Carlson released the footage after being given exclusive access by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to 40,000 hours of video from that day. “Virtually every moment of his time inside the Capitol was caught on tape,” Carlson said during the segment. “The tapes show the Capitol police never stopped Jacob Chansley. They helped him. They acted as his tour guides.”
“Not one of them even tried to slow him down,” Carlson continued, before suggesting that Chansley “understood that the Capitol police were his allies.”
“If he was in the act of committing such a grave crime, why didn’t the officers standing right next to him place him under arrest?” Carlson asked.
Chansley, one of the most widely recognized faces from that day, pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
Carlson also released footage of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that he claims was taken “after he was supposedly murdered by the mob outside.”
The New York Times initially claimed in a report that Sicknick was killed when he was struck in the head with a fire extinguisher by rioters. The newspaper later retracted the report after an autopsy found that he died from a stroke the following day.
The U.S. Capitol Police released a statement on April 19, 2021, saying that the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled that Sicknick “died of natural causes.”
“This does not change the fact Officer Sicknick died in the line of duty, courageously defending Congress and the Capitol,” the USCP claimed in a statement. “The attack on our officers, including Brian, was an attack on our democracy.”
Carlson also said that video evidence shows Ray Epps, a man whose presence at the Capitol riot has raised questions, lied under oath when he told investigators he was at his hotel when he texted his nephew he “orchestrated” protests at the Capitol.
“The surveillance footage we found shows that, in fact, Ray Epps remained at the Capitol for at least another half an hour,” Carlson said. “What was Epps doing there? We can’t say. But we do know that he lied to investigators.”
