Speaker Mike Johnson (R-L) has fulfilled his promise of making all the January 6th surveillance tapes available to the public. The tapes are now available online in the CHA Subcommittee Reading Room. The decision follows a period of limited release and stalled efforts under his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

“Today, I am keeping my promise to the American people and making all the January 6th tapes available to ALL Americans,” wrote Johnson. The limited release of footage to Tucker Carlson earlier in the year led to significant controversy.

Here’s a new piece of footage that shows protesters peacefully walking through the halls of Congress, contrary to what the media will tell you:

Back in March, McCarthy gave most of the footage to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson. While many applauded the former Speaker, McCarthy also faced pushback from many politicians. Six weeks after releasing the tapes, Carlson was terminated by Fox News.

“It is all about transparency. It will just be to Tucker like any news organization. Different people get exclusives. We watched during January 6, CNN would have exclusives all the time,” McCarthy said at the time.

He went on to clarify that it was not just 14,000 hours of tapes as previously reported but actually 42,000 hours. McCarthy expressed his concerns that certain exits and secure locations were shown on previous releases, including by CNN, which he believed was not appropriate for security purposes, thus the delay.

McCarthy said in March, “I think it’s better for transparency that anyone can make their own decision up. And as we walk through these these are many more hours of tapes in the January 6 committee told us It’s not 14,000 it’s 42,000 hours.”

Carlson slowly released more and more footage from McCarthy over the Spring. Some of the footage showed a much different rendition of what many Democrats said in the past. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed it was a “mistake” for Carlson to broadcast the footage he was given. Naturally, Carlson aired the tapes.

As recent as September, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) continued issuing warnings to then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanding a “full release of J6 tapes.” In the run-up to Gaetz spearheading the removal of McCarthy, he advised him, “Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role.”

It’s been speculated that in one of these closed-door discussions that led to Johnson’s leadership, a similar condition was given to the Louisiana Republican. Throughout the rest of his term as Speaker, this vow was not fulfilled. In the months that followed, the remaining January 6th footage was not released