Matt Gaetz praises Speaker Mike Johnson for releasing 44,000 hours of Capitol riot footage - as Mike Lee demands probe of Dem-led Jan. 6 committee for 'hiding' the video

Republicans are expressing their delight after House Speaker Mike Johnson began releasing thousands of hours of surveillance footage from the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

The first tranche of around 90 hours of footage was released on a public committee website Friday, with the rest of the 44,000 hours expected to be posted over the next several months. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz, who led the ouster of Johnson's predecessor Kevin McCarthy, praised the new speaker for keeping his promise to the caucus to release the footage.

'HE WON'T LIE,' Gaetz wrote in a post on X. 'If he says he is going to do something, he is going to do it.'

Other congressional Republicans, including Rep. Troy Nehls and Senator Mike Lee, called for fresh investigations, and accused the former Democrat-led House January 6 Committee of hiding some of the footage.

The video gives a bird's eye view of the Capitol complex as hundreds of then-President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the building in a bid to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's election.. 

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk posted one of the new clips, claiming it shows that Capitol police 'facilitated the protesters passage' through the building. 

In reality, that footage appears to show cops blocking a hallway and funneling the rioters toward an exit, and follows other clips from the same camera in which some protesters were seen being detained in flexi-cuffs.

Citing the clip, Lee posted on X: 'Why didn't Liz Cheney and Adam Kizinger ever refer to any of these tapes?' 

'Maybe they never looked for them. Maybe they never even questioned their own narrative,' he said, referring to the two Republican members of the House January 6 Committee, who are both no longer in congress.

Cheney responded in her own X post showing a montage of violent confrontations between the demonstrators and cops, writing 'Here's some January 6th video for you.'

Lee replied: 'Liz, we've seen footage like that a million times. You made sure we saw that—and nothing else. It's the other stuff—what you deliberately hid from us—that we find so upsetting.' 

'We need to investigate the J6 committee,' Lee in another post. 'Given the evidence they apparently suppressed, how much footage (and how many other records) do you think Nancy Pelosi and the J6 committee deliberately lost or destroyed?'

Nehls, a member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, wrote in his own post: 'The J6 committee was a sham. I knew it then. Everyone knows it now. Let's investigate the investigators.' 

The newly released footage is a grab-bag of clips, some as short as two seconds long, showing a mix of empty hallways, crowds breaking through windows, handfuls of demonstrators wandering through the Capitol, police milling around.

The new release does not include some of the most dramatic and violent videos from the day, which have previously come out in the January 6 committee hearings, and criminal proceedings against the rioters.

More than 1,202 defendants have been charged in connection with the breach, including suspects from nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The DOJ said earlier this month that some 418 defendants have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding cops or Capitol employees during the riot.

For the last several months, the GOP-led House Administration Committee has made the video available by appointment only to members of the media, criminal defendants and a limited number of other people. 

By expanding this access to the general public, Johnson is fulfilling one of the pledges he made last month to the most conservative members of his party.

'This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials,' Johnson said in a statement. 

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump congratulated the speaker 'for having the courage and fortitude' to release the footage.

The move by Johnson will grant the general public a stunning level of access to sensitive and explicit January 6 security footage.

Critics have warned the video could endanger the safety of staff and members in the Capitol complex if it gets into the wrong hands. 

The hours of footage detail not only the shocking assault rioters made on US Capitol Police as they breached the building, but also how the rioters accessed the building and the routes lawmakers used to flee to safety.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the Capitol Police for comment.

Johnson that the committee is processing the footage to blur the faces of individuals 'to avoid any persons from being targeted for retaliation of any kind,' however the clips released on Friday did not appear redacted.

He added that an estimated 5 percent of the footage will not be publicly released as it 'may involve sensitive security information related to the building architecture.'