Kansas Jan. 6 case fuels national debate over release of Capitol Police security video

The case of a Kansas man charged with multiple felonies in the Jan. 6 riot has evolved into a national debate over whether U.S. Capitol Police security videos should be made public.

And a hearing Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., didn’t bring the issue any closer to resolution. Another hearing has been set for May 12.

William Pope, of Topeka — who is representing himself in his case — wants U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras to release videos that he says include footage of undercover Metropolitan Police officers inciting protesters to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The government has argued that the videos have been designated “sensitive” and “highly sensitive” and that it would be a matter of “grave national security” to make them public.

“The national concern about the barbarous hunting of January 6 protestors and the government’s concealment of the January 6 video will continue to grow,” Pope tweeted Thursday morning before his afternoon hearing.

“It will boil hotter with each passing month. This isn’t an issue that can be avoided — even though many in Congress are trying.”

Pope faces eight charges in the Capitol riot, including civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding — both felonies — as well as disorderly conduct in a Capitol building and impeding passage through a Capitol building or grounds.

Last month, a coalition of more than a dozen media companies filed a motion to intervene in Pope’s case. The companies, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press, asked that the court remove the government’s designation of the security videos as “sensitive” and “highly sensitive” and permit Pope to release them to the press and public.

The “Press Coalition” argued that many of the video clips had already been released. Some were aired on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s shows in March after GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave him exclusive access to more than 40,000 hours of footage.

“The government cannot demonstrate a legitimate need to designate surveillance footage as ‘sensitive’ or ‘highly sensitive’ as many videos from the Capitol surveillance cameras have already been made public by the Department of Justice, Congress and the press,” the coalition argued.

On Tuesday, the government asked for a one-week extension to file its opposition to the Press Coalition’s motion, saying the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case had been ill and also was preparing for a trial scheduled to start April 17.

In a separate action, a group of nine media organizations on Wednesday sued the Executive Office for United States Attorneys and the FBI, seeking an order compelling them “to promptly produce copies of government surveillance videos of the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol, ‘the most significant assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812,’ during which ‘[t]he building was desecrated, blood was shed, and several individuals lost their lives.’”

Pope’s case was cited in the lawsuit.

The suit, brought under the Freedom of Information Act, was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Advance Publications Inc., The Associated Press, Cable News Network Inc., CBS Broadcasting Inc. on behalf of CBS News, The E.W. Scripps Company, Gannett Co. Inc., POLITICO LLC, ProPublica Inc. and The New York Times Company.

The lawsuit said that in February, McCarthy provided about 44,000 hours of the security videos to Fox News’ Carlson. It added, however, that “the Speaker’s Office has refused to provide the Capitol Surveillance Videos to any other news organization or journalist who has since sought access.”

The media companies also sought copies of the videos from the FBI and Executive Office for United States Attorneys, the lawsuit said. Both parties “possess copies of the Capitol Surveillance Videos as well,” it said, “and FOIA does not permit them to withhold public records after they have been provided to a member of the public.”

But the Executive Office for United States Attorneys has denied the request, the lawsuit said.

“And even though it is leading the riot investigation and has published excerpts of the Capitol Surveillance Videos on its own website,” the lawsuit said, “the FBI has absurdly and improperly claimed that it searched for but was ‘unable to identify’ the requested records.”

“As judges in this District have observed in releasing Capitol riot videos, ‘the events of January 6, 2021, are of deep national importance, so there is a strong public interest in seeing real-time images of what happened that day,’” the lawsuit said.

Contreras didn’t take up the security video issue at Thursday’s hearing, saying it was a motion “which I was prepared to resolve until this whole Tucker Carlson thing erupted.”

The debate over the release of Capitol Police security video intensified in February when McCarthy faced criticism for granting Carlson exclusive access to view the footage. Carlson then aired dozens of clips on his shows, downplaying the violence and portraying protesters as mostly peaceful.

In March, Contreras said that before issuing a ruling on Pope’s request to release the videos, he wanted to know more about news reports that McCarthy planned to make the footage available to the broader public and to lawyers of defendants charged in the insurrection. The judge then ordered a sworn declaration from U.S. Capitol Police about that agency’s involvement in releasing any video and what restrictions, if any, were placed on their release.

On March 17, the government filed an affidavit from the top lawyer for Capitol Police saying House Republicans had disregarded the agency’s requests to examine and approve every Jan. 6 video clip they intended to make public. Thomas DiBiase said he learned through a media report on Feb. 20 that staff from Carlson’s show had been granted access to the footage.

Of the many snippets played during Carlson’s shows on March 6 and 7, DiBiase said, “I was shown only one clip before it aired.”

The government filed a followup document on March 24 that said in some of the footage, three police officers appeared to be among those chanting “drain the swamp” and “Whose house? Our house!” as protesters invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The actions were recorded on GoPro video by a Metropolitan Police officer stationed at the Capitol “in an evidence-gathering capacity,” the document said.

The footage “captures the officer shouting words to the effect of ‘Go! Go! Go!’ … ‘Go! Go! Go!’ … and ‘Keeping going! Keep going!’ apparently to the individuals in front of him on the balustrade of the U.S. Capitol’s northwest staircase around 2:15 p.m,” the government’s filing said.

“At other times in these videos,” it said, “the officer and the two other plain clothes officers with him appear to join the crowd around them in various chants, to include ‘drain the swamp,’ ‘U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!’, and ‘whose house? Our house!’”

Pope has called the videos “clear evidence of undercover provocateurs.”

In a filing late last year, the government said that it “has disclosed to Pope that the government is not aware of any person who was acting on behalf of any government agency as an ‘agent provocateur’ — that is, as a person who committed or acted to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act — with respect to January 6, 2021.”

Pope has filed a series of motions saying he has a right to the videos. Because attorneys representing Jan. 6 defendants are given full access to the discovery databases in order to prepare a defense, he argued, that same access should be available to defendants acting as their own attorneys.

But the government says he has other motives for seeking them. In Thursday’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Moran told the judge that “Mr. Pope has made it very clear that his rationale for wanting to possess these items personally is not to build his criminal case — it is largely to share that information with others.”

Pope told The Star in an email after the hearing that “while I’m all for public access to the video, my bigger priority is access for my own defense.”

Pope’s ongoing battle for the material has been widely circulated in right-wing circles, and he posts continual updates on social media. But now, he and many supporters are turning on McCarthy and other Republicans, saying they haven’t carried through on their pledge to release the videos.

On April 6, Pope tweeted, “@SpeakerMcCarthy promised to release all of the January 6 CCTV. He has not yet released a single hour. Action speaks louder than words!”

And from Y.A. Tuttle on April 11: “@SpeakerMcCarthy WHERE ARE TYE (the) J6 TAPES YOU PROMISED? YOU LOSERS ARE LETTING INNOCENT CITIZENS LANGUISH IN POLITICAL PRISON. @RepMattGaetz @RepGosar @mtgreenee PUT @SpeakerMcCarthy FEET TO THE FIRE. YOU ALL ARE NOT KEEPING YOUR WORD…”