January 6th Capitol Building Security Footage

[Ken]

Are we seeing your predefined narrative here? Are you speculating that Mike Johnson might have been involved in coordinating Jan 6?

We know that Mike Johnson was involved in the attempts to overturn the election. That's not speculation. How did the various people who were trying to overturn the election communicate around January 6th? If we really want "full transparency", wouldn't that be good to know?

https://apnews.com/article/congress-hou ... 24cc78e5c5

Mike Johnson, the Louisiana congressman who was elected speaker of the House of Representatives on Wednesday after a three-week standoff among Republicans, took the lead in filing a brief in a lawsuit that sought to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win. That claim, widely panned by legal scholars of all ideologies, was quickly thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court.

After the 2020 election, Johnson also echoed some of the wilder conspiracy theories pushed by then-President Donald Trump to explain away his loss. Then Johnson voted against certifying Biden’s win even after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

As I think you know, my main point wasn't about Mike Johnson. It doesn't appear that Grace is the only one who has "pre-defined" narratives.

The thread is about Mike Johnson to the extent that it is Mike Johnson and his staff who are determining which curated bits of Capitol security tapes are being released and in what order.

Is he a dispassionate and uninvolved/unbiased 3rd party? Or is he up to his neck in Trump's efforts to overthrow the 2020 election? His record suggests that it is the latter.

[Jazman]

The releasing of the surveillance footage should be all or none. But that train already left the station when the Jan. 6 Committee released some video footage and now there is no turning back. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. The committee were the first to release footage and the Democrats, and the media were salivating over that report. Now that Mike Johnson is releasing more, they are having a fit. Did they think for one minute that theirs would be the only footage the public would ever see? How arrogant and presumptuous?

I doubt many Republican lawmakers would want all the footage released... would they?
Also, I though Republicans generally "back the Blue"... ie respect for police officers/forces is high. Sounds like Mr Johnson is responding to some of their concerns about releasing footage. Why wouldn't most Republican constituents want to follow suit? Seems like your "all or none" would oppose the wishes of the capitol's police force.

[Josh]

Jazman, it may do you some good to get to know actual Republicans instead of the caricatures you see in MSNBC.

[Bootstrap]

Not terribly surprising ... but there are some rather wild claims out there ...

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Georgia Republican, was among the first lawmakers to post false information about the newly released videos. She claimed on the social media site X that surveillance video showed a rioter holding a law enforcement badge in his hand, suggesting that he was an undercover police officer “disguised as a Trump supporter” and the attack was an inside job.

But the item in the man’s hand in the screen grab she circulated appears, upon closer inspection, to have been a vape pen. And the man who is seen in that image, Kevin Lyons, was in fact a heating-and-cooling technician — not a police officer — who was later convicted at a public trial of multiple federal charges and sentenced to more than four years in prison.

Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, recirculated the same clip and false allegation that the man pictured had flashed a badge, adding that he looked forward to questioning Christopher S. Wray, the F.B.I. director, about the matter.

[Bootstrap]

From the same article ...

Still others, such as Donald Trump Jr., have shared video of rioters walking through the Capitol hallways doing nothing violent, suggesting that those who entered the building were entirely peaceful. But other videos from that day show some of the same people at other moments storming the building and attacking police officers.

“This is consistent with what they do,” Soumya Dayananda, who served as a senior investigator for the House Jan. 6 committee, said. “It’s just cherry-picking what they think is going to further their conspiracy theory.”

[Jazman]

Jazman, it may do you some good to get to know actual Republicans instead of the caricatures you see in MSNBC.

You're first point may be advised, although at family, work and church I am surrounded by GOP leaning / even voting people, so there's that. Your second point is moot because I don't ever watch MSNBC...

[Ernie]

Mike Johnson said today,
"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 to be charged by the DOJ."

His spokesperson, Raj, then 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."

I don't think Johnson had a slip-up and said "DOJ" when what he really meant to say was "non-governmental actors". Sorry but I am not buying this, Raj.

So...
1. Did Johnson mean what he said?
2. I assume he thinks some rioters should be prosecuted and not others?
3. Or does he actually think no one on capital grounds that day should be prosecuted?
4. Or is he saying that online sleuths may give wrong information to the DOJ and the DOJ will take their word for it rather than doing their homework?
5. Other?

"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mike-jo ... =105394429

[cooper]

Mike Johnson said today,
"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 to be charged by the DOJ."

His spokesperson, Raj, then 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."

I don't think Johnson had a slip-up and said "DOJ" when what he really meant to say was "non-governmental actors". Sorry but I am not buying this, Raj.

So...
1. Did Johnson mean what he said?
2. I assume he thinks some rioters should be prosecuted and not others?
3. Or does he actually think no one on capital grounds that day should be prosecuted?
4. Or is he saying that online sleuths may give wrong information to the DOJ and the DOJ will take their word for it rather than doing their homework?
5. Other?

"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mike-jo ... =105394429

My guess is he was ignorant of the fact that the DOJ already had the footage and changed his tune once he learned they DOJ already had the footage.

[Bootstrap]

Mike Johnson said today,
"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 to be charged by the DOJ."

My guess is he was ignorant of the fact that the DOJ already had the footage and changed his tune once he learned they DOJ already had the footage.

Oh, he knew or should have known. Politicians often don't speak logic, they speak psychological imagery instead. Mike Johnson wants to project the image that he is protecting J6 protestors against the DOJ. He does not want to admit that this is what he is actually doing:

His spokesperson, Raj, then 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."

That was one of the reasons the DOJ and the Capitol Police gave for not just releasing the tapes unredacted. And this is really important - people who are not charged with a crime should not be made vulnerable to mob anger. Even if they were part of a mob themselves.

[GaryK]

Mike Johnson said today,
"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 to be charged by the DOJ."

My guess is he was ignorant of the fact that the DOJ already had the footage and changed his tune once he learned they DOJ already had the footage.

Oh, he knew or should have known. Politicians often don't speak logic, they speak psychological imagery instead. Mike Johnson wants to project the image that he is protecting J6 protestors against the DOJ. He does not want to admit that this is what he is actually doing:

His spokesperson, Raj, then 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."

That was one of the reasons the DOJ and the Capitol Police gave for not just releasing the tapes unredacted. And this is really important - people who are not charged with a crime should not be made vulnerable to mob anger. Even if they were part of a mob themselves.

How do you know what Mike Johnson wants to project and doesn't want to admit to? Isn't stating negative things about the other side that you don't know to be true the sort of things political outrage machines do?

Edited to add: I basically agree with your assessment of Mike Johnson. But with all your admonitions to others to base what we say in facts because doing otherwise promotes political outrage, your statements about Mike Johnson sort of fly in the face of that admonition.