New tapes from Jan. 6 reveal how Capitol agent took initiative to evacuate senators after boss went SILENT

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night denounced the treatment of a Capitol police officer who was caught on camera wearing a MAGA cap on Jan. 6, arguing that surveillance tapes showed he was doing his job and was wrongfully forced to leave.

Carlson has been given 40,000 hours of footage from inside the Capitol, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says was a decision made for transparency.

On Monday, Carlson claimed the footage showed the rioters were “predominantly peaceful.” On Tuesday, he spoke to Lieutenant Tarik Johnson about Johnson’s turmoil and disgrace after he was seen wearing the hat.

Johnson told Carlson that his bosses let them down, saying the Capitol police commanders were ill-prepared and did not answer when he radioed for help.

He said it was embarrassing that his boss, Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman, who oversaw the department’s operations in the days leading up to the riot, had been lauded by Nancy Pelosi and now had a cozy role as chief of police on the University of California at Berkeley.

“The frontline officers and supervisors were not prepared at all,” Johnson told Carlson.

“We had no idea what we would experience that day.”

Carlson broadcast footage of Johnson appearing to help protect members of Congress in the building when it was stormed.

Johnson was suspended the day after the riot, when footage of him wearing the MAGA cap surfaced.

He then resigned, believing he had no future in the police force.

Carlson suggested that Johnson did his job diligently.

“Around 2:00 am, I hear an officer say that the Capitol has been breached. So I ran in to help,” Johnson said, adding that he locked doors to keep political leaders safe.

He then called his bosses for help.

“I said something along the lines of, We need direction,” Johnson said.

‘”What do you want me to do?” Nobody responded.’

Johnson continued, “I requested permission to evacuate the Senate side, the Senate chambers, because I had a clear line of sight to get them out the Senate door, and I was denied permission.

‘The coordinator called a few times to ask if I could get permission.

‘No answer.’

He said his superiors failed, so he had to take the initiative.

“The person I thought would approve the evacuation didn’t,” Johnson said.

“I wanted to get those congressmen out as soon as possible.

“That’s why I initiated those evacuations.”

He said he was deliberately ignoring chain of command and usual procedures.

“Because I was disciplined, it wasn’t as important as not getting the congressmen and their staff to safety.”

Carlson asked him about the moment he put on the MAGA cap.

“There was a protester to my right, he reached over and put on the MAGA hat,” said Johnson, a self-declared Biden voter.

“He asked it back and I said I’d like to keep it, because the hat is going to help me.”

Carlson said, “It’s your passport through the mob.” Johnson agreed.

“I thought if I had the hat on it would be easier for me to navigate the crowd.

“It was basically self-preservation and de-escalation and I had to get up those stairs.

“I couldn’t tell what would have happened if I had walked through that crowd without him.”

Johnson said he was never contacted by the January 6 commission, even though he wanted to testify about what he saw.

“I wondered why every day,” he said.

“And every day I might have a different answer, but I watched how much they focused on Donald Trump, and not the failures of the Capitol Police.”

When asked by Carlson why the rioters were in the Capitol, Johnson said some wanted to be violent, but others thought they were acting patriotically.

“I think some people there were planning to get violent. Some people may have become violent after what they went through.

“I think people wanted to support their president.

“Some of those people just wanted to support him and some of those people didn’t commit violence, and some of those people didn’t intend to.”