RUTHFULLY YOURS

For more than two years, Democrats and the media have been completely and totally fixated on the events of Jan. 6, 2021, using carefully selected clips from more than 40,000 hours of surveillance footage to tell their story of a violent insurrection.

But now that Fox News has gained access to the complete video record and is providing the public with a far more complete picture of what happened that day, we fully expect the left to suddenly decide that Jan. 6 isn’t worth talking about any more.

Shortly after Republicans took control of the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy decided to make the complete set of surveillance videos available to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. You can debate McCarthy’s choice of who got access all you want. But the result is that the public has, for the first time, seen surveillance footage Democrats didn’t want Americans to see. Such as evidence of Capitol Police officers politely escorting peaceful demonstrators around the building.

The newly available footage also made it clear that the police officer who the Trump mob supposedly killed, Brian Sicknick, was walking around unharmed after the “deadly” attack occurred. Other narratives are failing to hold up.

Not surprisingly, Democrats are blasting Carlson, denouncing Fox News, and demanding that the videos remain a state secret.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a primetime cable news anchor manipulate his viewers the way Mr. Carlson did last night,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed.

That’s rich, considering that Democrats spent the past two years doing exactly that.

Schumer went on to say: “When people don’t believe elections are on the level, that’s the beginning of the end of this bold experiment in democracy that has gone on for more than 200 years.”

That’s also rich, given that Democrats spent four years claiming that the 2016 election had been stolen. Hillary Clinton still refuses to admit that she lost honestly and fairly.

That wasn’t the first time Democrats challenged the integrity of presidential elections.

As the Daily Caller helpfully reminds us:

Democrats forced votes in the House of Representatives and Senate on whether to uphold an objection to Ohio’s electoral votes in the 2004 election by then-Democratic Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio and Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California on Jan. 6, 2005, while House Democrats attempted to object to the results of the 2000 and 2016 election on Jan. 6, 2001 and Jan. 6, 2017, but did not have the support of a Senator, according to the Congressional Record.

What is somewhat surprising, but probably shouldn’t be, is the reaction from some Republicans to the release of this additional Jan. 6 footage.

At a GOP leadership press conference, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks.”

McConnell said he was 100% on board with a letter Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger delivered to his team, which among other things complained that Carlson “conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video,” and called it a “disturbing accusation” that Sicknick’s death had nothing to do with the riot.

North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer added to the chorus of complaints, saying “I think that breaking through glass windows and doors to get into the United States Capitol against the borders of police is a crime.”

Well, Cramer’s right about that. The actions of those people were criminal. And anyone who participated in the destruction deserved to be brought to justice.

But that’s not what Democrats have been claiming for the past two years.

Democrats weren’t simply upset that a handful of crazy Trump supporters damaged the Capitol and caused some lawmakers to be afraid. They were saying, as the White House still says, that this was the biggest threat to the union since the Civil War.

They wanted the FBI to spread a dragnet out for anyone who came into the building that day and have them all convicted as insurrectionists. They’ve been happy to keep many of them locked in isolation without a trial.

And, remember, it was the Democrats’ characterization of the events that was manipulative. It’s Democrats who decided to raise the stakes, hold kangaroo court hearings, and grossly misrepresent the events of Jan. 6.

If you don’t think we’re right about this, try a thought experiment. Imagine if some Democrats felt that a presidential election had been stolen and held protest rallies that turned violent. How would Democrats themselves react? Would they decry it as a threat to the nation? Or would they pass it off as people expressing their first amendment rights in “mostly peaceful” demonstrations?

Oh, wait, you don’t need to conduct a thought experiment.

Because that’s exactly what happened in 2016 and 2017, when the left erupted into violent protests after a candidate, whom they didn’t like, won the election that they thought was rigged.

If further releases of the surveillance footage – that Democrats purposely kept hidden from view – continue to undercut this narrative, what are they going to do? Change the subject.

They (along with their equally morally flexible media comrades) will suddenly decide that all this talk about Jan. 6 is just a distraction from more important issues.