California Rep. Kevin McCarthy commented on Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's decision to release footage from the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
McCarthy, who was ousted as Speaker of the House in early October, made his remarks on Speaker Johnson's decision during an appearance on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures with host Maria Bartiromo
Bartiromo noted McCarthy created the portal for footage to be released prior to his ousting and asked the former Speaker his thoughts on the Capitol riot.
"Well, it was a horrible day," McCarthy said. "We wanted transparency, so when we took the majority, first thing I did was make sure those tapes become under the responsibility of House administration."
McCarthy said the Jan. 6 House committee was dishonest to Republicans in Congress.
"There were thousands more hours of tape," he said. "The first thing I wanted to make sure was anybody in jail had the right to a defense was able to see those tapes."
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The former Speaker said some members of the press were allowed to see the footage.
"More tapes are going forward," McCarthy says. "Speaker Johnson is doing a tremendous job of that adding more and more."
McCarthy said over 44,000 hours of footage from Jan. 6 existed and noted it would take time for all of the footage to be released.
Bartiromo asked McCarthy about potential "FBI informants" disguised as Trump supporters present on Jan. 6.
The former Speaker said he couldn't comment on her question and said the House committee would know about FBI informants.
"I know the director of the FBI has been asked this numerous times," said McCarthy, who suggested Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie would have "greater insight" on the matter.
The release of footage from Jan. 6 was an integral argument during January’s historically contested Speaker vote in which McCarthy won after 15 ballots were held in Congress.
In October, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz spearheaded an effort to remove McCarthy as Speaker for negotiating deals with House Democrats in a closed-door meeting, and also for failure to commit to promises made during the Speaker vote which included the release of footage from the Capitol riot.
Johnson, who succeeded McCarthy in late-October, also promised to release footage from Jan. 6 if elected Speaker of the House.
On Friday, Johnson announced all footage from the Capitol riot would be publicly released.
“Today, I am keeping my promise to the American people and making all the January 6th tapes available to ALL Americans,” Johnson wrote in an X post.
All 44,000 hours of footage from Jan. 6 will be made available on the Committee on House Administration’s website. The website will be continuously updated with more footage, per Johnson.
Faces of some in the footage have been blurred to prevent private citizens from being targeted for retaliation of any kind. About 5% of footage that may involve sensitive security information related to the Capitol’s structure has been segregated.
