House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the release of Jan. 6 security footage has been delayed in order to blur the faces of rioters.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has promised to release more than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from Jan. 6 to the public, with one major caveat: The faces of some individuals who participated in the storming of the Capitol, a violent attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election, will be blurred out.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Johnson said that “the release of the January 6 tapes is a critical and important exercise, we want transparency … we trust — House Republicans trust — the American people to draw their own conclusions.”
Johnson added that the party is going “through a methodical process of releasing them as quickly as we can” and that they “have to blur some of the faces of the 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, you know, concerns and problems.”
His office later noted that DOJ already has the raw footage.
and later in the article:
Johnson's spokesman suggested that the speaker was trying to keep the raw footage away from online sleuths who have helped identify hundreds of Capitol rioters and aided in the FBI's investigation.
Didn't Republicans say these rioters were Black Lives Matter people or government actors? Which pile of bullshit does little johnson want us to consume?
It's either foolish or malicious to deliberately misrepresent the actions or motivations of these ass-hats just because they're ass-hats.
The DOJ already has unredacted footage and the blurring of faces is meant to avoid retaliation by "non-governmental actors", i.e. vigilantes, not to save anyone from arrest.
I disagree. These people broke the law in a serious way. There is no "light treason" when it comes to attempting to obstruct the public vote. We all should know who they are.
There have already been well over 1,000 arrests, a few hundred sentenced, etc. (https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases) and you can look up names/details of those who've gone through due process. That's the system at work, like it or not. I don't think it's up to you or me to convict, or harass, or whatever else. You can maybe ID folks whose images are posted by the FBI requesting information from the public. I just hate to see crappy headlines and social media posts distorting what's happening when it seems pretty simple to verify through non-extreme media outlets.
I say this all with respect.
I hope everyone who gleefully rampaged around the capital gets what is legitimately coming to them.
Is this the part where we start up the rumours again that Mike Johnson is anti-MAGA by trying to protect the FBI from Trump vigilantes by only blurring out the faces of informants, and just seeing what happens? Chaos for the sake of chaos?
Yeah, my fault. I read about this in an Axios article that I linked above. That only makes the rep's comment more absurd when, again, we know the DOJ has the unedited footage, which is also acknowledged in the Rolling Stone article.
We should immediately edit the footage with AI to "unblur" the faces with the correct suspects. Then, tag Johnson in every repaired clip we post online.
I think everyone involved in Jan 6 should be in jail, but after reading your comment I think blurring faces makes sense. Remember when Reddit caught the Boston bomber?
Yes, although someone else here pointed out to me that the Speaker actually did say he wanted faces blurred to protect those folks from DOJ, which is absurd 1) because I agree that those clowns need to face consequences, and 2) it makes no sense given that DOJ already has the raw footage.
Still, I'd hate to encourage reddit-style vigilantes even if that seems at odds with the fact that the FBI posts images explicitly looking for help in identifying certain suspects.
Well, no, I don't think that's obstruction. He's not hiding them from DOJ, since they already have the footage. Choosing to not publicize faces for John Q Public won't get in the way of their prosecutions.
Which is it? A "peaceful protest by MAGA infiltratded by A Deep State/BLM/Antifa instigating a sedicious Riot" or "Need to blur faces to protect from the non-government retaliation". If it's the former, surely the GOP would not desire protection of the latter.
Or should I just now start saying that the GOP led Congress is protecting Antifa/Deep State/BLM traitors? I'mma run with that one....
I hope we learned from the first one and be harsher on the losers. I think it was Sumner or Stevens that wanted land redistribution to freed slaves and military rule and treating the south as conquered territory.
"hilarious" in a very very sad and scary sense is what I meant. It's totally fucked up. Both parties are busy fighting each other over power and their citizens are barely making it. Healthcare system is an absolute disaster. Education system is shit. Infrastructure is becoming 3rd world level. Literally the country is falling apart.
I've been here 13, and just tried to get into politics a couple of years ago, and man do I hate it and find it very messy. Im now questioning my decision to get involved. I was a much happier person before.
He's a Christofascist. Every fucking word out of his mouth is self-serving bullshit as a matter of course and should be disregarded as having been said in bad faith.
Johnson says the J6 committee was a partisan action and that the Republicans on the committee were following some other agenda. Therefore, the Republican party is a criminal conspiracy to commit treason against the United States.
the same ones who ran like little girls while the traitors took a shit on the entire history of our Republic.. are those the Republicans who are blurring the faces of their criminal help? i hope they catch you assholes next time..
I think we already drew our own conclusions the day it happened. Our conclusions became firmer and firmer as the months carried on, when we learned that select Republicans actually cheered on for the Jan 6th riot to happen because they wanted the rioters to overrun their political opponents.
And blurring the faces really won't do much because we've had many clips to look at, we've had many tips, leads and everything about that riot to where we have a good idea as to who was there. Doesn't help that the idiots who participated are some of the loudest mouths, so they've drawn their own attention.
Oh, they'll probably just say it's because of defamation risk-
Johnson added that the party is going “through a methodical process of releasing them as quickly as we can” and that they “have to blur some of the faces of the 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, you know, concerns and problems.”
Oh, right, sorry. Forgot this is the timeline where Republicans take it as a point of pride that their motive is to be fascists. Carry on.