Did McCarthy Violate a Trust, and Is This Really Transparency ?

    Is it "an egregious security breach," or a transparency-in-government move? U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has reportedly handed over to Fox News Host Tucker Carlson 44,000 hours of video footage from the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. 

   "When congressional leadership or congressional oversight committees ask for things like this, we just give it to them," Capitol Police Chief  Tom Manger said. That would account for how McCarthy gained access to the videos. The question is (one of the questions), did he have a public trust to protect the videos from going further, inasmuch as they contain insights into where cameras are and security protocols used to protect members of Congress and the Capitol Police, themselves? Did McCarthy prove to be someone who cannot be trusted with national secrets. He was trusted with sensitive material, only to turn around and release it to the public.

   A second question would be why did McCarthy release it only to Tucker Carlson? If you suppose the videos should be released to the public, why just pick and choose one person to release them to -- and leave it to him to pick and choose which videos he will use and which he will release to the public? Transparency in government doesn't work that way. You don't filter the information through a biased source with a personal agenda. We are now dependant on Carlson as to what footage we will see. Will it be footage that shows the savage nature of the attacks and injuries? Or will Carlson just use the footage beneficial to his own take on what happened? 

   Michael Fanone, an officer who was injured in the riot, predicted the videos will be, "selectively edited to fit an extreme MAGA narrative without care for the safety of Capitol Police, Members of Congress, and Congressional staff."

   Carlson is the most-watched primetime cable news host in America, but he is not a strict journalist. Back in the day when news and opinion were more distinct from each other, he would be referred to as an opinion maker.  

   "If Speaker McCarthy has indeed granted Tucker Carlson -- a Fox host who routinely spreads misinformation and Putin’s poisonous propaganda -- and his producers access to this sensitive footage, he owes the American people an explanation of why he has done so," said the former chair of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.

   House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called McCarthy's releasing the videos, “an egregious security breach that endangers the hardworking women and men of the United States Capitol Police.”

   But, some on the other side of the aisle argue it was right to release the videos.  “I think the public should see what happened,” McCarthy said a month ago.

   “There was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret,” Carlson said.

   "Americans deserve to see the truth," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said.

    A final thought (or two): If the sensitive nature of the videos lies in the fact they reveal the positions of the cameras, then move the cameras and add new ones. If the footage reveals "security protocols," are those protocols obvious, anyway? If someone attacks, you defend; what's the secret?

   And, if the videos do contain information vital to protecting America, should not they have been classified? Though he would have access to classified information, McCarthy would then not be authorized to leak information that could impair America's security.

   A Facebook responder to my questions notes, "By having to move (the cameras), they may no longer be placed in the optimal positions." And, says Edward Kinnally, "Some of those videos revealed security stations that the public doesn't normally have access to because they have no business being in that area, and therefore they reveal what might be referred to as 'behind the scenes' security measures." 

   Whether the videos should be made public is hard for those of us in streets to know. We would have to see them to make that judgement. But one thing is clear: allowing Carlson to see them while holding them back from the rest of the public is not making them public. Carlson is not, "the public;" he is just one member of the public.