AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police sent an internal email Monday to his officers with a viciously sharp response to Tucker Carlson’s Monday evening show, blasting his “offensive and misleading” commentary as “outrageous and false.”
In Monday’s episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the top-rated Fox News host presented a selection of video clips from the more than 40,000 hours of surveillance footage from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) exclusively allowed him to review.
Carlson claimed that the rioters were “right” to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, “facts” that “no honest person can deny.”
(In fact, many, many honest people have denied the election was stolen, including state and federal judges in over 60 lawsuits, many of whom were appointed by Republican governors and presidents — some even by Trump himself — and dozens of former Trump administration officials and advisers in
“The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” Carlson claimed, describing the rioters as “sightseers” and telling his audience of millions that “the Democratic Party and its allies in the media” had “prevented” them from seeing the video clips he was showing them so they could “lie about what happened.”
(Again, Carlson is lying. Multiple media organizations have requested access to the footage and the video showing nonviolent moments on Jan. 6 does not erase the heavily-viewed clips showing violence or the hours of sworn testimony from police officers who were brutally attacked that day.)
USCP Chief Thomas Manger excoriated Carlson’s commentary in an internal email to his officers, as reported by Politico’s Kyle Cheney.
In the email, Manger blasted Carlson’s “opinion program” as “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6 attack,” and said that the show had “never reached out” to USCP for comment before airing video clips that were “cherry-picked from the calmer moments” from that day and “fail[ed] to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”
The chief dropped a series of fact-checks on Carlson’s claims, including the “outrageous and false” accusation that Capitol Police officers “
Carlson’s “most disturbing accusation,” argued Manger, was the claim that Officer Brian Sicknick’s death had nothing to do with the injuries he sustained during the attack.
Manger concluded his email telling his fellow officers that they “fought like hell on January 6 and risked your lives to protect the Constitution and everything this country stands for,” and that “truth and justice are on our side,” because “TV commentary will not record the truth for our history books. The justice system will.”
The full text of Manger’s email:
Last night an opinion program aired commentary that was filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6 attack. The opinion program never reached out to the Department to provide accurate context.One false allegation is that our officers helped the rioters and acted as “tour guides.” This is outrageous and false. The Department stands by the officers in the video that was shown last night. I don’t have to remind you how outnumbered our officers were on January 6. Those officers did their best to use de-escalation tactics to try to talk to rioters
into getting each other to leave the building.The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.Finally, the most disturbing accusation from last night was that our late friend and colleague Brian Sicknick’s death had nothing to do with his heroic actions on January 6. The Department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day.As some people select from 41,000 hours of video clips that seemingly support the narrative they want to push, those of you who were here on January 6, those of you who were in the fight, those of you who ensured that no Member of Congres was hurt, whose of you who contributed to the effort to allow the country’s Legislative process to continue know firsthand what actually happened.You fought like hell on January 6 and risked your lives to protect the Constitution and everything this country stands for. You, along with our law enforcement partners, saved every Member of Congress and their staff.TV commentary will not record the truth for our history books. The justice system will. The truth and justice are on our side.
Fox News did not reply to Mediaite’s request