Tucker Carlson's Big Reveal About Jan. 6th Showed Absolutely Nothing
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 3/12/23
Last week was supposed to be the grand unveiling of hours of footage from January 6th that would prove every right-wing conspiracy theory about the event. There was no shocking or revealing evidence of anything just a desperate cable news host trying to make something out of nothing.
In the past Tucker Carlson has promoted the idea that the entire protest was orchestrated by federal agents with his widely mocked documentary series Patriot Purge.
In this attempt to rewrite history Carlson invents a new narrative. Instead of claiming the mob was full of federal agents now they are meek patriots who just really wanted to get a good look at our nation’s Capitol building.
Carlson’s main method of deceiving his audience was the creative way he interpreted incredibly boring video surveillance footage. He told his viewers people were led around by police when the images showed the opposite. Clips were looped and repeated to make a short clip seem much longer.
Hardcore fans of the eternally preppy news host might buy this nonsense but most objective viewers would most likely just shrug.
The rest of the network didn’t repeat Carlson’s claims or include any of the footage other hosts were too busy advocating for military intervention against Mexican drug cartels or complaining about dull Congressional investigations.
It was a strange week to cover Fox.
Shows I covered last week
Fox & Friends - first hour
The Five
Tucker Carlson Tonight
Tucker Carlson Claimed The Jan. 6th Committee Creatively Edited Footage He Creatively Edited
On Monday night Tucker Carlson featured a clip of Josh Hawley running from rioters in the Capitol.
“He wasn't accusing Republican office holders of planning riots on January 6th. It was accusing them of running away from those riots like cowards. In the case of Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, the committee and their allies accused him of both. To prove that Josh Hawley was a coward. The committee released video of him loping out of the building on the afternoon of January 6th with a police escort The tape became a staple on social media. Democrats laughed with derision,” said Carlson.
In the clip Carlson featured Rep. Elaine Luria introduced the footage.
“Later that day, Senator Hawley fled after those protesters he helped to rile up stormed the Capitol,” said Luria.
Carlson continued.
“But in fact, the surveillance footage we reviewed shows that famous clip was a sham, edited deceptively by the January 6th Committee. The clip was propaganda, not evidence. The actual videotape shows that Hawley was one of many lawmakers being ushered out of the building by Capitol Hill police officers. And in fact, Hawley was at the back of the pack. The coward tape was a lie,” said Carlson.
When I saw this clip I knew immediately that Tucker Carlson was not being honest with his audience. I created a spreadsheet of every segment in the January 6th Committee hearings. I searched for the word “Hawley” and found the exact spot of the clip used in the broadcast.
Carlson left out the second half of the clip. The committee included footage from a camera facing the stairs Hawley ran down to leave the area. It showed Hawley running with several other people.
The clip was not creatively edited by the committee. Carlson edited the clip in a deceptive way.
Despite the Looming Defamation Suit by Dominion Voting Systems Carlson Repeated The Big Lie
Within the first minute of his broadcast on Monday, Tucker Carlson fully endorsed the false notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. This is despite his sworn testimony in a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems that would contradict those claims.
“The protesters were angry. They believed that the election they had just voted in had been unfairly conducted. And they were right. In retrospect, it is clear the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy. Given the facts that have since emerged about that election, no honest person can deny it. Yet the beneficiaries of that election continue to lie about what is now obvious,” said Carlson.
A breakdown of the January 6th footage shown on Tucker Carlson Tonight
To isolate the footage I went through every episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that included video clips that Carlson alleged proved his version of events. I sorted the footage by category and then went through and removed any repeated or looped segments.
The following is a list, broken up by subject matter, of each segment of video evidence Carlson claimed proved that the protesters were non-violent and innocent of any criminal wrongdoing.
Nearly every clip I describe was looped and repeated over the course of four days. Some clips were shown as often as 12 times.
Brian Sicknick - 29 seconds
A clip that allegedly showed Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick walking through the chamber after he had been assaulted.
Carlson has said for months that Officer Sicknick’s death was completely unrelated to events on January 6th. Sicknick died the day after the attack at the age of 42. There was some confusion about the cause of his death immediately after the riot.
Law enforcement officials initially reported that Sicknick had been struck in the head with a fire extinguisher. This was a mistake that Carlson has presented to his audience as a vast conspiracy promoted by other media outlets.
Other media companies were told the wrong thing by Capitol Police that they repeated until the misconception was corrected. The New York Times noted the confusion on the cause of death as far back as February 11, 2021.
The article also included more specifics about injuries other Capitol Police officers suffered during the attack.
“One officer lost the tip of his right index finger. Others were smashed in the head with baseball bats, flag poles and pipes. Another lost consciousness after rioters used a metal barrier to push her into stairs as they tried to reach the Capitol steps during the assault on Jan. 6 . . . The Capitol assault resulted in one of the worst days of injuries for law enforcement in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. At least 138 officers — 73 from the Capitol Police and 65 from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington — were injured, the departments have said. They ranged from bruises and lacerations to more serious damage such as concussions, rib fractures, burns and even a mild heart attack,” as reported in the New York Times.
The Chief Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia, Francisco J. Diaz, concluded that Sicknick suffered from two strokes nearly eight hours after being sprayed with a chemical irritant during the right. Although Diaz told the press that Sicknick died of natural causes he also added “all that transpired played a role in his condition.”
On March 7th the Capitol Police chief J. Thomas Manger issued a memo addressing the misleading narratives Carlson created in his program.
Manger called Carlson’s handling of the Sicknick footage, "the most disturbing accusation from last night."
“Finally, the most disturbing accusation from last night was that our late friend and colleague Brian Sicknick’s death had nothing to do with his heroic actions on January 6,” Manger wrote. “The Department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day,” Manger wrote.
Jacob Chansley aka The QAnon Shaman - 3.5 minutes
Several short clips mostly of Chansley wandering down hallways flanked by two Capitol Police officers.
Chansley got the most focus out of any other part of the footage Carlson featured last week. Chansley is also known as The QAnon Shaman and Jake Angeli. He’s one of the best known protesters as was dressed in a garnish costume complete with patriotic face paint and a furry horned headdress. Chansley was also armed with a metal spear that he was using as a type of flagpole.
Carlson tried to depict Chansley as a misunderstood performance artist who was trying to help Capitol Police keep order. He even went so far as to say police officers acted like “tour guides.”
Chansley pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding and signed a plea agreement acknowledging that he entered the Capitol building through a broken door and that he ignored Capitol Police officers when they repeatedly told him to exit the building.
In most of the video footage Carlson featured on his show police officers weren’t leading Chansley around they were trailing him.
Carlson also included the exact moment when Chansely entered the Capitol building through a broken door. He never pointed out to his audience that Chansely was in the clip but his horned headdress, faceprint and spear made him extremely conspicuous.
Then with no sense of shame whatsoever Tucker looks into the camera and declares,
“To this day, there is dispute over how Chansley got into the Capitol building.”
Over the course of four days Carlson would show the clip of Chansley entering the building six times.
The MAGA Cop - 30 seconds
A short clip of an officer walking to a door and then down a hallway along with brief clips of the same officer wearing a MAGA cap outside the Capitol building.
During the riot Capitol Police Officer Tarik Johnson thought donning a red ‘Make America Great Hat’ would help him navigate the crowd to help other trapped officers. He also claimed one of his supervising officers was not responding to his calls for help and that he acted on his own volition to help evacuate Senators.
The only evidence of this is a brief 15 second clip of Johnson walking to a door and then walking down the hallway.
The rest of the footage included some brief shots of Johnson walking around outside the capitol with his MAGA cap on. He was reprimanded for wearing the hat during the riot and ultimately left the force.
Carlson interviewed him for 10 minutes but Johnson’s account didn’t add much to the story except his personal grievance with a supervising officer and his resentment towards the January 6th Committee for not inviting him to testify about his experience.
Johnson’s supervising officer was a Black woman that Carlson singled out by name while showing several images of her in uniform. Carlson tried to portray her as a corrupt officer who was rewarded for doing the bidding of the Congressional Democrats but he didn’t offer much of a compelling case.
I won’t reveal her name here because I don’t think its relevant and I don’t want to add to any harassment she might be already facing by Carlson’s supporters.
Sen. Josh Hawley’s run for his life - 24 seconds
A short clip of Sen. Josh Hawley running with a group of Senators after they are told to evacuate the area.
As I explained in the media clip at the start of the newsletter - Tucker Carlson was the person who creatively edited the footage.
Alex Jones spoke to protesters outside the Capitol - 3 seconds
Footage from a ceiling camera of a circular room in the Capitol - 20 seconds
There was nothing to see in this clip. A few people walked around between velvet rope stanchions.
Exterior shots of the crowd outside the Capitol building - 1.25 minutes
There wasn’t much to see in any of this footage except a brief puff of smoke at one point that Tucker Carlson identified as tear gas. Carlson produced no evidence to back his claim.
A group of rioters inside a large circular room in the Capitol - 1.5 minutes
Carlson claimed that rioters lined up in orderly groups and admired the artwork and artifacts in the room with reverence. The scene looked more like clumps of people wandering awkwardly around. No one was lined up. The stanchions had been put to the side.
Various scenes of rioters walking through the hallways - 1.25 minutes
In all of this footage the rioters appeared calm, however the clips were quite short. If there really was a lot of evidence of peaceful and subdued protesters inside the Capitol building then Carlson should have been able to produce a much longer example.
The peephole camera shots - 32 seconds
Some of the footage looked like it came from some type of hidden camera that captured the images in a small round circle. There was absolutely nothing to see in these clips except people walking into a room.
Ray Epps - 1.25 minutes
Footage showed Epps in the crowd of protesters as late as 2:41 p.m. Epps previously testified that he left the area at 2:12 p.m.
This was supposed to be some type of smoking gun proving Epps was a FBI informant or secret agent. All Carlson showed is that Epps was slightly off in the timeline he gave investigators.
During the investigation into Epps a committee investigator asked him when he sent a text message to his nephew.
As the Washington Post reported.
“So you sent that text to your nephew around 2:12 p.m., so, approximately, if that’s kind of a time point would you estimate that you left the Capitol grounds,” Epps is asked.
“Around that time?” Epps replies. “Yes,” he says again.
The language “around that time” is not exactly definitive. Carlson tries to make a lot of the fact that according to his timeline Epps left the Capitol about a half an hour later.
The theory that Epps was working for the FBI as some type of informant or secret agent has been debunked for over a year. Carlson continues to promote it anyway.
Tucker Carlson was Scolded by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Tucker Carlson responded to criticism from members of both parties that he shouldn’t have been given exclusive access to the footage.
“It's a threat to democracy. Pull him off the air,” Carlson bellowed sarcastically.
He continued.
“A couple of obvious observations. You don't often see the Senate majority leader openly call for censorship on the floor of the Senate as if that was totally normal and didn't contradict the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment. But of course it does,” said Carlson.
This is how Senate Miniority Leader Mitch McConnell responded to a journalist’s question about it.
“My concern is how it was depicted, which is a different issue. Clearly, the chief of the Capitol Police, in my view, correctly describes what most of us witnessed firsthand on January six. So that's my reaction to it. It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that's completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here,” said McConnell.
Fox News Hosts Think the U.S. Should Send The Military into Mexico to Battle Drug Cartels.
This theme was repeated on both “Fox & Friends” and “The Five.” Due to space I’m only going to include the most outrageous statements.
On Tuesday while on “The Five,” Jesse Watters on made some wild assumptions based on completely hypothetical scenarios.
“If they just blow up an apartment complex in Phenix, and then you're dealing with some sort of terrorism on U.S. soil, that's a whole different ballgame because the Mexican president's not going to like being emasculated when we start throwing missiles into his territory and we have to do something and it has to be military,” said Watters.
Steve Doocy even mentioned using cruise missiles.
“Well, I mean, militarily going in and what percent precision assassinations and if the Mexican cartels, Ainsley, had that kind of threat, Hey, you know what? If we grab people close to the border, they might send a cruise missile over at us or do something. Maybe they wouldn't do it. The White House, though, is not sold on the idea of using the military to go after cartels,” said Doocy.
By Wednesday Watters had pulled back a bit.
“I like having the military option on the table. I don't think it's the right move to just lob missiles willy nilly right away. But I have to be careful. If you destabilize already a failed narco state, Mexico, more than it already is destabilized, we could have a huge problem,” said Watters.
Brian Kilmeade is Disappointed with the Congressional Investigations
Brian Kilmeade expressed his frustration with the Congressional investigation that involved Twitter.
“They want to attack a guy with great integrity who couldn't be further from a conservative in real life. In case you didn't hear it, Michael Shellenberger voted for Joe Biden. He ran. He ran for office. He is somebody that was very much for the Green movement. He writes this. Much of the hubbub yesterday involved the many well, what about this?
Is this what they were saying? When did Elon Musk start beating your wife? He said it was a bizarre collection display of a whole group of politicians not understanding some pretty basic things about how to act around a journalist. This was an absolute abomination, embarrassment. And this is the biggest story that nobody is talking about. Yesterday was the exposure time and they didn't expose anything,” said Kilmeade.
Kilmeade will most likely remain disgusted and let down by Congressional investigation process.
Stories that Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare 15 hours of Fox News with five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories that PBS included that Fox News did not.
Former President Donald J. Trump was given the option of testifying before a New York City grand jury in a case involving hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels and whether or not it contributed to an improper campaign contribution.
Last Tuesday at least six Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank after the Israeli army raided the city of Jenin. Two Israeli soldiers were injured in the raid, one seriously. In the same city on Thursday Israeli forces killed three Islamic Jihad militants. The incident came on the same day U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was visiting Israel. Mass protests continued in Israel over the far-right government’s plan to limit the power of the Supreme Court.
China helped broker a truce between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both countries have agreed to re-establish relations.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced it will open a special investigation into Norfolk Southern Railway’s safety practices and culture. Since December 2021, NTSB has launched investigation teams to five significant accidents involving Norfolk Southern. This includes the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio as well as three others that resulted in worker fatalities.
Turkey had another moderate earthquake last week that registered 4.8. This is following a devastating earthquake in February that killed over 54,000 and left over 1 million homeless in Turkey and neighboring Syria.
A mandated survey of U.S. military academies found that 21.4 % of female students and 4.4 % of male students indicated that they experienced unwanted sexual contact in the past school year. The Pentagon estimates only about 14% went on to report the abuse to military authorities.
The latest Jobs Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the U.S. economy added 311,000 non-farm payroll jobs in February. The unemployment rate also rose more than expected last month, increasing from 3.4% in January to 3.6% in February as labor force participation picked up. New job openings decreased to 10.8 million in January.
General Motors offered buyouts to the majority of its U.S. white collared workers. This comes a week after the company announced it would be laying off 500 of its salaried employees.
Danny Werfel, President Biden’s nominee to head the IRS, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
The Biden Administration added a $5 billion plan to his proposed budget to eradicate Hepatitis C. The disease that once caused a lower quality of life and sometimes premature death can now be cured but the treatment is extremely expensive.
Five women are suing the state of Texas over the state’s narrow abortion ban. The women are arguing that their lives and the lives of their fetuses were put at great risk due to the ban on abortion. Two women were pregnant with twins when one twin became non-viable putting the remaining fetus in danger.
In the same state teenagers are barred from obtaining birth control without a parent’s permission. Girls were able to get birth control in federal family planning clinics until a federal judge ruled that such clinics violate Texas state law and federal constitutional rights.
American Siamak Namaz, who has been detained in Iran since 2015, gave an unprecendented interview via phone from inside Evin Prison with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Namazi is currently being held with two other Americans, Morad Tahbaz, and Emad Shargi. Shargi's sister, Neda Sharghi, and daughter, Hannah Shargi went on the NewsHour in part to plead directly to the Biden administration for their relative’s release.
More than 1 million French citizens participated in a general strike and protest against the governemen’s proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Protesters in Greece took to the streets over the recent train disaster that killed 57 people.
Iranian schoolgirls began falling ill three months ago in what some government officials have characterized as attacks. The incidents have spread to over 200 schools including university dormitories. Protests regarding the attacks have broken out across the country.
In a recent review the U.S. Justice Department found that Louisville Police Department repeatedly violated civil rights. The report is the result of a nearly two-year investigation into LMPD after the police killing of BreonnaTaylor, a 26-year-old Black woman and medical worker.
The Justice Department also began a review of the Memphis Police force after the police killing of Tyre Nichols.
Jet Blue wants to merger with Spirit Airlines but the Justice Department is against it arguing that it will reduce the competition for lower cost air travel.
New U.S. intelligence reporting suggests a pro-Ukranian group might be responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream Pipeline. There’s no evidence that links the Ukrainian government to the attack.
PBS produced a segment on the slight increase in the birth rate following the COVID-19 crisis.
California is threatening to cut off Walgreens from all state funded medical insurance plans over the pharmacy’s plans to stop distributing some medications used in abortions and miscarriages in 20 states where the drugs face legal challenges.
Rafeal Grossi, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said he has had “constructive” meetings with Iranian officials after the discovery of uranium particles enriched to near weapons-grade level.
Judy Heumann an activist for the disabled died at the age of 75. She lost her ability to walk after being stricken with Polio at age two but spent her entire adult life advocating for the disabled through protests and legal action.
A health insurance marketplace was hacked, potentionally exposing sensitive personal data of members of Congress, their employees and families. The FBI is aware of the incident and is assisting.
Even though the pandemic has largely subsided hundreds of Americans are still dying from COVID-19 every day.
By the Numbers
Although Tucker Carlson’s investigation into January 6th dominated the coverage I analyzed last week “Fox & Friends,” and “The Five” didn’t even mention it.
“America at at Crossroads” is a new series produced by former PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff. In it she explores the widening political divide across the United States. PBS spent a lot of time discussing possible Republican presidential candidates for 2024 and the state of the party.
Coming up…
This week I’ll be covering the first hour of “Fox & Friends,” “The Five,” and “Hannity.” I might also have another installment of the Hunter Biden series from Fox Nation for my paid subscribers if time permits.