According to a sworn affidavit from the U.S. Capitol Police's top lawyer, House Republicans ignored the agency's request to review and approve Jan. 6 video footage before it was made public, Politico reports.
Capitol Police general counsel Thomas DiBiase said that only one of the more than 40 Capitol riot clips handed over to him by the GOP that were aired on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show got previewed and approved beforehand.
"In a six-page declaration filed as part of a Jan. 6 criminal case, DiBiase described the timeline by which Republicans obtained access to the 41,000 hours of footage captured by Capitol security cameras on Jan. 6. The filing itself is an uncomfortable moment for the Capitol Police — which, as a result of the case, has been forced to describe private interactions with members and staffers in open court," Politico's report stated. "The department is typically loath to appear at odds with House leaders in particular, since it relies on the majority party for its budget and are charged with protecting its members."
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) handed the footage over to Carlson’s producers. According to DiBiase, he later learned that “personnel from the Tucker Carlson Show were allowed to view whatever footage they wanted while supervised by staff from [the House Administration Committee] but that no footage had been physically turned over to the show.”
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“Of the numerous clips shown during the Tucker Carlson show on March 6 and 7, 2023, I was shown only one clip before it aired, and that clip was from the Sensitive List,” DiBiase said. “Since that clip was substantially similar to a clip used in the Impeachment Trial and was publicly available, I approved the use of the clip. The other approximately 40 clips, which were not from the Sensitive List, were never shown to me nor anyone else from the Capitol Police.”
Jan. 6 defendant William Pope, who is representing himself, has called for the release of the footage along with several other Jan. 6 defendants who say Carlson’s access should be granted to them in order to aid their defense.
Read the full report over at Politico.
