Sen. Mike Lee calls for investigation of J6 committee after tapes released: 'Deliberately hid from us'

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Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee is calling for an investigation into the now-defunct House January 6 committee, accusing former and current lawmakers who served on the committee of "deliberately" hiding some of the footage from the Capitol riots.

Lee's comments came after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., began releasing more than 40,000 hours of footage taken at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when protesters angry about the 2020 election results entered the halls of Congress.

Highlighting the release of the footage in a series of posts to X, formerly known as Twitter, Lee called into question the character of former Republican representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

"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. Maybe they were just too busy selectively leaking the text messages of Republicans they wanted to defeat," Lee wrote in a post to the platform, which included a video that purportedly showed Capitol police officers facilitating the passage of protesters through the building that day.

Highlighting the release of the January 6, 2021, footage from the Capitol in a series of posts to X, formerly known as Twitter, Lee called into question the character of former Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. (Getty Images)

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Cheney and Kinzinger, Lee wrote in another post to X, were "people who helped hide the J6 tapes" and "are cut out of the same cloth as those who will tell you that FISA 702 must be reauthorized without reforms—'because search warrants require too much effort.'"

"We need to investigate the J6 committee," he wrote in another post.

Lee also took aim at the committee overall, as well as then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who appointed the select committee to investigate what took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

"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?" Lee questioned in one post.

In response to a Friday post by Cheney, which included "some January 6th video" of disgruntled protesters tangling with Capitol police, Lee wrote, "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. Nice try."

"P.S. How many of these guys are feds? (As if you’d ever tell us)," Lee added in his response to the former lawmaker.

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In another post, Lee wrote, "Taxpayer dollars funded the sham J6 committee."

The GOP senator also amplified a clip released Friday that shows an officer working inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, who appeared uncuffed and released a protester. The protester could be seen in the clip giving a fist bump to what appeared to be another officer who was nearby at the time of his release.

The House select committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021 on June 16, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

"I walk through these doors every day — several times a day. I’ve never seen this happen," Lee wrote in response.

In releasing the remaining footage from the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Speaker Johnson said in a statement: "When I ran for Speaker, I promised to make accessible to the American people the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill security taken on January 6, 2021. Truth and transparency are critical."

Some video was made available to the public on Friday, with the bulk of it to be released gradually over time, Johnson said.

Johnson said his decision to release the remaining footage "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."

Protesters walk through Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol as a joint session of Congress to count the votes of the 2020 presidential election takes place in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. (Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Johnson said that roughly 5% of the footage would likely be held back due to "sensitive security information related to the building architecture," and that some faces would be blurred "to avoid any persons from being targeted for retaliation of any kind."

It is being made public through the House Administration Committee’s subcommittee on Oversight.

Fox News' Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.