House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) on Sunday said he had “no indication” police had passed the Jan. 6, 2021, tape, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) shared with Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. .
McCarthy has defended the decision to hand Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of surveillance footage from the US Capitol during the January 6 attack, saying he has taken action to ensure the safety of members of parliament will not be risked by the release of the material.
But Jeffries said there was no indication that the video had been released by authorities.
“It’s not clear yet whether any footage of the material may have been shared by news personalities on other networks, but it should be vetted before anything is released into the public domain,” Jeffries told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
McCarthy said Carlson promised not to share the “exits” used by lawmakers and staff at the Capitol, but did not specify what he was doing to ensure the safety of lawmakers and staff would not be harmed by the release of the material.
“There are serious security concerns with releasing the tapes into the public domain in an era when political violence is on the rise, and there are people, including former presidents, who are fanning the flames of extremism,” the Democratic leader said.
Carlson, an ally of former President Donald Trump who spread conspiracy theories about January 6 and condemned the work of the House committee tasked with investigating the uprising, said he will start airing the material this week.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) strongly condemned McCarthy’s actions in a letter to his Senate colleagues last month, saying it made the job of Capitol police officers more difficult.
“It also risks exposing the carefully laid and highly guarded plans for government continuity, which are meant to preserve democracy in the event of an attack,” Schumer wrote. “All the things that want to destroy our country will be happy to learn.”
Meanwhile, the Fox News personality’s personal statements are highlighted in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the conservative cable network.
A text by Carlson, released in a court filing, shows that he thought Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell was lying about the election, but continued to push her false claims. In another text to colleagues Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, Carlson called for the Fox News reporter to be fired for fact-checking Trump’s tweets.
The founder of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, testified in a lawsuit deposition that some hosts “endorsed” the 2020 election fraud and “I like that we are stronger to blame.”