WND Pushed Bogus Narratives About Cherry-Picked Capitol Riot Video

A Feb. 23 WorldNetDaily article by Peter LaBarbera tried to rehash an old story about the Capitol riot:

Newly surfaced Jan. 6 video footage shows D.C. police firing stun grenades into a crowd of peaceful, pro-Trump protesters, raising the specter that police brutality and reckless, provocative actions by incompetent officers enraged the crowd and led people to rush past them into the Capitol.

Another video shows D.C. police accidentally showering themselves with tear gas, causing them to flee from protecting the Capitol. Conservative Charlie Kirk’s Rumble page description sums it up this way: “Bodycam footage shows a cop shooting a tear gas grenade *into police lines* causing them to retreat.”

The shocking videos, obtained by the group “Investigate J6,” undermine the Democrats’ and the media’s dominant “insurrection” narrative by showing the crowd reacting to the police show of force, rather than engaging in any kind of planned or aggressive “assault” on the nation’s legislative body. The group’s GiveSendGo page states, “Investigate J6 is a coalition of forensic video investigators, attorneys, journalists and intelligence analysts. Your funds will help the investigations of many dedicated patriots and bring much needed truth to light.”

The initial Investigate J6 tweet states: “What led to the storming of the US Capitol on January 6th? #FollowTheTimeline. POLICE BRUTALITY evidence thread.”

[…]

“You know what happens when you launch multiple stun grenades into peaceful J6 crowds?” O’Handley says in his next tweet. “The same thing that happens when you rattle a dog’s cage. This is why they don’t want more J6 videos released. It exposes their setup VC: @InvestigateJ6”

But it’s long been known that police used flash grenades and tear gas to disperse the agitated pro-Trump crowd outside the Capitol during the riot — it was reported the day of the riot — so there’s no actual news here. Given that police correctly believed that the rioters were a possible threat, efforts to disperse them were justified, and no independent evicence was provided that the crowd was “peaceful.”

This ended up being a prelude to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy giving access to unreleased video from the riot to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Bob Unruh was quick to hype the footage Carlson aired in a March 7 article:

There long have been reports that some of the “rioters” during the Jan. 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol, in which there were some election protesters who did vandalism, were allowed into the building by security officers.

Now video showing exactly that has been revealed.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy granted “Tucker Carlson Tonight” access to some 40,000 hours of security camera film from the Capitol – video that has been concealed by Democrats from the public for over two years – and it shows, Carlson explained, that “lawmakers and the media were ‘lying’ about the events that took place on Jan. 6,” Fox News documented.

“Capitol police officers were seen escorting Jacob Chansley, a Navy veteran widely referred to in the liberal media as the ‘QAnon Shaman,’ around the building without incident. Carlson reported that officers were seen showing Chansley around, even trying to open locked doors for him. At one point, at least nine police officers were seen in close proximity to Chansley, and none of them slowed him down, as Carlson noted,” the report said.

The Daily Mail confirmed, in fact, in footage screened on his show, Chansley was apparently seen being escorted into the Senate by Capitol police officers.

In fact, that video was taken out of context. Prosecutors responded that the “video did not show Chansley, who was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his actions on January 6, facing off with officers for half an hour outside the Senate chamber or when Chansley refused to be escorted out of the Capitol by an officer and only left after being forcibly removed,” adding: “Chansley was not some passive, chaperoned observer of events for the roughly hour that he was unlawfully inside the Capitol. … He was part of the initial breach of the building; he confronted law enforcement for roughly 30 minutes just outside the Senate Chamber; he gained access to the gallery of the Senate along with other members of the mob (obviously, precluding any Senate business from occurring); and he gained access to and later left the Senate floor only after law enforcement was able to arrive en masse to remove him.”

The Capitol Police also pointed out that the video Carlson showed “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.”

Unruh added:

Carlson also reported Democrats used Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick’s death for their political agenda.

[…]

The media alleged Sicknick was “attacked” by the mob and falsely claimed was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.

“Sicknick was seen walking normally while guiding Trump supporters out of the building as he wore a helmet, which appears to contradict the media narrative that he died of a head injury,” the report said.

In reality, Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger attacked Carlson over his cherry-picked footage of Sicknick, as did Sicknick’s family:

“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.”

Sicknick’s mother and two brothers responded to Carlson’s characterization of the officer’s death by saying Carlson’s “‘truth’ is to pick and choose footage that supports his delusional views that the Jan 6th Insurrection was peaceful.”

But pushing right-wing narratives is more important to Unruh than telling the truth, so these rebuttals went ignored. Interestingly, Fox News itself largely ignored Carlson’s videos, suggesting that even its highly compromised “news” operation knew this was a nothingburger and it was just red meat for far-right, pro-Trump partisans — like WND.