Fox News host Tucker Carlson promised never-before-seen footage of the Jan. 6 riot that would reveal new details and alter public perceptions of the Capitol breach. But in his first shows dedicated to the topic, he largely came up short in delivering smoking guns.
Carlson gained access to some 44,000 hours of the attack by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a move that was opposed by former members of the Jan. 6 committee and alarmed Capitol Police who said it had remained unaired due to security concerns.
Carlson featured footage of Trump supporters milling about the Capitol, exploring the building after rioters had smashed windows and forced their way in.
“The video record does not support the claim that Jan. 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim,” Carlson said on the opening night of his program.
“It doesn’t answer every question from Jan. 6, far from it. But it does prove beyond doubt the Democrats in Congress, assisted by [former Illinois Republican Rep.] Adam Kinzinger and [former Wyoming GOP Rep.] Liz Cheney, lied about what happened that day. They are liars. That is conclusive,” he added.
But Carlson excluded key details in his report, recasting the roles played by various people and diminishing the violence of a day that led to multiple deaths.
Here’s a look at some key parts of the programming.
Disputing Ray Epps timeline
Carlson’s report included security footage centered on Ray Epps, a man who was pictured in a Jan. 5 video telling a crowd to go into the Capitol.
This spurred numerous theories that he was an undercover agent or informant attempting to provoke the Capitol breach.
Carlson nodded to that theory on his show.
“For more than two years we have wondered why some in the crowd that day who seem to be inciting violence were never indicted for it,” Carlson said. “We assumed these were federal agents of some sort. We still assume that.”
In making that case, Carlson did reveal a new detail about Epps’s timeline on Jan. 6.
In a January 2022 interview with the Jan. 6 select committee, Epps talked about a 2:12 p.m. text message to his nephew: “I was in the front with a few others. I also orchestrated it,” Epps texted, later telling the committee that he meant he had helped get people to the Capitol.
Epps told the committee that when he sent that 2:12 p.m. text message, he would have been on his way back to his hotel room.
But Carlson showed security footage that he said pinpointed Epps on the Capitol grounds half an hour later.
“He lied to investigators. The Jan. 6 committee likely knew this, too. Democrats had access to the same tape, yet they defended Ray Epps,” Carlson said on his show.
Epps told the committee that he was not acting on behalf of any government agency when he was in D.C. — contrary to the theories that he was an undercover FBI agent or informant.
He also said he suspected that he had not been charged by the Department of Justice in connection with Jan. 6 because more videos show he was “trying to stop the violence, trying to keep people from getting themselves in more trouble.”
Separately, Jan. 6 defendant Ryan Samsel — whom Epps was taped whispering to moments before Samsel moved forward toward police in one of the first confrontations of the riot — told the FBI that Epps had told him to “relax,” The New York Times reported.
Rehashing Brian Sicknick controversy
Carlson casts doubt on the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the day after the attack after engaging with rioters.
Initial reporting that was retracted a few weeks later indicated he died after being struck in the head by a fire extinguisher, and a medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes, noting, “all that transpired played a role in his condition.”
U.S. Capitol Police contend the rigors of that day contributed to his death, but Carlson seemed focused on details about the fire extinguisher that were corrected more than a year and a half ago.
“Here’s surveillance footage of Sicknick walking in the Capitol after he was supposedly murdered by the mob outside. By all appearances Sicknick is healthy and vigorous. He’s wearing a helmet, so it’s hard to imagine he was killed by a head injury. Whatever happened to Brian Sicknick was very obviously not the result of violence he suffered at the entrance to the Capitol,” Carlson said.
“This tape overturns the single most powerful and politically useful lie the Democrats have told us about Jan. 6, and it was indeed a lie.”
In a letter to Capitol Police officers this week, Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger directly contrasted Carlson’s account, calling it “the most disturbing accusation from last night” in asserting his death “had nothing to do with heroic actions on Jan. 6.”
“The department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day,” the chief said.
Barry Loudermilk tour
Carlson offered a selective retelling of the tour Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) gave a group of constituents the day before the riot.
The Fox News host rehashed details already known about the episode: that Loudermilk gave the tour to constituents and toured only House office building and hallways while failing to make it into the actual Capitol.
Those details came out in June, when the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack released the footage of the tour.
Carlson said the group were constituents, “none of whom are quote ‘insurrectionists,’ ” but he failed to mention that two of the men in Loudermilk’s party did show up at the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6.
“There’s no escape Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler. We’re coming for you. We’re coming in like white on rice, for Pelosi, Nadler, Schumer, even you AOC. We’re coming to take you out, and pull you out by your hairs,” one of the men Loudermilk gave a tour to said outside the Capitol on Jan. 6.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Wednesday that Democrats owe Loudermilk an apology after the Carlson footage aired.
“They implied things about him that weren’t true that those tapes revealed,” Scalise said.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who was chairman of the committee, declined to offer an apology to Loudermilk on Wednesday.
“All he had to do was come and testify before the committee and we could have cleared it up,” Thompson said, also denying that the select committee implied that Loudermilk helped insurrectionists by giving the tour.
Loudermilk, who was asked to voluntarily appear before the Jan. 6 panel to discuss the tour, is now leading his own investigation into Jan. 6.
“We need to give a serious, in-depth investigation into what happened that day, which the J6 committee didn’t do. We need to know, where were the security failures … as well as what do we need to do to fix it?” said Loudermilk, who serves as chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight.
Focus on ‘QAnon Shaman’
Carlson focused on “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley, who wore fur and a Viking hat during the riot and as such was one of the most recognizable intruders. He’s now serving a 41-month prison sentence.
The new security footage showed Chansley being followed by officers walking behind him and passing a group of several officers without being stopped.
Carlson said that the officers acted as Chansley’s “tour guide,” saying that Chansley’s understanding that the officers were his “allies” means that his sentence does not match his crime or public perception — and could potentially alter his case.
A plea agreement signed by Chansley admitted that Capitol Police officers repeatedly asked him to leave the building.
While Carlson said that it was not clear how Chansley got into the Capitol, the plea agreement admitted he entered the building through a broken door around a minute after it was breached, becoming one of the first 30 intruders in the Capitol. Already-public security footage shows his entrance.
“If he was, in fact, committing such a grave crime, why didn’t the officers who are standing right next to him place him under arrest?” Carlson said.
Manger called the “tour guide” characterization “outrageous and false” in an internal message to officers on Tuesday.
“I don’t have to remind you how outnumbered our officers were on January 6. Those officers did their best to use de-escalation tactics to try to talk to rioters into getting each other to leave the building,” Manger said.
It’s not clear whether Chansley may benefit from the video, though his former attorney told Carlson this week that he did not have access to those specific clips.
The footage is already being brought up in the ongoing trial of Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola, who said the Chansley video shows the Senate could have continued their proceedings following the breach.
“This footage is plainly exculpatory; as it establishes that the Senate chamber was never violently breached, and – in fact – was treated respectfully by Jan. 6 protestors. To the extent protestors entered the chamber, they did so under the supervision of Capitol Police. The Senators on Jan. 6 could have continued proceedings,” Pezzola’s attorney wrote.
The Justice Department dismissed the notion that defendants have not had access to sufficient evidence, telling CNN they have a trove larger than the printed contents of the Library of Congress.
“We have taken numerous steps to assist defense teams in identifying the information most relevant to their client within this library in order to let them decide how to proceed. After gaining access to evidence related to the events of January 6, roughly 600 defendants, to date, have pled guilty or been found guilty,” the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office told the outlet.