Donald Trump Allies Slam Mike Johnson: 'You Lied'

There is a growing chasm between the allies of former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson over the release of additional footage from the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, announced in November that he would release all Capitol Hill security footage from that day that does not contain sensitive information or information that would lead to retaliation of private citizens.

"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," Johnson said in a statement on November 17. "Truth and transparency are critical. 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."

An initial 90 hours of footage was released that day, shared by the Committee on House Administration, but nearly two months later, no further footage has been released.

In a statement previously emailed to Newsweek, Raj Shah, deputy chief of staff for communications for Johnson, said: "Faces are to be blurred from public viewing room footage to prevent all forms of retaliation against private citizens from any non-governmental actors. The Department of Justice already has access to raw footage from January 6, 2021."

Meanwhile, Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans have long called for the release of the footage, claiming it will prove the riot was not a violent storming of the Capitol building in response to Trump's 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Some within Trump's orbit are growing impatient with Johnson and House Republican leadership over the delay of additional footage.

In a phone interview Sunday with Newsweek, conservative activist and blogger Laura Loomer claimed that the footage remaining unreleased is a form of "gaslighting."

"Out of anybody on the right, I've been the biggest critic of Mike Johnson since day one," she said. "The Republican Party is inept and incompetent. Mike Johnson is using the tapes as gaslighting to manipulate the base to make them think they're going to do something [about January 6]."

She added: "You mean to tell me we have the ability to run surveillance on every American, but can't come up with a government data base that will have an open source and web hosting location for 44,000 hours of footage? It's BS."

Loomer was referencing the recent passage of a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that may allow the FBI to "spy" on Americans.

In an X, formerly Twitter, post on Saturday, Loomer also called the House speaker a "liar."

Loomer quoted a post by Johnson from November that stated, "Today, I am keeping my promise to the American people and making all the January 6th tapes available to ALL Americans."

In response, she posted: "[Johnson], we still don't have the J6 tapes. You lied to the American people. Don't make promises you have no intention of keeping."

Jeff Clark, a Trump co-defendant charged with crimes relating to alleged election interference in Georgia and a former member of Trump's administration, also made a post to X on Saturday about the footage.

"On this, the third anniversary, of January 6, it would mean a great deal to the American people if (Johnson) made good on his promise and released all of the footage from the Capitol that day," he wrote. "We need radical transparency. It's been long enough."

When reached via email on Sunday, Johnson's office referred Newsweek to his November 17 statement regarding the release of additional January 6 footage.

"As the Speaker said, the House Administration Committee will release all footage except that which exposes sensitive personal information," Taylor Haulsee, a spokesperson for Johnson's office, said.

Newsweek also reached out to Clark via email for comment.

More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes in the riot, ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. About 730 people have pleaded guilty to charges, while about 170 have been convicted of at least one charge at a trial decided by a judge or a jury, according to the Associated Press on Friday.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was indicted on four counts by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in August 2023 for his role in allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the riot.

A jury will be selected in Washington, D.C., in February with a trial date set for March 4, 2024. The former president has pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintains his innocence.

Update 1/7/24 3:53 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with a response from Loomer.

Update 1/7/24 11:53 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a response from Johnson's office.