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When newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson announced last month that he would publicly release thousands of hours of January 6 footage, bowing to the demands of far-right conservatives, he said that his reason for doing so was all about transparency. The decision, he claimed, "will provide millions of Americans…an ability to see for themselves what happened that day.” Except, y’know, not so much!
In a truly incredible moment on Tuesday, Johnson told reporters that his team will release the footage as quickly as it can, but that the process has been delayed by the fact that they are blurring out some people’s faces. And what, you might ask, is their reason for doing this? They don’t want these people to be charged with crimes by the Justice Department. (No, really—that’s actually what he said!)
“We trust the American people to draw their own conclusions,” Johnson told the press. “They should not be dictated by some narrative and accept that as fact. So they can review the tapes themselves. We’re going through a methodical process of releasing them as quickly as we can, as, you know, we have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day, because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ, and to have other, y’know, concerns and problems."
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This was obviously an incredibly damning moment, as evidenced by the fact that Johnson’s office immediately sought to clarify his comments, saying in a statement on social media: “Faces are to be blurred from public viewing room footage to prevent all forms of retaliation against private citizens from any non-governmental actors. The Department of Justice already has access to raw footage from January 6, 2021.” While that’s true, for some reason it was the legal peril of appearing in the footage—and maybe committing crimes—that was apparently at top of mind for Johnson.
This story originally appeared in Vanity Fair.
