WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., on Tuesday defended the decision by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to hand over tens of thousands of hours of security video from the Jan. 6 insurrection to conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have denounced McCarthy, saying the decision to share the video “poses grave security risks” to lawmakers and Capitol staff.
Questioned by NBC News about whether Republican leaders were concerned about such risks, Scalise said that the House committee investigating the attack “released a lot of video that was very sensitive.”
“They released a lot of stuff that probably wouldn’t be good for Capitol Police, but ultimately, you know, exposing, like I said, the vice president’s full route,” Scalise said, adding that it also showed from that day, “McCarthy‘s full route from his office to exiting the building.”
Scalise said he wasn’t sure if that part of the footage was “scrutinized” before being made public, but said McCarthy “wants transparency” this time around.
According to a staffer with direct knowledge of their process, the committee worked with a Capitol Police representative to make sure the video would not pose a security risk if it were released to the public.
The majority leader said that lawmakers didn’t express concern about the sensitive nature of the video played in the committee’s public hearings last year.
“I didn’t hear a lot of concern about that back then, we were concerned how selective they were,” Scalise said. “But ultimately, Speaker McCarthy‘s talked about going through and then what gets released is going to obviously be scrutinized to make sure that you’re not exposing any sensitive information that hasn’t, by the way, already been exposed.”
Scalise dodged a question, however, about whether McCarthy’s office coordinated with Capitol Police on what footage would be released to Carlson.
McCarthy this week repeatedly avoided questions from reporters about the video.
Scalise also said that the footage “will be ultimately released to all media” and that process is “ongoing right now.” A group of news organizations, including NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC, on Friday asked McCarthy to share the security video with them.
Last week, Carlson said on his prime-time show that he and his team had gained access to about 44,000 hours of security camera video taken during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Carlson said his producers had been looking at the video “trying to figure out what it means and how it contradicts or not the story we’ve been told for two years” about Jan. 6, 2021. He said that his team plans to spend the rest of the week going through it and that he will “bring you what we find next week.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
