A group of news organizations is demanding House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) to release the surveillance videos of January 6 to them, which he promised to give Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
On Friday, Attorney Charles Tobin wrote a letter to McCarthy on behalf of ten news outlets stressing the need for him to also hand over the 41,000 hours of video to other news crews.
"Without full public access to the complete historical record, there is concern that an ideologically-based narrative of an already polarizing event will take hold in the public consciousness, with destabilizing risks to the legitimacy of Congress, the Capitol Police, and the various federal investigations and prosecutions of January 6 crimes," the letter reads.
The Washington Post, CNN, Axios, The Associated Press, Politico, NBC News, and The New York Times are all demanding McCarthy grant them access to videos that include camera access from several different angles on the Capitol grounds from that day.
A different group of news outlets also wrote a scathing letter to the Republican expressing their frustration that they were also not given access to the footage.
"There is no basis for further delaying granting this access — to these News Organizations or any other media outlets that make similar requests," wrote Laura Handman, a lawyer representing the group of news organizations.
Carlson is expected to release the footage on his show in the coming weeks. It is still determined whether McCarthy will allow other news outlets to have the footage once the Fox News host uses it.
McCarthy has faced significant backlash for giving exclusive access to only Carlson. However, he defended his action by saying he needed to fulfill his promise to the host during his bid for House Speaker.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) claimed that giving the footage to Carlson is a "grave mistake" and encourages "supporters of the Big Lie and weaken faith in our democracy."
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