1 00:00:01,966 --> 00:00:04,300 GEOFF BENNETT: This week, FOX personality Tucker Carlson is releasing security video 2 00:00:04,300 --> 00:00:09,300 from the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol using footage provided exclusively to him by 3 00:00:11,266 --> 00:00:14,733 Speaker Kevin McCarthy in an effort to portray the day as a peaceful gathering. 4 00:00:14,733 --> 00:00:18,466 TUCKER CARLSON, FOX News Anchor: It was neither an insurrection nor deadly. 5 00:00:18,466 --> 00:00:22,600 The January 6 Committee knew perfectly well that Brian Sicknick was walking 6 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:27,600 normally through the Capitol after he was supposedly murdered by Trump supporters. To 7 00:00:29,500 --> 00:00:32,133 prove that Josh Hawley was a coward, the committee released a video of him loping 8 00:00:32,133 --> 00:00:35,666 out of the building on the afternoon of January 6 with a police escort. 9 00:00:35,666 --> 00:00:40,533 But, in fact, the surveillance footage we reviewed shows that famous clip was a sham, 10 00:00:40,533 --> 00:00:45,500 edited deceptively by the January 6 Committee. The January 6 Committee lied. 11 00:00:47,900 --> 00:00:50,700 GEOFF BENNETT: North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis today responded to that this way: 12 00:00:52,266 --> 00:00:54,633 SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): I think it's bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED). 13 00:00:54,633 --> 00:00:57,933 If you were just a tourist, you should have probably lined up 14 00:00:57,933 --> 00:01:00,933 at the visitors center and came in on an orderly basis. 15 00:01:00,933 --> 00:01:05,500 GEOFF BENNETT: U.S. Capitol Police in an internal message to officers today 16 00:01:05,500 --> 00:01:10,500 said -- quote -- "The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 17 00:01:12,466 --> 00:01:16,233 41,000 hours of video. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos 18 00:01:16,233 --> 00:01:20,500 and the violence that happened before or during these less tense moments." 19 00:01:20,500 --> 00:01:25,500 James Sasso served as senior investigative counsel for the January 6 Committee, and he joins us now. 20 00:01:26,633 --> 00:01:28,666 Thanks for being here. 21 00:01:28,666 --> 00:01:31,900 And we should say that you spent a year investigating the Capitol attack, 22 00:01:31,900 --> 00:01:35,500 specifically the people who planned and attended the riot, 23 00:01:35,500 --> 00:01:40,100 as well as the domestic extremist groups responsible for most of the violence. 24 00:01:40,100 --> 00:01:44,533 How does it strike you to hear Tucker Carlson say that the insurrection 25 00:01:44,533 --> 00:01:48,133 wasn't an insurrection at all and that the January 6 Committee lied? 26 00:01:48,133 --> 00:01:49,266 JAMES SASSO, Former Senior Investigative Counsel, January 6 Committee: It's just 27 00:01:49,266 --> 00:01:50,700 objectively not true. 28 00:01:52,333 --> 00:01:56,700 We watched thousands of hours of violence that happened on January 6, 29 00:01:58,266 --> 00:02:02,633 between rioter and police officers, rioters and rioters sometimes. 30 00:02:04,666 --> 00:02:08,300 The rioters too, if you look at DOJ filings that we covered and some of the defendants we 31 00:02:10,266 --> 00:02:13,366 interviewed, things that they said, were pretty explicit about what they were doing there. 32 00:02:13,366 --> 00:02:18,366 They were there at President Trump's beck and call to try to keep him in power at all -- by 33 00:02:20,333 --> 00:02:24,600 all means necessary. Some of them mentioned going to Civil War or Revolutionary War, 34 00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:29,600 depending on which one they wanted to choose. Many of them like Ryan Nichols mentioned dragging, 35 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:36,600 I will just say, members of Congress, although he used more colorful language, 36 00:02:36,600 --> 00:02:39,533 through the streets. He mentioned the same about Vice President Pence. 37 00:02:41,466 --> 00:02:45,133 Nicholas Dempsey stood in front of gallows and said members of Congress should all hang. 38 00:02:47,133 --> 00:02:50,166 They -- a lot of people there were explicitly there to commit violence. And even though a 39 00:02:52,766 --> 00:02:57,733 vast majority of the people who were part of the violence that day did not engage in, let's say, 40 00:03:00,100 --> 00:03:05,000 hand-to-hand violence or did not destroy the Capitol or did not do any act of violence, 41 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:11,166 the truth is that those who committed those horrible acts would not have succeeded if 42 00:03:13,166 --> 00:03:16,533 it weren't for the numbers of people who were there to stop the peaceful transfer of power. 43 00:03:16,533 --> 00:03:21,533 And that is an insurrection. The footage that Tucker Carlson showed was very selectively chosen. 44 00:03:25,233 --> 00:03:28,000 GEOFF BENNETT: Well, on that point, there will be people who will say, 45 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:33,000 well, the January 6 Committee also selectively chose footage and interviews to stitch together 46 00:03:35,100 --> 00:03:38,200 its own narrative, that the committee and Tucker Carlson are both in the storytelling business. 47 00:03:38,200 --> 00:03:40,133 How would you respond to that? 48 00:03:40,133 --> 00:03:44,466 JAMES SASSO: I would respond that we picked footage that showed the facts 49 00:03:45,833 --> 00:03:47,100 of the matter and what actually happened that day. 50 00:03:49,100 --> 00:03:52,133 There's nothing to hide in the footage. There's nothing to hide in the interviews 51 00:03:52,133 --> 00:03:56,733 that we had with defendants. We put out all of our transcripts. We have backed it up. 52 00:03:58,733 --> 00:04:02,400 There -- we did have a story that we're telling the American public, but it was 53 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:07,400 a story backed up by thousands and thousands of hours of investigation and fact-checking. 54 00:04:09,366 --> 00:04:13,500 It wasn't as if we just were, like, the narrative we want and go for it. It was 55 00:04:13,500 --> 00:04:18,500 what actually happened. And you can see that based on the extensive evidence we 56 00:04:20,500 --> 00:04:23,433 put forward and is in our report, and it is in all the public documents as well. 57 00:04:23,433 --> 00:04:25,366 GEOFF BENNETT: As you mentioned, 58 00:04:25,366 --> 00:04:28,800 you interviewed about 30 of the January 6 defendants about their motives. 59 00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:33,466 And you wrote an opinion piece recently for The New York Times where you said -- quote -- "With 60 00:04:33,466 --> 00:04:38,466 the legitimacy of democracy so degraded, revolution appeared logical to these people." 61 00:04:40,300 --> 00:04:43,500 What then is the impact of this effort, 62 00:04:43,500 --> 00:04:47,866 this coordinated effort to whitewash January 6 and rewrite that history? 63 00:04:47,866 --> 00:04:52,833 JAMES SASSO: It's dangerous. It legitimizes those feelings that 64 00:04:52,833 --> 00:04:56,933 people were already expressing on January 6 and ahead of January 6. 65 00:04:56,933 --> 00:05:00,600 It wasn't as if, magically, people were suddenly were like, oh, 66 00:05:02,633 --> 00:05:06,100 it's time to go to war, it's time to overthrow the government. People have been dissatisfied 67 00:05:06,100 --> 00:05:09,900 for a long time with the way American political institutions are working. People 68 00:05:11,533 --> 00:05:14,266 have a lot of racial resentment that's been building for 50 years. 69 00:05:14,266 --> 00:05:19,266 And President Trump gave them legitimacy. Now that we have an effort to whitewash what 70 00:05:21,166 --> 00:05:25,000 actually happened by not showing the violence that happened inside the Capitol that day, 71 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:30,000 two officers who were getting swarmed in the crypt, in Senate hallways. An Oath 72 00:05:31,833 --> 00:05:36,633 Keeper confronted and threatened officers, saying: "This is my 'bleeping' Capitol." 73 00:05:36,633 --> 00:05:41,633 By not showing what truly happens, we are telling those people who want to commit 74 00:05:45,233 --> 00:05:49,900 more political violence that it's OK. And that's a very big problem in America and a 75 00:05:49,900 --> 00:05:54,900 really big problem if we want our democracy to survive. We can't have people out there 76 00:05:54,900 --> 00:05:59,200 thinking it's OK to battle each other and to battle people who disagree with them. 77 00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:02,400 GEOFF BENNETT: James Sasso, former senior investigative counsel for the 78 00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:04,300 January 6 Committee, thanks for coming in. Good to talk to you. 79 00:06:04,300 --> 00:06:06,100 JAMES SASSO: Thank you for having me. It's been great.