House Intelligence chair praises release of Jan. 6 tapes: ‘Now people can see the truth’

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) praised newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for releasing the Capitol footage from the Jan. 6 riot, calling the move an “important” step toward exposing the truth.

In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Turner suggested the American people were only reading biased accounts of the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, an echo of a frequent argument in favor of releasing the tapes.

“It’s important for Americans to know the truth. This has been fraught with an unbelievable amount of misinformation and untruths,” Turner said, when asked whether it was responsible for Johnson to release the footage, despite stated concerns from the Capitol Police about jeopardizing the security of the complex.

“When you see the footage yourself, it’s going to give you an understanding of what was there and what occurred that day. Because we’re currently only depending on really partisan descriptions of what happened. Now the American people can see,” Turner added.

When asked about GOP colleagues cherry-picking some of the images and misrepresenting what they depicted, Turner claimed, “I think it’s been cherry-picked by both sides,” before mentioning the Jan. 6 select committee that investigated the events that day.

Turner dodged a question on whether he was uncomfortable with GOP colleagues using the footage to falsely represent what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“Let me ask you about your Republican colleagues in the wake of this footage being released,” NBC’s Kristen Welker said. “Are you comfortable with, for example, [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)] posting, suggesting that this was an inside job by the Capitol Police? She removed the tweet of course, but does that make you uncomfortable?”

“You’ll have to talk to Marjorie Taylor Greene about that,” Turner told Welker. “But what I will say is I think it’s important that the Speaker has taken this step because now people can see the truth.”