Were the January 6 tapes edited?

House Speaker Mike Johnson is releasing 40,000 of the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill taken on January 6.

Tens of thousands of private individuals will be devoting a good part of their time analyzing these videos.

There are several problems confronted by analysts.

The Department of Justice has had almost three years to edit these videos.  The faces of private citizens will be blurred “to protect them from retaliation.”

How does the DOJ distinguish private citizens from DOJ planted agitators?  The answer is they do not.  Private analysts will not be able to make that distinction due to the “blurring.”

Also roughly 5% of the footage will be withheld because it contains sensitive security information.  Who determines what “sensitive security information” is?  Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy provided Tucker Carlson with 41,000 hours of police and surveillance video.   “Sensitive security information” appears to be a fluid concept.

There are obviously some very explosive revelations in the unedited videos.  They are so “sensitive” that the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO) refused the share them with their colleagues in the Boston Field Office.  Retired Supervisory Intelligence Analyst (SSA) George Hill of the Boston Field Office (BFO) testified that the Washington Field Office wanted Boston to investigate individuals who had attended the Washington demonstration on January 6.  The Boston SSA for Counterterrorism replied, “Happy to do it. Show us where they were inside the Capitol, and we’ll look into it.”  The WFO responded, “We can’t show you those videos unless you can tell us the exact time and place those individuals were inside the Capitol.”  The SSA responded back,  “Why can’t you show us – why can’t you just send us the – give us access to the 11,000 hours of video that’s available?”  The WHO explained “Because there may be’ – may be – ‘UCs,’ undercover officers, ‘or CHSes,’ confidential human sources, ‘on those videos whose identity we need to protect.”  Hill’s former supervisor, Special Agent-in-Charge Joseph Bonavolonta, confirmed Hill’s testimony that WFO asked BFO to investigate 140 people who attended a Republican political rally.

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