s see: Adam Schiff is running for Senate, Adam Kinzinger got a job at CNN, Liz Cheney somehow wound up a professor at the University of Virginia—the august University of Virginia. They’re all still there.

Indeed. Since wrapping up the committee’s work and leaving Congress, individuals such as Kinzinger and Cheney have toured the country lecturing the public about principles and truth despite their shameless disregard for both. And the depth of their deceit will continue to unfold—Carlson is airing part two of the investigation tonight.

Never forget how this lie ruined many lives—they drove some January 6 participants to suicide. It’s a lie so big, Cheney’s father might blush at the thought of it, depending on if his ticker is working well that day. While her father was never held accountable for his lies, Cheney, the rest of the January 6 Committee, and the media, must be held accountable for theirs.