[guest post by Dana]

As the latest batch of just-released private communications from Tucker Carlson to staffers again confirms that he is a big fat hypocrite, expectations of truthfulness from him should be completely bottomed out by now. With the baked-in hubris and disdainful sniff of a trust-fund baby, he knowingly lit a match and torched any credibility without a backward look. Such was his belief in his reach of influence and control, not just over viewers but also over some members of management and staffers. Such was his selfish compulsion for success and power. And now, thanks to the complicity of one incredibly spineless Speaker of the House, a Herculean effort is being made to revise… reshape… reimagine… make shit up and push lies about what really happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6:

On his Monday and Tuesday night broadcasts, Mr. Carlson aired a compilation of Capitol surveillance footage from Jan. 6 and downplayed the violence that occurred. He presented the footage as evidence that the attack was an “orderly and meek” gathering of sightseers who had good reason to doubt the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Additionally:

“The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” Carlson told his audience Monday. “Instead it shows police escorting people through the building, including the now-infamous ‘QAnon Shaman.’”

He continued: “More than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from in and around the Capitol have been withheld from the public, and once you see the video, you’ll understand why. Taken as a whole, the video does not support the claim that Jan. 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim.”

…

Video that Carlson didn’t air shows police and rioters engaged in hours of violent combat. Nearly 1,000 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack. About 140 officers were assaulted that day, and about 326 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees, including 106 assaults that happened with deadly or dangerous weapons. About 60 people pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement. Two pipe bombs were also planted nearby but were not detonated.

Of course, the Republican Party is divided about the claims because it is divided over most things these days:

“Clearly the chief of the Capitol Police, in my view, correctly describes what most of us witnessed firsthand on Jan. 6,” Mr. McConnell said. “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks.”

…Senator Mitt Romney of Utah…called Mr. Carlson’s broadcast normalizing the violence of Jan. 6 “dangerous and disgusting.”

“The American people saw what happened on Jan. 6, they’ve seen the people that got injured, they saw the damage to the building,” Mr. Romney told reporters on Tuesday. “You can’t hide the truth by selectively picking a few minutes out of tapes and saying this is what went on. It’s so absurd, it’s nonsense.”

…

Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said nothing Mr. Carlson aired changed the fact that the Jan. 6 riot was violent.

“I was here. I saw what happened. I saw the violence,” Mr. Rounds said. “And you know, I thought it was an insurrection at that time. I still think it was an insurrection today.”

…

But House Republican leaders cheered Mr. Carlson’s work, as many of them accused the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack, which had recommended criminal referrals for Mr. Trump and his allies and condemned the conduct of Republicans who attempted to help overturn the 2020 election, of mistreating them…

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said Democrats and the media had “tried to use the violent acts of some to tarnish and attack the peaceful speech of many others, and I think it has been dishonest and partisan, and I think the American people deserve to have fuller context.”

“Last night, @TuckerCarlson confirmed what I’ve been saying for well over a year,” Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican, said in a tweet. “Nancy Pelosi’s sham, unconstitutional Jan 6th Committee was nothing more than a political witch-hunt designed to punish the radical Far Left’s political opponents.”

Perhaps a reminder to our elected officials is in order:

One lesson of Jan 6 is this: Trump’s lies, spread on TV & social media, provoked a violent attack on our Capitol. No responsible adult, and especially no American pledged to our Constitution, should deny what happened or repeat the same reckless lies. pic.twitter.com/MReMysC534

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) March 7, 2023

Speaker McCarthy stands by his decision to give Tucker Carlson access to the raw security footage…knowing full well what he would do with it. If you recall, the Speaker originally justified his demand that all records and transcripts concerning the events of Jan. 6 be preserved because the American people deserved “transparency” and had a right to know that the allegations made by the Jan. 6 Committee were “supported by the facts.”

Welp here’s looking at you, Kev:

If @HouseGOP wants new Jan 6 hearings, bring it on. Let’s replay every witness & all the evidence from last year. But this time, those members who sought pardons and/or hid from subpoenas should sit on the dais so they can be confronted on live TV with the unassailable evidence.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) March 8, 2023

–Dana