Release of More Footage Spurs Calls for New Jan. 6 Inquiry

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill on Oct. 24, 2023. Screenshot via NTD

Several House Republicans called for establishing a new House investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach after new security footage was released.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.) wrote that the release of the new tapes is “not enough” and that there needs to be a probe for the “lies, deceit, and lives ruined.”

The lawmaker then called on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to create a new select committee. She criticized the previous Congress’s Jan. 6 panel that was chaired by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

“Every member of the Jan. 6th committee” as well as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Capitol Police, District of Columbia Police, and Jan. 6 witnesses “who lied” should all be subpoenaed, Mrs. Greene added on X.

“Criminal referrals must be written and prosecutions MUST happen under a Trump DOJ,” she wrote over the past weekend. “I’ve said it all along, MAGA did not do this.”

This past week, Mr. Johnson publicly stated that he wanted to release all 44,000 hours of Jan. 6 footage to the public. On Nov. 17, Johnson released 90 hours of footage to the House Administration Committee’s website. About 100 hours of footage have been released so far via that website.

“The goal of our investigation has been to provide the American people with transparency on what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and this includes all official video from that day,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said in a news release.

“We will continue loading video footage as we conduct our investigation and continue to review footage. As I’ve said all along—the American people deserve transparency, accountability, and real answers supported by facts instead of a predetermined political narrative.”

Mr. Johnson said that his decision will give millions of Americans, Jan. 6 defendants, public organizations, and media outlets the ability to see “what happened that day” instead of having to rely on a “small group of government officials.”

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) called for an investigation into the now-defunct House select committee, which alleged that former President Donald Trump was responsible for the Capitol breach. He said the tapes present a different view of the Capitol chaos.

“The J6 committee was a sham,” Mr. Nehls wrote on X. “I knew it then. Everyone knows it now. Let’s investigate the investigators.”

Over the weekend, another lawmaker, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), called for an investigation into the previous Congress’s Jan. 6 subcommittee after the footage was released, questioning why some of the videos were not included by the previous select committee.

“Why didn’t Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger ever refer to any of these tapes?” Mr. Lee questioned on X. Former Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger were the only Republicans on the panel; Mr. Kinzinger declined to seek reelection last year, and Mrs. Cheney lost her primary bid in Wyoming.

(L-R) Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the select committee investigating Jan. 6, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice-chair of the select committee, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) during a hearing in Washington on Dec. 1, 2021. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

“Maybe they never looked for them. Maybe they never even questioned their own narrative,” Mr. Lee continued. “Maybe they were just too busy selectively leaking the text messages of Republicans they wanted to defeat.”

Both Mrs. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger, the Republican senator added, were among those “who helped hide the J6 tapes” from the public and are “cut out of the same cloth as those who will tell you that FISA 702 must be reauthorized without reforms—‘because search warrants require too much effort.’”  FISA refers to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“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?” Mr. Lee questioned in another post.

Cheney: ‘Nutball Conspiracy’

In response, Mrs. Cheney accused Mr. Lee of being “a nutball conspiracy theorist” and posted Jan. 6 footage showing a melee between protesters and law enforcement officers at the Capitol. Mr. Kinzinger, now a CNN pundit, mocked the release, saying: “Oh ya? What did ya find? Please elaborate with details because you sound very sure.”

Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Administration Committee, panned the release of the new footage.

“While the name on the door to the Speaker’s suite has changed, the office’s mission to undermine the Capitol Police and politicize Capitol security continues unabated,” he said in a statement last week.

“It is unconscionable that one of Speaker Johnson’s first official acts as steward of the institution is to endanger his colleagues, staff, visitors, and our country by allowing virtually unfettered access to sensitive Capitol security footage.”

He added that Mr. Johnson’s “doing so over the strenuous objections of the security professionals within the Capitol Police is outrageous” and that he will instead “continue to trust the judgment of the security professionals who risk their lives to keep us all safe. They have our backs, it’s disappointing that the new Speaker and our Republican colleagues do not have theirs.”