Last month, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced that the House would release more than 40,000 hours of internal security video taken during the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. But during a news conference on Tuesday, Johnson clarified that those tapes won't be entirely unedited. "We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don't want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ," Johnson said.
As my colleague Steve Benen quickly pointed out, Johnson's statement positions him as defending the people in the security camera video from potential arrest for any crimes they committed that day. It's worth taking a step back, though, to look at how Johnson's two choices — to release the tapes and to blur the faces of participants — were fueled by two distinct desires. In making the tapes public, he was acting to protect himself from the fury of the far right. But in blurring their faces, Johnson is in essence protecting these rioters from themselves.
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