The House Administration Committee released 5,000 hours of additional security footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as part of House Speaker Mike Johnson‘s (R-LA) promise to make all surveillance videos available for public access.
Johnson said in a statement on Friday that the committee will no longer plan to blur the faces of the people in the footage “given the significant logistic hurdles involved and the importance of getting this work completed as responsibly and efficiently as possible.” Previously released footage with blurred faces will be reuploaded without the blurs.
“House Republicans again commend Chairman Loudermilk and the entire Committee on House Administration for their ongoing commitment to ensuring that there is full transparency surrounding the events of January 6,” the speaker said.
“This ongoing work is especially necessary considering the deeply flawed prior investigation conducted by the partisan January 6 select committee, which instead of delivering transparency, has contributed to defendants, public interest groups, and the media having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials,” he said.
Friday’s release comes after the initial tranche of 90 hours of footage was released in November last year once Johnson announced that tapes of over 44,000 hours of security footage would be posted to a public website. Roughly 5% of the video footage will not be posted due to sensitive security information “related to the building architecture,” the speaker previously said.
House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) said in a statement that the release of the footage is about “providing the American people with full transparency and complete accountability” regarding Jan. 6.
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House Republicans had pushed to have the riot footage public months before Johnson allowed it. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) had urged former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to release the tapes. The Florida Republican later moved to vacate the former congressman from the House’s top leadership position.
“I appreciate Speaker Johnson’s continued support of our efforts and his resolute commitment to full transparency for the American people,” Loudermilk said. “Today’s decision will significantly expedite CCTV footage releases, all of which will be made available to the American public within the next few months, without blurring or editing. The first batch is already available on our Rumble page.”
