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A couple of months into his tenure as House speaker, Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy thought it’d be a good idea to give Tucker Carlson exclusive access to Jan. 6 security camera footage. The results were predictable: The host, before his departure from Fox News, cherry-picked footage that allowed him to tell the deceptive story he set out to tell, sparking outrage from both parties and law enforcement.
Nearly 10 months later, McCarthy’s successor, House Speaker Mike Johnson decided it was time to go a step further and release thousands of hours of security footage to the public. The results were again predictable: As The New York Times reported, the move has “fueled a renewed effort by Republican lawmakers and far-right activists to rewrite the history of the attack that day and exonerate the pro-Trump rioters who took part.”
The Times added that many on the right, as if on cue, are “using the Jan. 6 video to circulate an array of false claims and conspiracy theories about the largest attack on the Capitol in centuries.”
House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner was asked if he’s comfortable with this. The Ohio Republican’s answer left much to be desired. The conservative Washington Times reported:
House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner said House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to make public the Capitol security video footage of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot is an important step for Americans to learn the truth about what happened that day. “It’s important for Americans to know the truth,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Using careful language, Turner said the discussion surrounding Jan. 6 has been “fraught with an unbelievable amount of misinformation and untruths,” and with the footage released, the public won’t be “depending upon really partisan descriptions of what happened.”
When NBC News’ Kristen Welker noted that some of Turner’s Republican colleagues have “cherry-picked some of the images to frankly further some conspiracy theories,” the GOP congressman replied, “I think it’s been cherry-picked by both sides,” before quickly referring to the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee, which he accused of giving “just one view.”
Turner concluded by again reiterating, “I think it’s important that the speaker has taken this step because now people can see the truth.”
At face value, such rhetoric might seem relatively anodyne, but there are two key problems to keep in mind. The first is the idea that there was something untoward about the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee’s work. To date, neither the House Intelligence Committee chairman nor any of his Republican colleagues have uncovered any meaningful flaws in the panel’s hearings or final report.
The committee might’ve provided “one view,” to borrow Turner’s phrasing, but with reality in mind, it also provided the accurate view.
Similarly, the Ohioan might like the idea of blaming “both sides” for cherry-picked misinformation, but if there’s any evidence of Democrats engaging in such tactics with Jan. 6 footage, the GOP has kept it well hidden.
But what stood out as especially notable was the Ohio Republican’s repeated reference to “truths.” Turner said, “I think it’s important for Americans to know the truth. ... [N]ow people can see the truth.”
In reality, we’ve already seen the truth. As a Washington Post analysis explained this week, “There is no mystery about the Capitol riot. There is nothing intangible, no unseen engine for what occurred. There is no uncertainty about what happened and why.”
To argue that Americans will “now” know what happened is to suggest that there were some unanswered questions about the insurrectionist assault on the Capitol nearly three years ago, which can now be answered. For those genuinely interested in the truth, no such questions exist.