Congress could be forced to release a trove of security camera footage from the Capitol riot

A lawsuit demanding Congress release a vast trove of surveillance video from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that's currently the subject of legal fights has the potential to "set a new precedent for what kinds of information Congress must disclose, and when," POLITICO reports.

"In her June opinion, Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson concluded that House and Senate records could sometimes be subject to a centuries-old 'common-law right' of public access. The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch had filed a suit seeking copies of subpoenas the House Intelligence Committee issued during the first impeachment investigation into former President Donald Trump," POLITICO's Josh Gerstein writes. "The appeals court ruled that the Constitution's "speech or debate" clause precluded the group's suit, but Henderson — an appointee of former President George H. W. Bush — said in a solo concurrence that in the right case it might be possible to force Congress to disclose some of its records."

The lawsuit was brought by the public-interest law firm National Security Counselors on behalf of Shawn Musgrave, who is a freelance journalist in California.

"The public's right to know what its government is up to has been around as long as our nation, but until recently that right has generally only been exercised against the executive and judicial branches," said attorney Kel McClanahan, who is representing Musgrave. "This doesn't change the fact that there are numerous public records being currently withheld by the legislative branch which shouldbe widely available, especially now that some of the failings on 1/6 can be fairly traced back to the lack of transparency and oversight."

Read the full report over at POLITICO.