Former Capitol police officer Tarik Johnson describes lack of communication and unpreparedness on Jan. 6
Former Capitol police officer Tarik Johnson shares what was going on behind the scenes on January 6 on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
Tucker Carlson sat down with a former Capitol Police officer who was ignored by the House Jan. 6 Select Committee despite the pivotal role he had that day.
Tarik Johnson, a 22-year veteran on the Capitol Hill force, was tasked with securing the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
"My voice is one of the first ones you hear on the audio transmission, so I did expect to get an interview sometime, but it didn't happen." Johnson told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" about the House Select Committee in an interview aired Tuesday. "I guess the focus was on Donald Trump."
Despite pleas for help on Jan. 6, Johnson said he did not hear anything, not even from Capitol Police chief assistant Yogananda Pittman, who allegedly kept vital information about the protests from him. The federal intel and law enforcement agencies knew about the warnings of a massive disturbance at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Carlson said, but the frontline officers on duty that day did not know.
"We should have been better prepared that day, and we could have been better prepared that day if the information was disseminated like it was supposed to be," Johnson said.
Johnson, whose role was to evacuate lawmakers safely, urged for guidance from his superiors but did not hear back. So he took matters into his own hands that day, as seen by footage released by "Tucker Carlson Tonight" from inside the Capitol Building.
However, his career came to a screeching halt after he was spotted outside the Capitol wearing a Make America Great Again hat, which received national attention.
Tarik Johnson sits down with Tucker Carlson. (Screengrab/'Tucker Carlson Tonight')
Johnson, a Biden voter, said a Trump supporter placed the MAGA hat on his head. He decided to keep wearing it for self-preservation as he navigated the pro-Trump crowd outside. Johnson was put on an indefinite suspension for doing so and later resigned and lost his pension.
"I couldn't say what would have happened walking through that crowd without it," Johnson said.
Yogananda Pittman went on to be elevated by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to be acting chief of Capitol Police. She later took a post as head of security at the University of California Berkeley, right outside of Pelosi's congressional district. She did not respond to a request for an interview from "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
Johnson still wonders why the January 6 Committee never called him to testify.
"Since you were there on January 6, what did you think of the job of the January 6 Committee?" Carlson asked.
"I prayed almost daily that they would get to me," Johnson responded. "I was never asked to testify… I was never asked by anybody connected to the January 6 Committee to testify. I asked myself why every day, and every day I might have a different answer. But, you know, pretty much they focused on Donald Trump and not the failures of the Capitol Police."
"Why do you think [the protesters] were there?" Carlson followed.
"I think that some people there had planned on being violent, some people may have turned violent after what they were going through," Johnson said. 'I think that people wanted to support their president, they wanted to- some of those people wanted just to support him. And some of those people didn't commit violence and some of those people didn't plan on it."
Tucker Carlson sits down with former Capitol police officer Tarik Johnson to discuss what was going on behind the scenes on Jan. 6. (Screengrab/Tucker Carlson Tonight)
Carlson on Tuesday also fired back at his fiercest critics on Capitol Hill over the release of never-before-seen footage from Jan. 6 he exclusively obtained.
He first reacted to remarks made by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who called on Fox News to prevent the host from airing more footage from Jan. 6.
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"You don't often see the Senate Majority leader openly call for censorship on the floor of the Senate as if that was totally normal and didn't contradict the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment. But of course it does," Carlson told viewers. "But what's really happening here? What you're seeing is – hysteria, the overstatement, the crazed hyperbole, the red-in-the-face anger – what is that? Well, it's outrage, of course. It's fear. It's panic.
"Those videos which we did not retouch, which we brought to you after running by everyone, the Capitol Police, to make certain that we didn't imperil anybody… those videos touch a nerve because they're a threat to the lies that Chuck Schumer has been telling for the last 26 months," Carlson added.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for Fox News to block Tucker Carlson from airing more footage from Jan. 6, something Carlson fired back as an act of promoting censorship. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Fox News host also blasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as well as Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. and Mitt Romney, R-Utah for being in lockstep with Schumer with their outrage over Monday's released footage.
"And from this, we learned two things. One, we're getting close to what they really care about and you have to ask yourself why. Why is it so important that they would degrade themselves by telling such obvious lies and calling for censorship? Why? What are they trying to protect? That might be worth exploring and we plan to," Carlson said. "And the second thing that we learned from this is that they're on the same side. The Senate Majority leader joins the Senate Minority leader, Thom Tillis, Mitt Romney, they're all on the same side. So it's actually not about left and right, it's not about Republican and Democrat. Here, we have people with shared interests, the open borders people… the people who underneath it all have everything in common are all aligned against everyone else. And that would include almost all news organizations in this country as well."
"They kind of outed themselves. They sort of showed their membership cards and whatever club this is to the public, so keep a list. If you want to know who's actually aligned despite the illusion of partisanship, we found out today," Carlson added.
The first installment of the released Jan. 6 footage on Monday night sparked a political and media firestorm. The footage featured Trump supporters inside the Capitol appearing as "sightseers" rather than violent rioters widely portrayed in the media. The footage included Jacob Chansley, a Navy veteran widely referred to in the liberal media as the "QAnon Shaman," who was shown around the building by police without incident.
Monday's footage included Officer Brian Sicknick seen inside the Capitol building wearing a helmet while appearing physically fine, contradicting reports that his fatal stroke following Jan. 6 was the result of an assault that occurred that day.
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Other footage showed Ray Epps, the man caught urging Trump supporters to go into the Capitol the night before the Jan. 6 riot, on the Capitol grounds long after he told congressional investigators he had left.
Additionally, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., who was accused by Democrats of leading a "reconnaissance mission," was actually offering a tour to constituents in a congressional building down the street from the Capitol. And Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who was portrayed by the Jan. 6 House Select Committee as cowardly fleeing from the mob, was actually among several lawmakers being rushed out of the building with him on the tail end of the group.
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