Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has put Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in his place and vowed to release the Jan. 6 Tapes to the American people.
The move from McCarthy comes after Schiff complained about McCarthy giving Jan. 6 footage to Fox News star Tucker Carlson.
“This is only about the money and the ratings,” Schiff said.
“For Tucker Carlson. For Rupert Murdoch. And for Fox.
“It will only stop when Fox sees financial consequences.
“And when they don’t have an enabler in the Speaker’s office.
“Since there is nothing but the profit motive operating here, the only way to attack is to attack the profit.”
This is only about the money and the ratings.
For Tucker Carlson. For Rupert Murdoch. And for Fox.
It will only stop when Fox sees financial consequences. And when they don’t have an enabler in the Speaker’s office. pic.twitter.com/yIDApfGvQo
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 9, 2023
In response, McCarthy said he will release all the tapes to the public, stopping Schiff’s argument dead in its tracks.
“We just want to make sure we go through them all, and it takes time,” McCarthy said.
“The first thing that Tucker said too, he didn’t want to show any exits to cause any problems.
“We asked the Capitol Police, ‘Were there any concerns?’
“They came back with one, and we mitigated that, but it was interesting, that one that they had a problem with, Eric Swalwell had had up on the internet for the last two years showing that part.
“Well, this is all about transparency.
“It won’t just be to Tucker. Like any news organization, different people get exclusives.
“We watched during the January 6, CNN would have exclusives all the time and nobody complained.
“CNN actually got to be in Statuary Hall for a whole hour for their own show.
“You’ve watched that January 6 would release only certain tapes.
“I think it’s better for transparency that anyone can make their own decision up, and as we walk through these, there are many more hours of tapes than the January 6 committee told us.
“It’s not 14,000. It’s 42,000 hours.
“We want to make sure for security purposes our certain exits aren’t shown and others.
“But you know the most interesting thing, when I had the team talk to the Capitol Police about making sure they had no problems with the exit and so on, they said January 6 never asked them that.
“They showed the exit of the vice president.
“They showed the exit from my office,” McCarthy said.
“They literally had then-Speaker Pelosi’s daughter showing the secure location that they take the leadership.
“That’s not supposed to be known to anybody, and CNN reported it, and I don’t remember the press ever getting upset with that.
“So what we want to do is make sure we have this out that everybody can see it.
“I haven’t been able to see all the tapes yet, but the one thing I did know, there were certain things that the January 6 committee did that I knew was purely political.
“First, not letting Republicans on the committee. Secondly, they made accusations that we knew were not true.
“They said one Republican congressman gave a tour.
“Well the tapes show he did not give a tour, but you know what, one of the Democrats on the January 6 committee did give a tour in the Capitol the day before.
“We watched different accusations they made.
“That’s why I think transparency answers all that.
“That’s not my job to sit back and say whether they were right or wrong, but my job is to be transparent and people can make their own conclusion.
“I watched what transpired in America, the burning of courthouses.
“Look, I don’t condone anything that happened on January 6.
“I don’t like what happened on January 6, but I watched the courthouses get burned in Seattle.
“I watched them attack federal employees,” he said.
“I watched what happened here, and no one getting arrested, no one being held up to justice.
“I think in America you want equal justice, and that’s what’s concerning to me.”
