Tucker Carlson’s January 6 Revisionist History
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
www.nationalreview.com /2023/03/tucker-carlsons-january-6-revisionist-history/
Tucker Carlson’s January 6 Revisionist History
By Noah Rothman
T he riots in and around the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, might be the most extensively photographed act of mass violence in the nation’s history. And yet, there’s still more footage of the day’s events that the public had not yet seen — closed-circuit security camera footage from inside the Capitol, in fact, which House speaker Kevin McCarthy provided to Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson. On Monday night, Carlson played that footage for his viewers and claimed that it invalidates the notion that the attack on the Capitol Building was an attack at all.
The previously unseen footage, Carlson said, “from inside the Capitol overturns the story you’ve heard about January 6.” It “does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” he added. Rather, the footage is of revelers who “revere the Capitol.” The trespassers were “peaceful,” “ordinary,” and “meek.” If you have internalized some other perception of the day’s events, that’s only because you’re so easily manipulated. “By controlling the images that you were allowed to view from January 6, they controlled how the public understood that day,” Carlson declared. “They could lie about that day, and you would never know the difference.”
This monumental allegation is not supported by the facts Carlson presented. The footage of that day’s events confirms from discrete angles an account of events already well established by media outlets and congressional investigatory bodies. If that account is unfamiliar to Fox viewers, that says more about the network and its priorities than the news outlets and institutions Carlson set out to indict.
The Fox host made several claims retailed as blockbuster revelations. The one Carlson appeared to think was the most damning involved footage of the so-called “Q Shaman,” Jacob Chansley, being escorted through the building by U.S. Capitol Police.
“To this day,” Carlson said, “there is dispute over how Chansley got into the Capitol Building.” But by whom? They would have to contend with footage already made public showing Chansley entering the building after a fellow rioter shattered and crawled through a window. Chansley testified to that.
Carlson went on to allege that police “helped him,” acting “as his tour guides.” At one point, Chansley is even escorted through a small cordon of officers, suggesting that the “Q Shaman” saw law enforcement “as his allies.” The New York Post draws the conclusion to which Carlson led it, citing a statement by USCP saying the overwhelmed officers were trying to “de-escalate” the situation. “But that does not explain why Chansley, who was unarmed, was able to walk past seven more officers without being apprehended,” the Post avers. Yes, it does.
This is hardly the only excruciatingly well-documented example of outmanned police officers calmly engaging with demonstrators , clearing the way for or corralling intruders in the Capitol complex, or retreating to more defensible terrain . Nor is this specific act of deference by Capitol Police officers remarkable. The Post later confirmed that the officer featured in Carlson’s footage, Officer Keith Robishaw, spoke with HBO documentarians about his experience with Chansley.
“The sheer number of them compared to us, I knew ahead there was no way we could all get physical with them,” Robishaw said. “I walked in behind [Chansley], and that is when I realized I am alone now. I was by myself.” Their extensive interaction in the Senate chamber, where Robishaw was surrounded by dozens of other disruptive demonstrators, was filmed up close by New Yorker correspondent Luke Mogelson. You can watch it here . Robishaw’s unheeded demands that the demonstrators evacuate the premises indicates, at the very least, that he was no one’s “tour guide.”
Carlson later asks “what did Chansley do” to deserve the months he’s already spent in a jail cell for his conduct on that day. The answer established in court by his guilty plea was criminal obstruction of a federal investigation, for which a judge sentenced him to the “low end” of the prison terms prescribed in federal sentencing guidelines: 41 months.
Suffice it to say the lone officer confronting Chansley was reduced to de-escalatory tactics, in part because his colleagues were engaged in a desperate attempt to secure his flank. That leads us to Carlson’s second contention: The attack on the Capitol was no “riot.”
“Very little about January 6 was organized or violent,” the Fox host maintains. “Surveillance video from inside the Capitol shows mostly peaceful chaos.” This is a contention that some Republican members of Congress have made citing available footage, to which the general public has supposedly never been privy.
“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures,” said Representative Andrew Clyde during a 2021 Oversight Committee hearing. “You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” Again, this tortured interpretation of events rests on the assumption that viewers are unfamiliar with or willing to compartmentalize hours of footage demonstrating the extent of the ongoing violence on the Capitol steps.
For those with the requisite curiosity, ProPublica produced an impressive interactive database of footage of the Capitol riot that allows users to bounce in real time from events inside the Capitol to the Capitol steps and around the complex. Most of those videos were culled from posts provided by users of the pro-Trump social-media website Parler , which suggests the conspiracy to hide these videos from the public was spectacularly inept.
Those videos show hours of vicious hand-to-hand combat outside the building, the officers’ crowd-control efforts inside the building, and, yes, even the rare moments of relative placidity in areas like Statuary Hall and the Capitol Rotunda. Again, you can watch the footage for yourself ( which the January 6 committee played ) to determine just how reverential the demonstrators, some of whom called repeatedly for the hanging of American elected officials even in those moments of relative calm, really were.
Another of Carlson’s contentions is that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was not, in fact, killed by demonstrators — and that, by contrast, one protester, Ashli Babbitt, was “murdered” by police.
He starts off on solid ground. As Carlson demonstrated, to his credit, the notion that Sicknick’s death was directly attributable to a physical assault was a misapprehension that mainstream-media outlets repeated for weeks after January 6. But by April 2021, the notion that Sicknick had succumbed to injuries he had suffered during the riot had been disproven by medical examiners.
Sicknick was “temporarily blinded,” according to an FBI affidavit , by a chemical spray wielded by an assailant. At 10 that night, Sicknick collapsed in the Capitol Building and died the next day in the hospital of a stroke. The cause of death was deemed “natural,” unrelated to the attack on the Capitol. That finding disputes preliminary claims that Sicknick was “ struck in the head with a fire extinguisher ,” which was widely reported in the weeks after the attack. Carlson’s testimony supports the contention that Sicknick was never assaulted with a fire extinguisher, a claim the New York Times retracted six weeks after the claim was published and without fanfare. If this sequence of events sounds unfamiliar, that may be attributable to the years that have passed since any of this occurred.
But Carlson accuses the January 6 committee of propagating the notion that Sicknick “was murdered,” which they knew full well to be a “lie” because CCTV footage he obtained shows the officer “walking around” before he had a fatal stroke. You can search in vain through the transcripts of all nine days of public testimony conducted by the January 6 committee for quotes from its members alleging that Sicknick was “murdered.” You won’t find any. One Capitol Police officer testified to Sicknick’s harrowing experience beating back rioters — a brutal and physically traumatic engagement similar to the experience endured by so many Capitol Police on that day. But neither the committee nor its witnesses misled viewers about the cause of Sicknick’s death.
Babbitt’s killing at the hands of law enforcement has also been exhaustively investigated. Once again, it’s all on video . You don’t need to take the Justice Department’s word for it; you need only refuse to gainsay the evidence of your own eyes.
Babbitt attempted to climb through an interior window, which demonstrators smashed, into the “Speaker’s Lobby,” a secure area of the Capitol. The protesters were warned by an officer with his gun drawn to not enter that area. When Babbitt ignored those warnings, U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd fired one round, striking Babbitt in the shoulder. A USPC emergency-response team immediately administered medical aid and evacuated her from the building. She later died in the hospital.
The word “murder” has a legal context, and journalists are obliged to avoid using it when it is not applicable. Babbitt was not murdered, because the officer responsible for her death was found by prosecutors to have not violated applicable criminal statutes, nor did he commit a violation of Babbitt’s civil rights. It’s possible to be skeptical of these conclusions, but that skepticism does not license the misuse of a term that describes the “unlawful killing of a human being with malice.” Conflating these terms, at best, misleads viewers. At worst, it is a deliberate effort to agitate and inflame.
The January 6 committee is not beyond criticism. Indeed, its members deserve it. Carlson touched on some legitimate avenues of critique — like the committee’s decision to feature Senator Josh Hawley running from protesters, as though he was the only member of Congress fleeing for his life. It was a cheap shot, just like the committee’s decision to feature General Mike Flynn taking advantage of his Fifth Amendment privileges when asked if he believes in “the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America.” Like most under questioning who take advantage of that right, Flynn likely declined to answer every question he was asked similarly so as not to invalidate that right. But Carlson doesn’t seem satisfied to accuse political partisans of behaving like political partisans. They must be willful conspirators themselves.
Carlson went on to allege that a “mysterious” Arizona man named Ray Epps egged on some of the protesters to invade the Capitol and later boasted that he “orchestrated” the protests, and that he “lied” in testimony to the January 6 committee about the time at which he left the demonstrations. The video evidence Carlson provided purports to prove that. Carlson alleges that Democratic members of the committee “defended” Epps, though that, too, does not appear in transcripts of committee proceedings. A spokesman for the committee did, however, note that Epps testified in interviews with the committee that he was not “working with or acting at the direction of any law-enforcement agency.” The implication is clear: Maybe Epps lied about that, too.
Epps features prominently in conspiratorial accounts of the day’s events , the authors of which finger him as an undercover FBI agent responsible for instigating the attack. It defies logic to suggest that, if Epps was an FBI plant who instigated protesters into becoming rioters, he could have commanded the thousands who engaged in criminal misconduct.
It is profoundly unfortunate that it requires this much exposition to dispute spurious allegations that can be articulated in the space of a single sentence. Carlson’s narrative has had the intended effect on its audience — from former president Donald Trump on down to state-level Republican party chairs . But those who are “just asking questions” about January 6 don’t seem much interested in the answers they’re soliciting. That is an act of political malpractice.
Republicans can ignore, dispute, or dismiss the mountains of evidence surrounding the events of January 6 all they like, but they will continue to be confronted with those events and their complicity in them. It should come as no shock that voters did not like January 6 and do not want to see it repeated . Democrats wielded this intuitive insight to great effect in 2022 , and they may do so again in 2024. If Republicans do not confront these events with clarity, honesty, and the resolve to ensure nothing like that ever happens again, they’ll find that voters will elect someone who will.
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A column on a conservative website by a conservative pundit.
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The ensuing hours are demonstrating Tucker Carlson's "expose" of "Jan 6 lies" to be one of the epic failures in the history of modern media. He is being relentlessly mocked and ridiculed and debunked across the political spectrum. "Inept" is the word most often used to describe the Monday show.
But for all the laughability of the arguments and presentation, that wont matter to the Trumpist base that worships Tucker and Fox News. They will believe every ridiculous thing he says and use it as ammunition for their "war" against liberals, the squad, wokeness, black lives matter , and every other thing they dont like about our multicultural society.
6 1/2 years ago, in the fall of 2016, I predicted on this forum that eventually the biggest problem facing America would not be Trump himself, but his cult following of aggrieved Christian nationalists, white grievance sufferers, rural folk who despise big cities, and gun lovers. Here we are with tens of millions ready to try and vote Trump back into office, and as laughable as it is, Carlsons show Monday will only help Trump become the nominee.
"After reviewing more than 40,000 hours of unreleased video from Jan. 6, Carlson’s team found that Capitol police gave a guided tour to the infamous “Q-Anon Shaman”; that suspected undercover federal agent Ray Epps lied to Congress about his whereabouts on the afternoon of the chaos; and that the Capitol police officer Democrats claimed was murdered by protest participants was in seemingly good health and walking around the congressional complex that afternoon."
Searching the Google-owned platform for evidence of these newly uncovered truths, “Tucker Carlson,” or any variation of the host’s name combined with “January 6 Videos,” however, returns a blue “developing news alert” that tops the search result page. The alerts vary in article content but always offer users the opportunity to click their way to a corporate media website.
One alert for this particular news item suggests users read a CNN article titled “What to know about the Tucker Carlson January 6 footage” which questions the validity of the footage Carlson aired. The CNN write-up falsely accuses Carlson of trying to “downplay the violence” at the Capitol, and carries water for Democrats and the Jan. 6 Committee on topics such as the circumstances of Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick’s death ."
Jacob Chansley
Josh Hawley
Ashley Babbitt
those are the bullet points of Carlson's presentation Monday night.
Less than pathetic.
At the very least, the American public got to see footage of Jan 6th without Liz Cheney telling us what happened.
Which begs the question our friends on the left won’t ask and/or are in denial about.
Why did it take over two years to see these videos?
Funny thing is, all the liberals complaining about Tucker “selectively” using the video he got when they supported the selective use of the same videos by the Jan 6th committee.
More hypocrisy from our friends on the left.
Nothing more.
Liz Cheney telling us her carefully doctored and edited version of what happened.
Hopefully this will sink her political career so far that not even the Lincoln Project or The View will touch her.
It's amazing that we have some here who see nothing wrong wth that.
They were even selective when they showed films of the depositions they obtained.
Because they were part of an active criminal investigation???
The purpose of the Jan 6th was to look at the security failures on Jan 6th and to make sure it never happened again. Pelosi damn well insured that wasn't going to happen by turning it into another "Get Trump at all costs" sham.
Also, because the Pelosi hand picked TDS highly partisan Jan 6th committee hid anything that didn't fit their carefully scripted narrative. They weren't damn well going to show anything that defeated that narrative.
A scripted narrative they gave eagerly to AG Garland to legally pursue. That is now coming to bite him, and hopefully them, in the ass. It doesn't matter if the footage was a part of a House investigation. Garland had access to it; and he is legally required to turn it over to defense teams. Most of those fucking "parading" charges he cultivated go poof when the video backup is provided.
Carlson said there is dispute over how Chansley entered the capitol. There is video of Chansley walking in through the front door after the vanguard had smashed windows and gained entry that way then let the rest of the mob in.
Why was Carlson lying about that?
They released plenty of video/pictures that supported their desired outcome. What a fair and balanced committee eh?
The Jan 6th committee was a partisan joke and is just one more glaring reason Congress’s approval rating is in the basement.
READ WHAT I SAID !!!!!!
I did not talk about the Jan 6 committee. I was talking about an active CRIMINAL investigation. Jan 6th committee was not a CRIMINAL investigation.
Then you are off topic
Which is right winger speech for, "ooops don't have a response for that, so I am calling it off topic".
YOU asked " Why did it take over two years to see these videos? ".
I directly answered your question. But you don't like the answer because it doesn't go along with your narrative, you now claim the answer is "off topic".
Pitiful.....
You ARE confused.
You are referencing the wrong poster and post.
Pitiful and your post I was responding to is STILL off topic.
I provided a link directly to your referenced post, are you unable to click on the link to see your own comment?
More and more pitiful....
Keep digging ....
Keep dodging....
Keep digging, deeper and deeper you go, looking more foolish with each shovel-full.
Were they? Serious question.
And if so, were they given to defense counsel in any of the trials?
Are you not aware of the over 1,000 individuals that have been charged and tried for their participation in the Jan. 6th insurrection?
Are you not aware that they used the videos created on that day to identify the majority of the defendants?
Well, just in case you are not...
DOJ says at least 1,000 Trump supporters arrested for Jan. 6 Capitol riot
Criminal proceedings in the January 6 United States Capitol attack
January 6 Capitol riot: Charges, convictions, trials two years on
How America’s surveillance networks helped the FBI catch the Capitol mob
Hope this helps.
Of course. But that doesn't mean these particular videos were included in that group. It also doesn't mean defense counsel was notified of this evidence.
It is interesting that 1000 people were arrested for this riot when we didn't see that for the other riots that took place throughout the summer of 2020.
And it doesn't mean they weren't. They were part of the videos being used to identify the perpetrators, just because one 15 second clip may not have been used does not mean it was not part of the evidence. You don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
It also does not mean they were. Which is why I asked the question.
It also does not mean they were. Which is why I asked the question.
You also don't just assume all things are true simply because you want them to be.
It's a simple question that should be important to any person who respects the rule of American law.
Do you think police departments throw away any evidence that they collected that may not have been part of the crime? Especially when they are still actively looking for additional suspects?
All evidence is kept for years and decades after it is collected, and it is not turned over to private citizens. Carlson, himself, has admitted that he is not a news reporter.
Assume what is true? You seem to be going off on a tangent here.
Where have I suggested anything was "thrown away"?
Assume that 1. these particular videos were used as part of the criminal investigation and 2. they were given to defense counsel in accordance with US law.
That's the same topic I've been on. You're the one on the tangent.
A ton of video clips (including testimonies from high-ranking, connected Republicans who compromised their political careers by testifying) are available that you could watch without Liz Cheney whispering in your ear. When Liz or any other member of the committee opined or editorialized, you could use mute.
To wit, you do not need the Jan 6th committee comments to consider the evidence of the presented videos.
Further, your apparent dislike of Cheney reveals your Trump support. Liz Cheney is the 'bad guy' for those who support Trump. For others, she is part of the rational base of the Republican party (what is left of it).
Do you not see that Carlson offered nothing but spin on minor players? It is amusing watching you et. al. fawn over the feeble "findings" spun by Carlson. You would think he actually discovered some Earth-shaking facts. Something that exonerates Trump — the main player in the Jan 6th saga. The best he could muster (and thus the best you could muster) is to attempt to discredit the Jan 6th committee so that all of its Trump-related videos would be ignored.
Funny thing about that, Vic, is that those who would be influenced by Carlson disregarded everything the committee offered even before they offered it. So Carlson simply tossed out red-meat to his loyal sycophants who believe whatever the guy spouts with a result of no significant findings and no net change in anyone's mind.
I looked at a random video clip from Pro Publicas accumulation of what is evidently hundreds of hours of videos from Jan 6 at the capitol. It showed part of the mob marching through a capitol hallway chanting "1776, 1776, 1776".
Using Carlsons logic, I can assume that the entire mob was there to overthrow the government. (That is what 1776 would mean in this context.) Would that be fair Vic ?
You mean that The American Revolution vs an insurrection is simply a matter of opinion? Possibly.
My interpretation is that we had some extremists at the Capitol who were unhappy with the details of the 2020 election.
The meaning of "1776" on Jan 6th was that they were there to change the government . I believe it was Marjorie Taylor Greene who referred to Jan 6th as "our 1776".
Now, clearly not everyone who was in there had that feeling, but according to Carlson, video that shows peacefulness means that the overall protest was peaceful. In other words cherry picking the video. By that logic a clip that shows a revolutionary chant can be extrapolated as evidence that the entire crowd was insurrectionist.
See how that works?
You don't know for sure?
See how that works?
It was tame compared to the 2020 riots.
Actually there were a lot of people there that day using that phrase, but I am pretty sure she was one of them.
Web Apr 22, 2022 · For example, on 5 January , one day before the riot, Ms Greene said in an interview: "This is our 1776 moment", in what lawyers said was a reference to the year …
One can understand a degree of revisionism when looking back 400+ years to 1619, but doing so after just 2 years credulity is stretched. What Tucker offered up can only be described as spaghetti spandex. Goebbels would have been impressed.
Carlson has obviously scared the holy bejeezus out of the movers and shakers. Carlson's one segment has prompted a coordinated institutional response across politics, government, the press, and social media. Jonathan Karl even had a wild eyed looked delivering his propaganda on the Nightly News.
If Carlson's one segment can so unsettle the entire information infrastructure then a rational conclusion would be that the public has been misinformed all along. Truthtellers don't need to employ hysterics because truth is supposed to be on their side. The hysterical response to Carlson's bit of infotainment suggests that the real truth is yet to be told.
So, what are the movers and shakers trying to hide?
Tucker is one of the 'movers and shakers' ... ask him.
Then Carlson is apparently one of the most influential movers and shakers. Just look at the hysterical response by the entire information infrastructure.
I thought he worked for Fox NEWS.
I thought Tucker Carlson worked for Fox News, too. Carlson isn't an independent blogger on a YouTube channel.
Infotainment is another revenue stream for the information infrastructure. Is the hysterical response only an attempt to obtain revenue, too?
We saw January 6th play out live and unedited on TV on January 6th!
Then why the hysterics across politics, government, the press, and social media?
What the public saw on live TV were facts. But those facts don't always add up to a truth. It looks like the institutions and information infrastructure are more interested to pushing facts to create their own truth, instead of the whole truth.
Why are the truthtellers afraid of the public seeing all the facts? Does revealing all the facts lead to a different truth? What is the information infrastructure trying to hide?
Who to believe? Our own eyes or Carlson's and Fox's BIG LIES?
Carlson has revealed more facts for our own eyes to see. If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out. Don't let someone else pluck it out.
Once again, it’s all on video .
The NYT reported that Officer Sicknick was beaten to death by protesters wielding fire extinguishers. Democratic Congressmen used that demonstrably false claim during their impeachment of Donald Trump. For years afterwards the claim that Sicknick was murdered has been repeated on sites likes this, and every Democrat who speaks about it will continue to imply that's what happened, even if they no longer directly claim it.
Now Carlson shows proof that it was immediately clear that Sicknick was not beaten to death and Democrats knew it from watching these tapes.
Do the people enraged by Carlson showing videos care they were manipulated and lied to by their party and its media? Do they care Congressmen lied to impeach Trump? Of course not. The ends justify the means.
Carlson airing selected tapes is the worst thing ever. The J6 committee hiring a news producer to package their selected videos for maximum impact? Fine and dandy.
Trump was not impeached because officer Sicknick died.
Give us a break.
You are stretching a point so thin a soft breeze could blow it over.
Trump was accused of inciting the killing of a police officer in the impeachment article. In the impeachment manager's Pretrial memorandum, the claim was made explicit:
What lie has Carlson spread that comes close to being of that magnitude? You think quibbling over Hawley is in that ballpark?
Apparently you weren't aware of all the facts. Or the facts that didn't fit a truth were forgotten.
The point is facts, alone, are not truth. Truth depends upon how the facts are assembled to create a truth. Only using half the facts can, at best, create a half-truth. Carlson's revelation of more facts only means there is more than one truth about Jan. 6th.
Was akin to 'revelations' by Project Veritas.
Almost all truth there too!
“Almost all truth there too!”
…almost? alternate truth? absurd.
"Truth isnt truth"
Rudy Giuliani
Why do all those who have been apprehended plead guilty, finally plead guilty after evidence given cannot be disputed, and openly state in court under oath they were lied to, caught up in the moment, caught up in the adrenaline rush of the riot, believed in conspiracies that they now realize were wrong, and openly blame Trump? At the time of the riot and immediately afterward Republicans were scared, they admitted it was an atrocious attack, and publicly denounced the riot. They are so used to gaslighting and lying they now pretend none of it even happened. Totally ridiculous tactic that has no other path than to backfire.