Tucker Carlson, a prominent propagandist for Fox News, is currently running with the narrative that security footage made available to his Fox team by House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) somehow debunks an ostensibly Democratic narrative of what took place during the Capitol riot.
The family of Brian Sicknick, an officer with the U.S. Capitol Police who died very soon after participating in the defense of the Capitol complex against rampaging Trump supporters, sounds furious at Carlson using what happened that day and thereafter, including Sicknick’s death, to further his agenda. Previously, brothers of the late officer and his mother have been involved in speaking about what happened. “The Sicknick family is outraged at the ongoing attack on our family by the unscrupulous and outright sleazy so called ‘news’ network of Fox News who will do the bidding of Trump or any of his sycophant followers, no matter what damage is done to the families of the fallen, the officers who put their lives on the line, and all who suffered on Jan 6th due to the lies started by Trump and spread by sleaze slinging outlets like Fox,” the new statement from the Sicknicks said.
Carlson, as could be expected, desperately tried to downplay the brutal physical violence — and even the threat of more of it — seen as the Capitol was attacked by Trump’s rampaging supporters. Imagine for a moment that it was liberals who had stormed the Capitol complex, beating police officers with what seemed like whatever they could get their hands on. Would Carlson still be characterizing even some violent individuals in the crowd as having been guilty of what he dismissively called “vandalism”? Obviously not.
He acted in an episode of his show this week as though isolated pieces of footage showing rioters inside the building — where it was illegal for them to be present — without actively engaging in physical violence does away with the idea there was much of a physical threat at all, confusing this reality for an imaginarily contrived narrative — which also wasn’t debunked, since two things (some people committed violence, while others didn’t) can be true at once.
The statement from Sicknick’s family also undercut the idea that the late officer having continued to engage in his duties amid the assault on the premises meant he actually wasn’t that threatened by what was happening. “What will it take to convince people that the Jan 6th Insurrection was very real, was very violent, and that the event was orchestrated by a man who is every bit as corrupt and evil as Vladimir Putin?” the late officer’s family added.
Carlson’s narrative is just false. He questioned, for instance, why police didn’t seek to apprehend riot participant Jacob Chansley as he wandered through the Capitol — which many entered through broken windows and other obviously improper means. Well, as has been well-documented, police were overwhelmed and trying to manage their resources, even releasing multiple individuals who they did detain that day. This is basic stuff Carlson is keeping from his viewers. See the Sicknicks’ statement below:
Quite the statement here from the family of U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick tonight:
"Every time the pain of that day seems to have ebbed a bit, organizations like Fox rip our wounds wide open again and we are frankly sick of it. Leave us the hell alone…" pic.twitter.com/V8O5jkl9pR
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 7, 2023
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
