Politics
Speaker Mike Johnson Takes Extraordinary Risk To DEFEND J6 Protestors From DOJ
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told gathered reporters on Tuesday that the full release of all January 6th Capitol footage has been delayed in order to blur the faces of those people “who participated…in the events of that day.”
According to video from CSPAN, Johnson was responding to a reporter’s question on the release of the video footage and the partisan narrative created by the Democrat-led “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.”
An unnamed reporter asked, “When you released the video, the videotapes, the video from January 6th you talked about people withholding data to advance a partisan narrative. What do you think is incorrect about the narrative around that, and what do you think is an accurate narrative?”
“We’d have to be here for a long time for me to unpack that,” Johnson began, before excoriating what former President Donald Trump called the “Unselect Committee.”
“Look, I, I think the January 6th committee was a partisan exercise. They, they, they claim that it was bipartisan. But I think we all recognize that the two Republican members that served on that committee had another agenda. I think that what we got was a biased report. I think they hid some of the important evidence. And look, we want the American people to draw their own conclusions. I don’t think partisan elected officials in Washington should present a narrative and expect that it should be seen as, as the ultimate truth on it. When we know that they hid certain elements.”
Johnson then explained the delay in the release, “The release of the January 6th tapes is in a critical and important exercise. We want transparency. We should demand that. The American people do. We trust, House Republicans, trust the American people to draw their own conclusions. We should not, they should not be dictated by some narrative and accept that as fact. So they can review the tapes themselves. We’re going through a methodical process of releasing them as quickly as we can.”
“As you know, we have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in, in, in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against, and to be charged by the DOJ and to have other… you know, concerns and problems. So that’s a slow process to get it done.”
“We’re working steadily on it. We’ve hired additional personnel to do that and all of those tapes ultimately at the end will be out so everybody can see them and draw their own conclusion,” he continued.
Responses from commentators on both sides of the aisle have been mixed, with many expressing concern and frustration. Rogan O’Handley, a conservative journalist known as DC Draino wrote, “Speaker Johnson says they will be blurring people’s faces as they release more J6 tapes to “protect them from the DOJ” Why do I get the feeling they’re going to “accidentally” blur the faces of undercover federal agents and assets?”
Speaker Johnson says they will be blurring people’s faces as they release more J6 tapes to “protect them from the DOJ”
Why do I get the feeling they’re going to “accidentally” blur the faces of undercover federal agents and assets?
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) December 5, 2023
O’Handley added in a subsequent post, “Here’s another reason this excuse for blurring smells fishy DOJ & FBI already have the tapes & can prosecute whomever they want This blurring of faces prevents Americans from learning the full truth about Fed involvement Stop the blur!”
Radical Leftist Majid Padellan aka Brooklyn Dad Defiant! posted his concerns to X as well, “INSANE: The Speaker of the House, MAGA Mike Johnson, just admitted that Republicans are blurring out the faces of January 6th rioters in recently-released video to prevent them from being prosecuted. Isn’t that obstruction of justice?”
Independent Journalist @amuse suggested, “They are blurring all the faces to protect the government agents and informants,” responding to Chair of America First Women and cofounder of Women For Trump Amy Kremer who wrote, “They need to be releasing 111 hours per day of J6 footage to have it all released by the time the next Congress is sworn in. It could be Democrat controlled, so it has to be done NOW. As of today, they haven’t even released 111 hours Why are they slow rolling this?!?”
