Republicans slam Tucker Carlson over Capitol attack clips
Fox News has faced criticism from Senate Republicans and Capitol police over one of its hosts, Tucker Carlson, who aired previously unseen clips of the riot at Congress two years ago, downplaying the violent disorder.
Carlson argued that the footage “does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” but rather “mostly peaceful chaos.”
Some Republicans accused Carlson of mischaracterising the attack on Congress.
The Fox News host – a conservative network – has long insisted that other media outlets exaggerated violence at the Capitol on 6 January 2021.
During the segment, Carlson said the video showed that while a minority of protesters did commit violence, most were “sightseers.”
Critics, including Democrats, top Republicans, the head of the Capitol police, and the family of a police officer who died, rejected Carlson’s version of events.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday it had been a “mistake 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” about the riot.
Mr McConnell pointed to an internal memo by Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger, whose agency is responsible for protecting the buildings where the lawmakers meet.
In that memo, Mr Manger says the primetime Monday broadcast was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6 attack”.
“The programme conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video,” he wrote.
“The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”
Carlson also focused on Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died after returning to his office during the siege, but his family issued a statement saying they were “outraged” at the coverage and lambasted the network as “propaganda.”
The footage showed Mr Sicknick performing his duties inside the Capitol after being pepper-sprayed/
“Whatever happened to Brian Sicknick was very obviously not to do with the violence he suffered outside the Capitol,” Mr Carlson said.
In April 2021, a medical examiner found that Mr Sicknick had died of natural causes from a medical condition not brought on by an injury.
Carlson ‘hated’ Trump
Meanwhile, there are new revelations from the defamation case filed by the electronic voting firm Dominion Voting Systems – which is currently suing Fox News for promoting baseless claims of vote-rigging.
The latest filings in the $1.6bn case reportedly suggest that two days before the Capitol riot Mr Carlson wrote in a text about his “hate” for Mr Trump.
“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” he wrote on 4 January 2021, according to US media. “I truly can’t wait.”
“I hate him passionately,” he added.
Reports of the filing emerged as Mr Trump himself posted on his social media platform Truth Social in all capital letters: “Great job by Tucker Carlson tonight.”