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TUCKER CARLSON: The January 6 videos touch a nerve because they threaten Dems’ lies

By Tucker Carlson | Fox News | Published March 7, 2023 9:53pm EST

Tucker Carlson: The Jan. 6 videos touch a nerve

Last night, we aired video from surveillance cameras on Capitol Hill. That video was recorded 26 months to the day before January 6, 2021, and for 26 months, that footage was held from the American public. The January 6 Committee made certain. Now, the Justice Department also kept a lid on that video footage and in fact, in some cases, DOJ did not share it with criminal defendants who had been charged on January 6 in violation of their constitutional rights.

We felt it was a public service to bring what we could to you. There was no justification for keeping the secret any longer and a powerful argument to be made that sunlight is always and everywhere the best disinfectant and in fact, because it was video evidence, it is to some extent self-explanatory.

Anyone could look at the tape and decide what he or she thinks of it. The tape we showed last night indicated very clearly that Capitol Hill police in some cases escorted protesters through the Capitol as if they were giving a tour. They did that with Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman. At one point, they even tried to open locked doors on Chansley’s behalf.

Chansley was sentenced to four years in prison for his crimes in the Capitol on January 6 and the video we showed you last night raises the obvious question: Why? On what grounds? The video we showed you last night also showed that Officer Brian Sicknick was not beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by protesters on January 6 as the media and Liz Cheney so often claimed. The video shows Sicknick walking around the building, apparently in good health, after he was supposedly killed. We showed you that video. You can make of it what you will. We also showed you video that proves Ray Epps, the mysterious protester who encouraged others to breach the Capitol, lied to the January 6 Committee about where he was on that day, but for some reason, the committee protected him anyway. He was not considered an insurrectionist. He was their ally.

TUCKER CARLSON RELEASES EXCLUSIVE JAN. 6 FOOTAGE, SAYS POLITICIANS, MEDIA LIED ABOUT SICKNICK, ‘QANON SHAMAN’

Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, speaks during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

So, once again, you can draw whatever conclusions you like from that video. We have ours and we shared them with you, but it’s really beyond debate that it is good for this country for Americans to be able to see it. The media and politicians, the people in charge, have talked about January 6 every day since it happened for 26 months and so at some point, the evidence should be presented to the public. In free countries, governments do not lie about protests as a pretext to gain more power for themselves. They don’t selectively edit videos for propaganda services and then lie about them and fake hearings and show trials, but that’s exactly what happened and every member of Congress should ask why that happened, but Democrats in the Senate, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, is not asking why. Instead, Chuck Schumer went on the Senate floor today to explode and to say that showing that video evidence of wrongdoing by the federal government, including the security forces, the police department, that Nancy Pelosi personally controlled, letting the public see any of that is a threat to democracy.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Last night, millions of Americans tuned in to one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on cable television. Fox News host Tucker Carlson ran a lengthy segment last night arguing the January 6 Capitol attack was not a violent insurrection. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a primetime cable news anchor manipulate his viewers the way Mr. Carlson did last night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anchor treat the American people and American democracy with such disdain.

“There’s nothing that shameful that has ever appeared on American television in the history of the media,” and so on the basis of that, the self-evident outrage of showing the public video that it paid for and has a right to see, Chuck Schumer called for the censorship of that video — any information, and he did not dispute that it was accurate — the damage is a storyline his party constructed and used must be squelched. And Schumer’s explicit on that point. Because that video contradicted lies told by the Democratic Party — Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, Chuck Schumer demanded that our bosses pull this show off the air.

ELON MUSK TORCHES HOUSE JAN. 6 COMMITTEE FOR ‘MISLEADING THE PUBLIC,’ WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE: ‘DEEPLY WRONG’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., walks on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, March 15, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

SCHUMER: He’s going to come back tonight with another segment. Fox News should tell him not to. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch — tell Carlson not to run a second segment of lies. I urge Fox News to order Carlson to cease propagating the big lie on his network and to level with their viewers about the truth — the truth behind the efforts to mislead the public. Conduct like theirs is just asking for another January 6 to happen.

“It’s a threat to democracy. Pull him off the air.” A couple of obvious observations: You don’t often see the Senate majority leader openly call for censorship on the floor of the Senate as if that was totally normal and didn’t contradict the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment, but of course it does, but what’s really happening here? What you’re seeing is hysteria, the overstatement, the crazed hyperbole, the red-in-the-face anger. What is that? Well, it’s not outrage, of course. It’s fear. It’s panic.

Those videos, which we did not retouch, which we brought to you after running everyone by the Capitol Police to make certain that we didn’t imperil anybody, and we told you that last night, those videos touch a nerve because they’re a threat to the lies that Chuck Schumer has been telling for the last 26 months, and not just Chuck Schumer. We should also tell you that Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, was joined in this outrage by the Senate minority leader and that would be a Republican, Mitch McConnell, and they were joined by a cascade of other Republicans — Thom Tillis from North Carolina, Mitt Romney from Utah — all sharing the same outrage, and from this, we learn two things.

One: You’re getting close to what they really care about, and you have to ask yourself why? Why is it so important that they would degrade themselves by telling such obvious lies and calling for censorship? Why? What are they trying to protect? That might be worth exploring, and we plan to, and the second thing that we learn from this is that they’re on the same side. The Senate majority leader joins the Senate minority leader — Thom Tillis, Mitt Romney. They’re all on the same side. So, it’s actually not about left and right. It’s not about Republican and Democrat. Here you have people with shared interests, the open borders people, the people like Mitch McConnell, who are living in splendor on Chinese money, the people who underneath it all have everything in common are all aligned against everyone else, and that would include almost all news organizations in this country as well.

Video

So, if you’re watching, this might be kind of interesting to keep a list, because one thing we learned today is that they’re all in agreement with each other. They kind of outed themselves. They sort of showed their membership cards and whatever club this is to the public, so keep a list. If you want to know who’s actually aligned, despite the illusion of partisanship, we found out today. We have a little more tape for you tonight. If you take three steps back, you may notice that the one person really who was never blamed for anything that happened on January 6 was the very same person who was in charge of the police force, the Capitol Hill police, that was charged with securing safety on January 6, and that person was Nancy Pelosi.

If there was a security failure on January 6, and demonstrably there was, it was probably Nancy Pelosi’s fault, and after looking at thousands of hours of footage, we came to the conclusion that many others have reached, which is the Capitol Police were not prepared for what happened, and that’s fascinating when you think about it, because there was ample warning. The federal intel and law enforcement agencies knew perfectly well there could be a massive disturbance at the Capitol, but the frontline officers on duty that day didn’t know and yet the people who kept that information from the frontline officers were overwhelmed by thousands of people milling around the Capitol building? The people who fell down on the job, who didn’t do their job, they were not punished. They were rewarded, and you have to ask yourself, why is that?

Tucker Carlson currently serves as the host of FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.

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An American Horror Story

Reported By Julie Kelly | September 23, 2021

Thomas Caldwell’s is just one of several stories of American patriots living the nightmare of being American political prisoners.

Thomas Caldwell’s wife awakened him in a panic at 5:30 a.m. on January 19.

“The FBI is at the door and I’m not kidding,” Sharon Caldwell told her husband.

Caldwell, 66, clad only in his underwear, went to see what was happening outside his Virginia farm. “There was a full SWAT team, armored vehicles with a battering ram, and people screaming at me,” Caldwell told me during a lengthy phone interview on September 21. “People who looked like stormtroopers were pointing M4 weapons at me, covering me with red [laser] dots.”

Agents demanded that Caldwell, a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy who suffers from debilitating service-related spinal injuries, come outside and lay down in the grass.

“Someone grabbed my legs and dragged me through the grass. They threw me face down on the hood of the car, kicked my legs apart, put a chain around my waist and put me in handcuffs.” Caldwell said he looked up to see Sharon, his wife of 22 years, dressed in her nightgown holding her hands up with a sock in either hand. She, too, was covered in red dots from the weapons aimed at her. Sharon, 61, begged to put on her socks before they forced her outside in the cold. “I said a prayer, ‘Father, please don’t let them kill my wife,’” Caldwell said through sobs.

Caldwell was forced into the back of a police car for nearly 40 minutes; he asked several times what he was being charged with but FBI agents refused to answer. Eventually, Caldwell was led back toward his house. “I have a [collector] ’63 Thunderbird in my garage as a reminder of my grandfather, a retired Army colonel. An agent kicked one of the doors open and was leaning with his battle gear up against the car, scratching it up.”

Once inside, Caldwell saw that his wife “was still alive.” He was interrogated for at least two hours and realized the raid was tied to his participation in the January 6 protest in Washington, D.C.

Agents read what he called a “version” of his Miranda rights; he consented to the interview without an attorney present. Caldwell told me something I’ve heard repeatedly from January 6 defendants as to why they easily cooperated with the FBI: “I didn’t have anything to hide.”

Roughly 20 agents raided the Caldwell home, taking every electronic device including old computers and hard drives. This included Caldwell’s downloaded copies of cherished pictures. “They took every family photo we have.” Agents then transported Caldwell to the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, Virginia, two hours from their home. He thought he would be booked and released. Instead, it was just the start of what he called “an American horror story.”

The Nightmare Begins

During his bond hearing later that day, Caldwell finally learned he had been charged with six federal crimes related to January 6. “The affidavit alleges . . . you were a member of a paramilitary organization called the Oath Keepers and that there are several other people who are also charged,” Judge Joel Hoppe explained to Caldwell. The Justice Department accused Caldwell and two Oath Keepers—Donovan Crowl and Jessica Watkins—of plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6. “Records obtained from Facebook indicate that CALDWELL was involved in planning and coordinating the January 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol in which WATKINS, CROWL, and other Oath Keeper militia members participated,” the government’s criminal complaint read. Prosecutors claimed Caldwell had a “leadership role within the Oath Keepers.”

The lead prosecutor at Caldwell’s January 19 hearing argued he should remain behind bars. “The nature of the offense . . . is very much directed at the fabric of our democracy, the attempt of insurrection and to overthrow what was occurring on January 6,” assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh said. “These events threatened the safety of members, the staff, the police. Five people died including one Capitol police officer.”

Caldwell never entered the Capitol building, has no criminal record, and honorably served the country for 20 years in the military, but Judge Hoppe agreed with the government to keep him behind bars. “The conduct and the statements of Mr. Caldwell . . . it really just is pure lawlessness and contempt for laws of this country,” Hoppe said, referring to some of Caldwell’s Facebook posts and texts.

Caldwell spent 53 days in jail, 49 of them in solitary confinement. He could not access his medication to relieve excruciating back pain caused by spinal injuries Caldwell suffered while serving in the Navy. When prison guards asked why he was incarcerated, he said, “I’m a political prisoner because of January 6.”

In prison, Caldwell said he suffered “sadistic brutality by some correctional officers and there was warmth and compassion, the latter by other employees and every single inmate.” His faith, he said, and the love of his wife sustained him. “I thought I would die in jail.”

Caldwell also found a new attorney, David W. Fischer, to take his case. Fischer immediately filed a motion to release his client, slamming the Justice Department for its initial allegations.

In less than a month, the Government’s theory as to Caldwell’s role in the claimed conspiracy has morphed from him being the Commander of Oath Keepers . . . who (presumably) led the attack on the east side of the Capitol, to a guy ‘associated’ with the Oath Keepers. Caldwell’s stellar background and military career was, unintentionally, slandered by the Government’s sloppy, rushed investigation. As the Court knows, the Government typically takes months and even years to build cases, painstakingly gathering and evaluating evidence and interviewing witnesses. By contrast, in this case the Government charged a 20-year decorated Navy veteran with no prior record based on a few hours of investigation and without giving him the courtesy of an interview. Authorities did virtually no investigation before branding Caldwell a felon, and have provided multiple inaccurate statements to the Court.

Caldwell finally went home in March; he remains on home detention with limited ability to leave his farm.

Even though he is a central figure in the Justice Department’s shaky “conspiracy” case against the Oath Keepers, Caldwell said he never joined the group. He was approached by Stewart Rhodes during a post-election rally in Virginia. Rhodes told Caldwell he did “security” for conservatives and asked Caldwell if he would ever volunteer to help. He gave Rhodes his contact information.

Caldwell communicated with some Oath Keepers prior to January 6, discussing travel plans and hotel arrangements. Twenty Oath Keepers have been charged with various crimes; none face an assault or weapons offense. Three have been in jail since last winter under pre-trial detention orders. (Judge Amit Mehta refuses to release the three detainees and just moved their trial date from January 2022 to April 2022.)

But Rhodes, curiously, has not been charged although he is Person One in the indictments. (Darren Beattie at Revolver News has a few investigative reports on Rhodes and the Oath Keepers case.) Even more curious is how the FBI quickly identified Caldwell, accessed his social media posts and other contacts, sought a warrant, and arrested him less than two weeks after the protest when he never even entered the building and committed no serious crime.

I asked Caldwell what he thought about the fact the founder of Oath Keepers and lead unindicted co-conspirator in the government’s biggest January 6 case hasn’t yet been charged. “I’m as curious as anyone on the outside looking in,” he said.

For now, the Caldwells are trying to resume a normal life as they await a trial that won’t begin until mid-2022 at the earliest. Unlike many January 6 defendants, the Caldwells have received an outpouring of support from their friends and community.

“We believe truth will prevail. I have great faith in the American people,” Caldwell told me.

Sharon Caldwell was more direct. “We won’t let the bad guys win.”

Let’s hope.

About Julie Kelly

Julie Kelly is a political commentator and senior contributor to American Greatness. She is the author of Disloyal Opposition: How the NeverTrump Right Tried―And Failed―To Take Down the President. Her past work can be found at The Federalist and National Review. She also has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and Genetic Literacy Project. She is the co-host of ‘Happy Hour podcast with Julie and Liz.’ She is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University and lives in suburban Chicago with her husband and two daughters.