More than 40,000 hours of security video from the January 6th Capitol Police will be made public on a dedicated website starting immediately and ramping up in the coming months, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced yesterday. However, individual video clips released to media or other requesters will have the faces of identifiable individuals blurred, a senior congressional aide told The Epoch Times. That restriction drew immediate fire from some J6 criminal case defendants. The Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight, chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, has already posted 90 hours of Capitol security video in the online viewing room. The initial release includes footage previously provided to various media outlets.
”The goal of our investigation has been to provide the American people with transparency on what happened at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and this includes all official videos from that day. We will continue loading video footage as we conduct our investigation and continue to review footage.” Mr. Loudermilk said in a statement. Some clips could be withheld if deemed “security sensitive” or if it could “potentially provide a roadmap for doxing and harassing private individuals,” the aide said. Beginning on November 20th, members of the public will also be able to view footage on terminals in the committee’s offices on Capitol Hill, the source said. Those wishing to view the video at committee offices will have to request a time slot by emailing: charep.oversightrequests@mail.house.gov
In-person viewing on the congressional video terminals offers advantages over the online viewing room. In-person viewers can select individual cameras from an interactive Capitol map and narrow the footage by timeframe. The in-person system has maps for each level of the Capitol. The Capitol grounds are separated into zones, with the camera locations indicated by small icons. Viewers can access the entire database, whereas the online viewing room will be stocked with tranches of footage on a rolling basis. Earlier this year, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would release J6 video footage, but that commitment never resulted in the public getting direct access.
Understandably, the viewing room setup and the plans to blur faces on video clips given to media or the public drew some criticism on social media. Blurring the faces of those shown in the downloadable videos will erode public trust. Why risk protecting corrupt Deep State agents who participated in the false flag operation? Why the online viewing room doesn’t have a download function? Congressional sources said that ”the public can request downloadable videos based on their research, but all clips are subject to committee approval and will be processed to blur the faces of identifiable persons.” For many, including myself, this seems to be a cheap political PR stunt…