House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) granted Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to surveillance footage of the Jan. 6, 2021 protests.

Carlson received 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from McCarthy's office.

In December 2022, McCarthy sent a letter to the former House select committee investigating Jan. 6, demanding that it hold a hearing on the security failures that led to the Capitol "breach" during the protests.

"It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people.  The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts," McCarthy said at the time.

During a press conference in January, the speaker told reporters that Americans should see the truth about the Jan. 6 protests rather than a report written for political purposes.

"I think the public should see what happened on that day," he said.

"We watched the politicization of this.  I think the American public should actually see all what happened instead of a report that's written for a political basis," he added.

In 2021, the FBI found little evidence that the Jan. 6 protests were an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election through "violent" means.  A Harvard University survey reached the same conclusion.

According to the Harvard Crimson, less than 8% of protesters on Jan. 6 were motivated by a "desire to start a civil war or an armed revolution."

As such, Carlson has long questioned the political narrative that the protests were "violent."

"You know it tells you a lot about the priorities of a ruling class that the rest of us are getting yet another lecture about January 6th tonight — from our moral inferiors, no less," Carlson stated on air in June 2022.  "An outbreak of mob violence, a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards, that took place more than a year and a half ago, but they've never stopped talking about it."

Carlson told Axios that the footage he received will "reveal what actually happened" on Jan. 6, hinting that it will release in his show Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) supported McCarthy's decision to release footage of the events that unfolded in January 2021.

J6 video tapes will also be available for all J6 defendants.

All 42,000+ hours.

Thank you Speaker McCarthy.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greeneрџ‡єрџ‡ё (@RepMTG) February 20, 2023

Tucker Carlson now has 41,000 hours of January 6 footage that Pelosi held for over two years.

Thank you @SpeakerMcCarthy for following through on this!

The public deserves to see everything that was hidden.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) February 20, 2023

However, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) did not support the speaker's decision to hand over the footage, calling Tucker Carlson a "right-wing propagandist."

Kevin McCarthy turned over Jan 6 videos to right-wing propagandist Tucker Carlson.

A man who spews Kremlin talking points. Suggests Jan 6 was a false flag. And spreads the Big Lie.

Make no mistake: This isn’t about transparency, it’s about fueling dangerous conspiracy theories.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 20, 2023

The release of the footage from Jan. 6 will allow the American people to form their perspectives about the events of that day rather than believe a purely political narrative.

Image: Kevin McCarthy.  Credit: World Economic Forum via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.