Capitol Police Chief Fires Back At Fox News

A growing divide between Republican leaders in the House and Senate played out in public view Tuesday over Fox News’ controversial airing of security video from the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to Bloomberg.

Scenes from Jan 6

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who has long aggravated Donald Trump, called Fox’s decision to air select footage it received exclusively from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy a “mistake.” McCarthy, an ally of the former president, stood by his decision.

McConnell on Tuesday brandished a memo from US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger, who fired back at Fox News and host Tucker Carlson, calling his decision to selectively air portions of the video he received from McCarthy “offensive” and “misleading.”

“Clearly, the chief of the Capitol Police, in my view, correctly describes what most of us witnessed first-hand on Jan. 6,” McConnell said.

In his memo, Manger describes “an opinion program” that he said had “cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video.”

Carlson began showing the video on his program Monday night.

Officer Sicknick

Manger, who became chief after the insurrection, criticized as “most disturbing” what he called the downplaying of Officer Brian Sicknick’s death a day after the riot.

Carlson showed images of Sicknick walking inside the Capitol, apparently after confronting rioters. “They knew he was not murdered by the mob, but they claimed it anyway,” Carlson said. He was referring to the House committee that investigated the insurrection, and news reports.

But Manger countered that version. “Had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day,” he wrote.

Sicknick died Jan. 7, 2021, after suffering two strokes, the Washington, DC, chief medical examiner determined. He had been sprayed with a chemical substance outside the Capitol during the early hours of the riot. His family has asserted struggles with the rioters contributed directly to his stroke.

Manger also attacked the way in which the video was used to insinuate that some Capitol Police officers assisted the rioters and acted as if they were “tour guides.” The chief explained that those officers were doing their best that day to use de-escalation tactics to get demonstrators to leave the US Capitol building.