Republican Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has expressed strong criticism of the Jan. 6 Committee, accusing its members of intentionally concealing information from the public. In response to the release of over 40,000 hours of unedited footage from the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Senator Lee is calling for a comprehensive investigation into both former and current lawmakers associated with the House committee.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) initiated the release of the footage, providing a different perspective on the events of January 6 compared to the narrative presented by Democrats. The unedited videos depict the actions of protesters expressing dissatisfaction with the 2020 election results as they entered Congress.
Senator Lee took to Twitter/X to highlight the footage release and raise questions about the credibility of former Republican Representatives Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). The videos have sparked significant public backlash due to their divergence from the anti-Trump narrative promoted by the Democrats.
“Why didn’t Liz Cheney and Adam Kizinger ever refer to any of these tapes?” Lee asked.
“Maybe they never looked for them.
“Maybe they never even questioned their own narrative.
“Maybe they were just too busy selectively leaking the text messages of Republicans they wanted to defeat.”
In a post on the platform, Senator Lee shared a video suggesting Capitol police officers assisting protesters in navigating the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. Another post on X accused Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger of being complicit in hiding the Jan. 6 tapes and likened them to individuals advocating for the reauthorization of FISA 702 without reforms.
Lee emphasized the need for an investigation into the Jan. 6 committee and criticized the committee as a whole, along with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Pelosi established the select committee to investigate the events that transpired at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Given the evidence they apparently suppressed, how much footage (and how many other records) do you think Nancy Pelosi and the J6 committee deliberately lost or destroyed?” Lee questioned in one post.
In reply to a post by Cheney on Friday, featuring “some January 6th video” depicting confrontations between protesters and Capitol police, Lee stated:
“Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times.
“You made sure we saw that — and nothing else. It’s the other stuff — what you deliberately hid from us — that we find so upsetting. Nice try.”
“P.S. How many of these guys are feds? (As if you’d ever tell us),” Lee added in his response to the former lawmaker.
In another post, Lee wrote, “Taxpayer dollars funded the sham J6 committee.”
The Republican senator also shared a clip released on Friday that depicts an officer inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, uncuffing and releasing a protester. In the clip, the protester can be seen giving a fist bump to another officer nearby at the time of his release.
Here's a January 6 video they've never shown the public.
A protester is uncuffed by Capitol police and then fist bumps another officer down a hallway away from everyone. pic.twitter.com/ft1yTOITLr
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 17, 2023
“I walk through these doors every day — several times a day,” Lee wrote in response.
“I’ve never seen this happen.”
Speaker Johnson said in a statement:
“When I ran for Speaker, I promised to make accessible to the American people the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill security taken on January 6, 2021.
“Truth and transparency are critical.”
Some footage was made public on Friday, and the rest is set to be gradually released over time, as stated by Johnson.
He emphasized that this decision to release the remaining footage is intended to provide various entities, including millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media, the opportunity to witness firsthand what transpired on that day.
Johnson pointed out that around 5% of the footage might be withheld due to “sensitive security information related to the building architecture.” Additionally, faces may be blurred to prevent individuals from becoming targets for any form of retaliation.
The release is being coordinated through the House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight.
