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Mike Johnson: We need to blur January 6 video to keep rioters from getting in trouble

Published on 22 Comments on Mike Johnson: We need to blur January 6 video to keep rioters from getting in trouble

A couple of weeks ago Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to release the full 40,000 hours of videotape from the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol:

He strongly suggested that the videos would contradict the public understanding of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.... “When bureaucrats and partisan activists withhold data to advance a narrative, it erodes trust in our institutions,” Mr. Johnson posted on social media. “We must restore that trust.”

Quite so. We must release all the—

Sorry. Almost all the surveillance video:

“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,” Johnson said at a press conference.

Ah, right. Gotta blur the faces of folks doing illegal stuff so they don't get in trouble. But not the faces of rioters who we can pretend were law enforcement officers in order to feed conspiracy theories that this was all a false flag operation by the FBI:

Sen. Mike Lee and the ever reliable Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene both circulated this crackpot theory. It's funny that no one bothered to blur it out.

POSTSCRIPT: As you might imagine, the Justice Department has had full access to this video from the start. This makes Johnson's blurring excuse even dumber than it already is.

22 thoughts on “Mike Johnson: We need to blur January 6 video to keep rioters from getting in trouble”

  1. D_Ohrk_E1

    “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,”

    Regardless that these Capitol feeds were available to DoJ long before he made them selectively public, I find it informative that the Republican Speaker of the House has signaled that he thinks he can obstruct justice.

    1. KenSchulz

      So Republicans wanted to release the tapes to prove that the January 6 crowd were just peaceful tourists; now they’re afraid those peaceful tourists could be charged with crimes?!

      1. D_Ohrk_E1

        Don't forget the other alternative narrative they've offered: These were FBI/antifa folks disguised as violent protestors. In this case, why is Johnson covering up the faces of these far-left instigators, amirite?

    2. Yehouda

      "I find it informative that the Republican Speaker of the House has signaled that he thinks he can obstruct justice."

      Why?
      Did you have any doubts about it before that?
      This guy tried to help Trump overturn elections, why would obstructing justice be anything special for him (as long as he can get away with it)?

    3. lawnorder

      It's not so much that he thinks he CAN obstruct justice; that's a given. What I find troubling is that the Speaker of the House thinks he SHOULD obstruct justice.

  2. different_name

    There is a phase when a cult starts doing things that objectively make no sense in terms of pursuing their goals directly, but instead are responding to internal pressure relating to their worldview.

    This seems to be happening now - as Kevin notes, blurring faces is strictly performative, it won't prevent the DOJ from bringing any prosecutions it wants. This is an effort to mollify cult members with a skewed, unrealistic view of how the world works. It is easier to quell dissent with a stupid, performative act.

    Let's hope they all keep crawling up each other's asses with pointless nonsense, the sooner they run this course, the sooner it will collapse.

  3. Yehouda

    "the Justice Department has had full access to this video from the start. This makes Johnson's blurring excuse even dumber than it already is."

    Not obviously. The DOJ presumably have not identified everybody in these tapes, and making them public means that somebody in the public may recognize somebody and report them.

    Also possible that the DOJ (or some other relevant agency) requested that some faces will be bluured, and he uses this excuse instead of telling the truth.

  5. lower-case

    the obvious reason trump is so upset about the 2020 election is that he paid 2000 mules good money to dump millions of bogus votes into the system

    but even that wasn't nearly enough

  7. Altoid

    Well, but it's also partly a dog-whistle to the MAGA faithful, who'll read this as reassurance that he's on side with the rioters. They won't pay any attention to the excuse he gave-- they're not supposed to-- but instead will take it as protecting rioters from the Deep State (and probably are being messaged to that effect through channels only they pay attention to and in allusions only they understand). Blurring the faces and crowing about doing it is the equivalent of trump playing the J6 Chain Gang chorus at his rallies.

    Behind that Harold Lloyd look, Johnson strikes me as a shape-shifter whose deepest skill is not getting pinned down. Whether he'll ever use that Gollum-esque sliminess for the country's ultimate benefit remains to be seen. As does whether it'll keep him in the chair any longer than McCarthy's blatant perfidy. Jury's out on both, but the odds look long.

    1. Doctor Jay

      This is a pretty solid take on Mike Johnson - not getting pinned down as his best skill.

      I think he is far, far better at managing the internal politics of the House R Caucus than McCarthy was. Because he can come up with performative stuff like this and do it with a straight face.

      2. Altoid

        I agree he starts out better with the caucus since he's one of the ultras, speaks their language without scaring the normies too much, and presents as the publicly-acceptable face of nut-jobbery. Whether he keeps those advantages is the question.

        As speaker he has to spend more and more of his time talking to Jeffries, Schumer, McConnell, and high-level White House staffers and occasionally Biden, and he's also getting read in on confidential stuff all the time that he'll have to hold back without letting on that he's holding back (because of the posture he took going into the job). Pressure like that is hard to resist, plus at some points he's going to have to disappoint even trump, even just a little. He'll need very deep reservoirs of slime to forestall the ultras from eventually feeling he's gone native and not trusting him anymore.

        And he might have those reserves-- he danced away without a scratch from an epic fiasco as the would-be founding dean of a new law school, so his self-preservation skills are, umm, finely honed. But this time he needs to move in the opposite direction. So we'll see.

  8. megarajusticemachine

    "This makes Johnson's blurring excuse even dumber than it already is."

    Not dumb, lying for political gain. Even poorly thought out lies can count, and they are willing to lie about anything anywhere, any time.

    1. Altoid

      Umm, may not be the whole story. Check this coverage of his plea and sentencing, in order for full effect:

      https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/former-west-virginia-lawmaker-derrick-evans-sentenced-storming-capitol-rcna34329

      https://apnews.com/article/jan6-capitol-riot-participants-change-tune-after-apologies-f0f37e1409da9366d2d3cc3de65502d9

      He was a WV state representative at the time. If I understand how it works, state officials swear oaths to uphold the US constitution as well as their state's.

      His sentence was 3 months. The judge was going to give him 6, but DOJ requested 3.

  10. Dana Decker

    Johnson is right to blur the faces of rioters, but not blur Capitol security information - where cameras are situated; details about doors, hallways, and furniture; Capitol police deployment; weak points in structural elements (e.g. hinges, handles, windows).
    Those should be widely known so that the next assault on the Capitol succeeds - which Johnson wanted to happen the first time.

  12. CouginShoreline

    Since the majority of culprits were identified by free-lance "seditionist hunters," blurring faces does indeed impair law enforcement.

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