If you watched CNN and MSNBC last week, you might have thought Fox News’ Tucker Carlson painted the 2021 Capitol riot as a harmless peace parade, with a minotaur as its patriotic grand marshal. But Carlson said nothing of the sort. (That’s how former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkin described the deadly anarchy that gripped her city in the summer of 2020.)
Last Monday and Tuesday night, Carlson’s program aired new surveillance footage of the U.S. Capitol from the Jan. 6 riot that undermined the left’s narrative of a “deadly insurrection.” Contrary to critics’ claims that Carlson entirely glossed over the riot, he showed viewers graphic scenes of the turmoil that legacy outlets and Democrats on the Jan. 6 Committee had endlessly played for Americans.
“These are the pictures you’ve seen of Jan. 6,” Carlson said. “But it turns out there’s quite a bit of video you haven’t seen. And that video tells a very different story about what happened on Jan. 6.”
Carlson’s team reviewed more than 40,000 hours of security footage kept under seal by the Democrats’ House majority. The network was given access to the Capitol surveillance tapes by new Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Last week, Carlson published the findings.
‘QAnon Shaman’ Was VIP Guest of Capitol Police
Footage from the Jan. 6 surveillance tapes show that Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman” who quickly became the face of the pro-Trump “insurrection,” was escorted around the complex by Capitol Police. Officers are seen guiding Chansley to multiple entrances and even appear to check for unlocked doors.
“They helped him. They acted as his tour guides,” said Carlson. “We counted at least nine officers who were within touching distance of unarmed Jacob Chansley. Not one of them tried to slow him down.”
In the fall of 2021, Chansley was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
[READ: Newly Released J6 Tapes Show Capitol Police Giving Guided Tour To So-Called ‘Q-Anon Shaman’]
Brian Sicknick Walked Around ‘Vigorously’ After He Was Allegedly Murdered
Fox News also aired footage of since-deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick walking around the complex after altercations with demonstrators that supposedly killed him.
Democrats and the legacy press exploited Sicknick’s death on Jan. 7, 2021, claiming it was a direct consequence of clashes with demonstrators. First, The New York Times claimed Sicknick’s death was due to a blunt-force injury from a fire extinguisher. After the paper issued a quiet correction, CNN linked Sicknick’s death to a chemical irritant, such as pepper spray or bear spray from the crowd. The D.C. medical examiner’s office concluded in a report published a month later that Sicknick had died of natural causes. House Democrats, however, continued to use the officer’s death as justification to label the riot “deadly” for Capitol Police.
“To this day, media accounts describe Sicknick as someone who was ‘slain’ on Jan. 6,” Carlson said. “The video we reviewed proves that was a lie. … By all appearances, Brian Sicknick is healthy and vigorous. He’s wearing a helmet, so it’s hard to imagine he was killed by a head injury.”
[READ: New J6 Tapes Show Brian Sicknick Walking Around After Dems Claimed He Was Murdered]
Even after the publication of the J6 tapes, the White House repeated the debunked lie that Sicknick died from injuries suffered at the Capitol riot.
Ray Epps Lied to Congress
Carlson’s third segment focused on the testimony of Ray Epps, a man suspected of being a federal informant who urged protesters to storm the Capitol on both the eve and day of the riot. The FBI has refused to answer questions about his alleged connection with federal law enforcement, and the Democrats’ Jan. 6 Committee has sought to clear his name of any wrongdoing after his encouragement to storm the Capitol.
“Epps told the committee that he never entered the Capitol, and therefore never committed a crime,” Carlson said. “Text messages show that at 2:12 p.m., he boasted to his nephew that he had ‘orchestrated the protests at the Capitol.'”
Epps told the House panel that when he sent the text messages to his nephew, he had already left the complex for his hotel room.
“That is not true,” Carlson said. “The surveillance footage we found shows that in fact, Ray Epps remained at the Capitol for at least another half an hour.”
“What was Epps doing there? We can’t say,” Carlson added. “But we do know that he lied to investigators. The Jan. 6 Committee likely knew this too. Democrats had access to the same tape, yet they defended Ray Epps.”
J6 Committee Edited Footage to Frame Josh Hawley as a Coward
Footage aired by Fox News shows the Jan. 6 Committee deceptively sliced surveillance tape to make Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., look like a coward running away from protesters. By merely extending the tape by just a few seconds, Carlson showed Hawley merely evacuating the Capitol with other members of Congress.
Tapes Debunk Loudermilk ‘Reconnaissance Tours’
More Capitol surveillance footage aired by Fox News exposed another Democrat lie: that Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., gave demonstrators reconnaissance tours ahead of the Jan. 6 riot. The surveillance tapes aired on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” show Loudermilk giving a standard tour of the Capitol to constituents.
“The FBI totally cleared them,” Loudermilk told Carlson. “The committee knew this before they actually made their accusations against me.”
Pelosi Left Police Unprepared
On Tuesday, Carlson indicted former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for leaving Capitol Police officers unprepared to confront mass demonstrations.
“You may notice that the one person, really, who was never blamed for anything that happened on Jan. 6, was the very same person who was in charge of the police force, the Capitol Hill police that was charged with security safety on Jan. 6,” Carlson said. “That person was Nancy Pelosi.”
After the speaker barred them from the official select committee, the House Republicans tasked with investigating the riot outlined Pelosi’s negligence in the minority report they published in December. Pelosi’s deputies on the House panel, however, shielded the speaker from scrutiny throughout the two-year probe.
Carlson interviewed former Capitol Police Officer Tarik Johnson, who blew the whistle on leadership’s failures.
[READ: Tucker Carlson Indicts Nancy Pelosi For Jan. 6 Security Failures]
J6 Committee Chair: We Actually Didn’t Review Any of the Surveillance Video
On Wednesday, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chaired the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, bizarrely claimed that over its two-year investigation, the panel never analyzed the blockbuster footage aired by Fox News.
“I’m not actually aware of any member of the committee who had access,” Thompson said. “We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.”
The claim makes no sense when considering lawmakers are supposed to have more access to information than their staff, not less.
Senate Republicans Cave to Dem Propaganda
Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell talked to reporters Wednesday on Capitol Hill to trash Fox News for airing the Jan. 6 footage.
“With regard to the presentation on Fox News last night, I want to associate myself entirely with the opinion of the chief of the Capitol Police about what happened on Jan. 6,” McConnell said, waving around a copy of the memo that Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger had sent his department hours earlier calling Carlson’s coverage “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions.”
The comments made McConnell sound like Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who demanded that Fox News rip Carlson off the air.
Other Senate Republicans — who likely failed to watch Carlson’s series on the J6 tapes and relied on CNN reporting instead — followed in McConnell’s footsteps when confronted with cheap-shot questions from reporters. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham all fell for the Democrats’ left-wing propaganda.