The Democrats are against the release of the tapes

Pelosi, Schumer, and Gosar: One Phone Call to Ensure Security in the House and Two Cameras for the Associated Broadcasting Network

The video footage shows Pelosi talking on the phone to the Gov. of Virginia about sending help to the Capitol.

Senate Minority LeaderMitch McConnell and House Majority LeaderSteve Scalise were among the politicians who were working the phones in secure locations to make sure colleagues were safe. Snippets of them huddled around cell phones are interspersed with tense scenes of the rioters chanting outside.

Pelosi and Schumer sit on a bench and talk on the phone with the acting Attorney General, acknowledging that rioters are ransacking their officers and expressing concerns about their personal safety.

“They’re breaking the law in many different ways,” Pelosi says. “And quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the president of the United States.”

The Washington Post reporter says the footage was taken by a documentary filmmaker who was with her mother.

If you have watched coverage of the unfolding drama taking place in the House, you may have noticed that the camera shots are different than what you see on a day-to-day basis.

The House usually bars independent media coverage of proceedings, meaning that networks have to rely on a government feed for coverage. When there are special events happening in the House, such as the elections for speaker, independent coverage is allowed.

In this case, that translates to C-SPAN deploying multiple cameras of its own into the House chamber, giving the public a rare front row view of the high-stakes negotiations between lawmakers.

For example, C-SPAN’s cameras showed Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, who has voted against Kevin McCarthy for speaker, on the floor speaking Tuesday with Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Gosar was asking Ocasio-Cortez if any Democrats were planning to leave the floor or vote present so McCarthy could have a lower threshold, according to Ocasio-Cortez spokesperson Lauren Hitt. According to Hitt, Gosar heard that there was no plan for that.

The two people are next to each other. The House voted to censure Gosar and remove him from committees in November of 2020 after he was shown in a social media video attacking President Joe Biden and killing a member of congress.

CSPAN and the January 6, 2021, Insurrection: Reporting the Gosar, Ocasio-Cortez, and O’Connell

We can show Paul Gosar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talking to each other. We are able to show Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan talking before the next votes,” Ben O’Connell, C-SPAN’s director of editorial operations, told me by phone. scrums of members move across the floor as negotiations go on. It doesn’t happen during standard coverage.

O’Connell noted that C-SPAN would like to be able to do this far more often. The organization has petitioned Congress dozens of times throughout the years to allow it greater editorial discretion over the camera shots it chooses to air.

O’Connell thinks that it is important for journalists to be behind the cameras, rather than the government. A government entity can be found on a typical legislative day. And I think it would be invaluable to have journalists behind the camera instead.”

Then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill eventually ordered the cameras to show the full empty chamber and chastised Gingrich, setting off a partisan fight that helped elevate Gingrich and humiliated the Democratic speaker.

NPR has not independently confirmed Carlson’s team has access to the footage. Neither Fox News nor McCarthy’s office responded to the request for comment.

A House speaker gave over a huge trove of internal government documents to a friendly media outlet, in response to pressure from his right flank, which was displeased with the work of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

During his bid for the speakership, McCarthy vowed to hold hearings on the security failures that led to the Capitol getting overrun, and he told the select committee to preserve all of its records for potential future review by the newly empowered GOP majority.

Carlson said his team was looking at the security footage. He has been a key figure in spreading false claims related to the siege, including incorrect claims that “antifa” groups or the FBI could be to blame for the attack.

A Fox News spokesperson told CNN that the Axios report was accurate, but declined further comment. Carlson told Axios, “there was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret” and that the videos will shed light on “what actually happened on January 6.”

A source close to Hakeem Jeffries told CNN that he was not aware of the security footage being made public. Another source told CNN that McCarthy didn’t consult with his GOP leadership team before making the decision.

In the letter, Schumer said that the footage could reveal the location of security cameras, which could make it harder for U.S. Capitol Police to do their work. He was worried that the video footage would expose plans for continuity of government.

Tim Mulvey, a former January 6 committee spokesman, blasted McCarthy’s move in a statement to CNN, saying, “It’s hard to overstate the potential security risks if this material were used irresponsibly” by Carlson or others.

Access to the Capitol’s Security Tapes After the Jan. 6 Attack: The U.S. Capitol is Out of the Bag, and Democrats are Contaminated

The defendants don’t have to release the clips because of a protective order, but they have access to thousands of hours of unfinished footage from the attack and an online database.

If a single video of the U.S. Capitol interior camera is released, the cat is out of the bag, according to justice department prosecutors.

Democrats are sounding the alarm that a Fox News host’s access to thousands of hours of security tapes from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol could endanger the Capitol further and trigger a new wave of disinformation.

A report by the website said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave Tucker Carlson access to more than 40,000 hours of tapes.

In order to get a more in depth look at the matter, House Democrats met around 4:30 pm on Wednesday and were led by Mississippi’s Bennie Thompson.

Thompson said that he is not comfortable with the knowledge he has that the security of the Capitol, the people who work there and people who visit is protected. There are some items that should be kept out of the public eye.

Thompson went on to detail the painstaking process the select committee followed during its investigation to access the security footage, and his worries the same procedures aren’t in place today.

“When Congressional Leadership or Congressional Oversight Committees ask for things like this, we must give it to them,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a statement.