The January 6 committee has effectively admitted that it failed to give the American people a fair and accurate assessment of the Capitol riots.
In a statement to CNN, select committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) asserted the panel never analyzed the “never-before-seen” J6 footage Fox News aired this week.
“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.”
Whether or not it is true that the panel members’ staffers merely “kind of went through the video” or they personally knew about the video and chose to hide it from the public, it was the responsibility of the January 6 “investigation” to portray a balanced and accurate assessment of the event.
Every member of the committee, Democrat and anti-Trump Republican, signed off on the final report, which is as partisan, one-sided, and “cherry picked” a report as you are going to find from an alleged “bipartisan” committee. Chairman Bennie Thompson, Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), D. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Elain Luria (D-VA), and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and their staff all put their names on this document as an attestation that it was a fair and accurate summation of the “fact-finding” mission.
Instead, the J6 hearings were a forum for political axe-grinding against Donald Trump and his supporters, rather than a sober and serious-minded attempt to get to the truth. If that were the case, then the footage aired by Tucker Carlson, regardless of your agreement with the Fox News host’s politics, would have been aired in public. This not only would have provided a more nuanced view of the complex event, but it would have raised doubt about the guilt of several of the protesters, such as Jacob Chansley, nicknamed (disingenuously) as the “Q Anon Shaman.”
Chansley’s case is illustrative of the J6 committee’s dishonest characterization of the event. Footage aired on Carlson’s show reveals quite clearly that at least nine Capitol police officers were complicit with being led to the Senate chamber, where he would iconically grandstand in a speech to fellow “patriots.”
This footage alone threatens to upend the state’s narrative that the Capitol riots was a spontaneous protest that was incited by former President Donald Trump. The Capitol Police’s behavior clearly implies planning and an operation to stage optics in the Senate chamber that would frame the protests in a negative light.
Footage has recently come to light that further throws into doubt that the Capitol riots was fueled by Donald Trump’s actions on that day. Chansley himself had pleaded with protesters to remain peaceful and to go home, because that’s what President Trump had urged them to do.
Now, “fact checkers” are throwing away the last remaining shreds of their credibility to desperately support the state’s narrative that people aren’t seeing what they are actually seeing.
ALX pointed out that Instagram is “fact checking” reposts of Elon Musk’s tweet with video of Chansley being led around the Capitol building by the Capitol Police. He attached “fact checks” that said the claim “has no basis in fact.” It included Politifact, AFP, and Lead Stories as among the parties spreading disinformation about the videos.
“The Capitol Police literally opened the Senate chamber door for him on camera!” Musk exclaimed. “But who are you going to believe, Instagram ‘fact-checkers’ or your own lying eyes!?”
One of the claims being made by “fact checkers” to “debunk” the video is that Chansley had pleaded guilty to Obstruction of an Official Proceeding. However, as his attorney has pointed out, the video was withheld from his client and his defense team and constitutes exculpatory evidence.
Albert Watkins, Chansley’s attorney, appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight and explained.
“It’s a tragedy,” Watkins said. “What’s happened is truly a dagger in the heart of the justice system. We can’t allow it.”
“This is about our justice system being so compromised,” he continued. “The very integrity and core of that which we wore as a badge of honor for the entirety of our nation’s history has been rendered a vile, disgusting mess by a Department of Justice that was runnink amok.”
“And they didn’t share the video of my client, the footage of my client, with 9 officers surrounding him, peacefully wandering about, trying to help him, trying to get him access to the Senate chamber,” he added. “They didn’t because it didn’t fit their narrative.”
The Jacob Chansley case wasn’t the only one that failed to fit the Democrats’ “insurrection” narrative. Carlson’s footage also showed that uncharged agent provocateur Ray Epps lied to congressional investigators about his whereabouts on the day of the riot. Yet Epps, purportedly a “MAGA” activist, bafflingly is defended by Trump haters and the media.
The tapes also showed now-deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick walking “vigorously” around the Capitol rotunda after he was allegedly injured in an altercation with protesters.
Now, the Department of Justice is being hit with a legal motion to stop insinuating that January 6 protesters caused police officers’ deaths. That’s what it might take to get the U.S. government to stop lying to the American people.