Conservatives Turn on Mike Johnson Over Jan. 6 Tapes

Conservatives turned on Mike Johnson after he confirmed that tapes to be released publicly of the Capitol riot would blur the faces of some of those involved.

Johnson has faced increasing pressure to make good on his November 17 pledge to release the complete archive of footage recorded when supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to protest the results of the 2020 election. The House speaker, a Louisiana Republican, also pledged to release the footage while campaigning for the speakership in October.

While he released an initial 90 hours of footage that day, shared by the Committee on House Administration, two weeks later no further footage has been released. While the Associated Press said the rest of the footage was expected over the coming months, The Hill reported it had been expected that it would be released on November 20.

On Tuesday, Johnson told reporters at a news conference that that he is going through a methodical process of releasing the material.

"As you know, we have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don't want them to be retaliated against and be charged by the DOJ," Johnson said.

"That's a slow process to get it done, we're working steadily on it. We've hired additional personnel to do that and all of those tapes ultimately will be out so everybody can see them and draw their own conclusions."

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."

Reacting to the conference, conservatives suggested Johnson was trying to blur out the faces of federal agents involved in the riot. While a conspiracy theory since the events has circulated speculating that FBI agents were involved in the riots, there is no evidence to support such a claim.

One person posted on X, formerly Twitter: "This is 100% to blur out all the feds. Like the FBI doesn't have copies of these. What a ridiculous lie."

"We already know what is going on here," opined another. "Protecting the feds."

"It's because they are feds," said a third.

Meanwhile, Democrats were also angered by the news - but because they thought Johnson was protecting people involved in the riots who should be charged for criminality.

Sean Casten, an Illinois Democratic representative, said: "There is no public safety or policy argument to publicly release information about Capitol security protocols.

"It is also telling that the so-called 'law and order' party is unwilling to publicly identify people caught in the act of committing this particular crime."

X user BrooklynDad_Defiant, a Democrat with over a million followers, wrote: "Weird how MAGA Mike Johnson released ALL that footage to prove how innocent and tame the January 6th participants were, but blurred their faces so we couldn't see how innocently they bashed cops with fire extinguishers and flagpoles."

Newsweek has contacted representatives for Johnson by email to comment on this story.

Johnson has previously announced his plan to blur the faces of individuals involved.

He said the video would be processed to blur the faces of individuals "to avoid any persons from being targeted for retaliation of any kind." He added that an estimated 5 percent of the footage will not be publicly released as it "may involve sensitive security information related to the building architecture."

MAGA Republicans have long called for the release of the footage, claiming it will prove the riot was not violent. However, Democratic politicians dispute that narrative. More than 1,000 people have been charged over their alleged roles in the incident.

In August, Trump was indicted on four felony charges for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the runup to the Capitol riot: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and continues to deny any wrongdoing.