Taking questions this Tuesday from reporters, Attorney General Merrick Garland roundly debunked the narrative from sources like Tucker Carlson of Fox News that the attack on the Capitol in early 2021 by violently rampaging Trump supporters wasn’t actually all that bad.
In a Monday night episode of his show, Carlson shared a small selection of clips from tens of thousands of hours of footage showing key periods during the Capitol riot and insisted that the footage debunked a supposedly contrived Democratic narrative of the seriousness of what happened, also glossing over the well-documented physical violence itself, at least some of which he dismissively called simply “vandalism.” These people were breaking windows, through which many climbed to access the inside of the building, brutalizing cops with implements both makeshift and prepared, and hunting government officials with openly murderous intentions. (Does Carlson think somebody put up a gallows outside the building for laughs?)
“I don’t want to comment on any particular reports,” Garland said, although the general terms in which he subsequently spoke obviously applied — rather directly — to Carlson. “I think all Americans saw what happened on January 6, and most of us saw it as it was happening. It was a violent attack on a fundamental tenet of American democracy — that power is peacefully transferred from one administration to another. Over 100 officers were assaulted on that day. Five officers died. We have charged more than 1,000 people with their crimes on that day, and more than 500 have already been convicted. I think it’s very clear what happened on January 6.”
Carlson’s idea that a small selection of clips showing a lack of open physical violence somehow meaningfully affects conclusions drawn from the other footage showing the very real violence is just nonsensical. Two things can be true, including both that some people were physically violent and others just generally participated, using the openings provided by those getting more physically confrontational. Notably, Carlson specified during his Monday show that his team supposedly had no push-back to their ostensibly investigative efforts from management at Fox itself, suggesting an open allowance at the upper echelons of the network for what he was doing. During the same show, he also again pushed dubious claims about the 2020 presidential election itself and suggested federal agents or informants of some sort may have been involved in inciting the attack on the Capitol complex, something for which there’s still just no credible evidence.
Check out Garland’s comments below:
Garland: I think all Americans saw what happened on January 6th and most of us saw it as it was happening. It was a violent attack on… pic.twitter.com/0lyTtq1GSx
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 7, 2023
