As promised, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has made available an additional 5,000 hours of security video from the Capitol Building that was taken during the incident on January 6, 2021. This new video content, according to Just the News, amounts to about 208 days of nonstop viewing. It’s accessible to the public because to the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee’s efforts.
According to the publication, Johnson released a statement saying, “House Republicans again commend subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk and the entire Committee on House Administration for their ongoing commitment to ensuring that there is full transparency surrounding the events of January 6.”
On November 2023, Johnson announced his plan to make the January 6, 2021, tapes available to the American public. He released 90 hours of footage. However, there seems to be more video than what was released on Friday. The subcommittee promised to release the remaining footage online as soon as possible so that every American can access it.
Some of the new videos released on Friday were previously released, but they were blurry. They have since been reloaded to provide better clarity.
Meanwhile, in a ruling that could have far-reaching implications for perhaps hundreds of people arrested following the Jan. 6 protest, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled last week that at least some of them were “improperly” sentenced.
The defendant and former Air Force officer Larry Brock’s sentence was deemed faulty by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit due to the improper inclusion of charges related to “interference with the administration of justice.”
According to Fox News, Circuit Judge Millett, who authored the court’s judgement, meddling in Congress’ certification of the electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election does not justify an increase in sentencing.
“As for Brock’s sentence, we hold that the ‘administration of justice’ enhancement does not apply to interference with the legislative process of certifying electoral votes,” the appeals court stated, disagreeing with the conviction but upholding Brock’s sentence. The higher court decided to “vacate Brock’s sentence” and remand the case to the district court so that the one “interference” charge may be resentenced, even if other parts of Larry Brock’s conviction were affirmed.
The same enhancement resulted in higher sentences for other Jan. 6 defendants, and those cases may now also be overturned. “Larry Brock took part in the violent disturbance at the US Capitol on January 6, which resulted in the forcible evacuation of congressional members and their staff and delayed the Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election until the following day.
Following a bench trial, Brock was found guilty of six counts, one of which was corruptly preventing Congress from certifying the electoral count in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), according to Judge Millet.