Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee called for an investigation into the now-defunct House committee on Jan. 6, accusing former and current lawmakers who served on the committee of “deliberately” withholding some of the footage from the Capitol riots.
Lee’s comments came after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., began releasing more than 40,000 hours of footage taken at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as protesters raged about the the 2020 election the results trickled down the halls of Congress.
Highlighting the release of the footage in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, Lee questioned the character of former Republican representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
“Why did Liz Cheney and Adam Kizinger never refer to any of these tapes? Maybe they didn’t look for them. Maybe they didn’t even question their own narrative. Maybe they were too busy selecting texts message from the Republicans that they want to lose,” Lee wrote in a post on the platform, accompanied by a video that purportedly showed Capitol police officers overseeing the passage of protesters into the building that day.
Highlighting the release of Jan. 6, 2021, footage from the Capitol in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, Lee questioned the character of former Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. (Getty Images)
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Cheney and Kinzinger, Lee wrote in another post at X, are “people who helped hide the J6 tapes” and are “cut from the same cloth as the people who will tell you that FISA 702 should be reauthorized without reforms—’because search warrants require too much effort.'”
“We need to investigate the J6 committee,” he wrote in another post.
Lee also targeted the general committee, as well as then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who appointed a select committee to investigate what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Given the evidence they seem to have withheld, how much footage (and some other records) do you think Nancy Pelosi and the J6 committee willfully lost or destroyed?” Lee asked in one post.
In response to a post Friday by Cheney, which included “some January 6th video” of disgruntled protesters scuffling with Capitol police, Lee wrote“Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times. You made sure we saw that — and nothing else. It’s the other stuff — what you tried to hide from us — that we find so annoying. Nice try .”
“PS How many of these guys are feds? (As if you’d ever tell us),” Lee added in his response to the former lawmaker.
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In another post, Lee wrote, “Taxpayer dollars fund the sham J6 committee.”
The GOP senator also boosted a clip released Friday showing an officer working inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, who appeared to be off-cuff and escorted a protester. The protester can be seen in the clip punching what appears to be another officer nearby at the time of his release.
The House select committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021 on June 16, 2022 in Washington, DC (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“I walk through these doors every day — several times a day. I’ve never seen this happen,” Lee wrote in response.
With the release of the remaining footage from the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Speaker Johnson said in a statement: “When I ran for Speaker, I promised to make accessible to the American people the 44,000 hours of video taken by Capitol Hill security on January 6, 2021. Truth and transparency are critical.”
Some video was made available to the public on Friday, with most of it being released gradually over time, Johnson said.
Johnson said his decision to release the remaining footage “will give millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media the ability to see firsthand what happened that day, instead which relied on the interpretation of a small group of government officials.”
Protesters walk through Statuary Hall of the US Capitol during a joint session of Congress to count the votes of the 2020 presidential election in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021. (Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Johnson said about 5% of the footage was likely to be withheld because of “sensitive security information related to the architecture of the building,” and some faces were blurred “to prevent any person from being targeted for any kind of of revenge.”
It is being made public through a subcommittee of the House Administration Committee on Oversight.
Elizabeth Elkind of Fox News contributed to this report.
