Newly-elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has made all footage from the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 publicly available.
The release of footage from Jan. 6 was an integral argument during January's historically contested Speaker vote in which California Rep. Kevin 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 are available on the Committee on House Administration's website.
"To restore America’s trust and faith in their Government we must have transparency," Johnson wrote in a follow-up post. "This is another step towards keeping the promises I made when I was elected to be your Speaker."
The website will be continuously updated with more footage, per Johnson.
The Speaker elaborated on the footage's release and his promises made during October's Speaker vote in another post.
"When I ran for Speaker, I promised to make accessible to the American people the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill security taken on January 6, 2021. Truth and transparency are critical," Johnson wrote. "Today, we will begin immediately posting video on a public website and move as quickly as possible to add to the website nearly all of the footage, more than 40,000 hours. In the meantime, a public viewing room will ensure that every citizen can view every minute of the videos uncensored."
"This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials," he continued. "I commend Chairman Loudermilk and his team for their diligent work to ensure the thousands of hours of videos are promptly processed to be uploaded to the committee’s public website."
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.
