Now We Know Why Prosecutors Wanted to Keep Jan. 6 Videos Away from the Public
[Trending Politics] Prosecutors lost a battle to keep some of the 14,000 hours of January 6 surveillance video that was accumulated by the FBI out of the public view. And much to anti-Trump Democrats’ chagrin, social media is already having a field day with it. Buzzfeed’s Zoe Tillman who broke the tough news:
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday released a new collection of Capitol surveillance videos from Jan. 6 after a judge ordered them to do so, rejecting the government’s argument that making the clips public could threaten the security of the complex.
The disclosure marks a setback for the US Capitol Police and the US attorney’s office in their efforts to control how much footage from the Capitol’s closed-circuit video (CCV) system gets out. In the latest case, prosecutors argued that revealing the location and vantage points of more cameras could help "bad actors" trying to plan some future assault on the building. A judge concluded that argument was too speculative, however, and that the public had a strong interest in seeing videos that formed the basis for a recent plea deal.
US District Chief Judge Beryl Howell ordered the videos released in response to a request from a media coalition (including BuzzFeed News) that is petitioning judges on a rolling basis for videos that prosecutors have relied on in Jan. 6 cases. Howell’s decision isn’t binding on other judges in the US District Court for the District of Columbia presiding over Capitol riot prosecutions, but it gives the media coalition a favorable ruling to point to in future fights.
When some of this video made its way into the hands of the public, everyone could see exactly why the prosecution didn’t want it to get out: It doesn’t fit the narrative of the ’deadly insurrection’ that the fake news media has been propagating. Watch for yourself:
Posted by: Besoeker 2021-09-24 |