Liz Cheney reacts to Mike Johnson's Jan. 6 video release announcement

Former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney reacts to House Speaker Mike Johnson's release of thousands of hours of Capitol riot footage.

Former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney reacted to the news that House Speaker Mike Johnson would be releasing thousands of hours of security footage from the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, announced that his office would be releasing the complete archive of Capitol riot security footage, roughly 44,000 hours in total, after releasing an initial batch of footage totaling 90 hours. This announcement comes after Republicans, particularly supporters of former President Donald Trump aligned with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, have long called for the release of the footage to confirm their narrative of January 6 as "a normal tourist visit" and not a violent storming of the Capitol building. However, this narrative has been strongly denied by many, including Democrats and moderate Republicans, with available footage and eyewitness testimony rebuking the idea that January 6 was not violent.

Cheney, who has been amongst the most prominent GOP critics of Trump and served on the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the Capitol riot in detail, took to social media to share a clip of previously available footage of that day, edited together by The New York Times. In the clip, rioters can be seen aggressively engaging with Capitol security and police forces, spraying them with pepper spray, hitting them with flags and other long items, and forcing their way into doors.

This was not the first time in recent days that Cheney has clashed with Johnson over his comments related to the former president. On Wednesday, she posted a stern rebuke after the House speaker suggested that he believes that Trump believed his false claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Meanwhile, Trump was indicted on four counts in August by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in relation to the insurrection, including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Trump has pled not guilty and has said that the case against him is politically motivated as he remains the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

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