Sara Carpenter is requesting a trial date change from January 6 so that she may watch McCarthy’s collection of Congressional riot films.
A defendant who was scheduled to go on trial on January 6 asked the judge to postpone the trial so that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy may analyze 44,000 hours of video footage from the brawl in the Capitol.
Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court stated the defense failed to explain why any further footage would be exculpatory, but he did not call the motion “frivolous by any means,” as reported by Politico. Carpenter, a former member of the New York Police Department, is being charged with two felonies related to the incident at the United States Capitol.
Boasberg, who will soon become the top district court judge in Washington, D.C., said that reviewing the Capitol and police surveillance footage from McCarthy’s office would postpone trials for Carpenter and other defendants on January 6.
The prosecution claims they have already given Carpenter an “overwhelming” quantity of CCTV evidence proving the 34 minutes she spent in the Capitol building, with just “a handful of seconds” still unexplained.
They claim they have been kept in the dark about the potential value of McCarthy’s footage.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Cook reportedly declared, “We don’t have what the speaker has,” at a hearing on Friday. “However, there’s always the chance some info may be out there.”
After the riot that prevented Congress from recognizing Joe Biden’s presidential election on January 6, 2021, two House committees and the Trum House impeachment managers were given access to 14,000 hours of film from Capitol police cameras. This footage included the hours of midday to 8 p.m.
Carpenter’s counsel asked the court to postpone the trial for an additional 60 days so that McCarthy’s film may be used to assist explain their client’s behavior in the Capitol building.
However, there are exceptions to this rule, including where the government is working with another agency (such as the Capitol Police, an arm of Congress), or when the court determines that the government has acted in good faith by giving over as much data as feasible to the defendant.
The Justice Department has already identified a vast collection of video evidence in its prosecutions against more than 950 individuals related to January 6, 2021. This evidence comes from Capitol security cameras, police body cameras, journalists, and protestors who recorded hundreds of hours of tape.
Whether or if the DOJ will make an effort to analyze the tape from McCarthy’s office is unclear at this time.
In addition to the Proud Boys, who are on trial for seditious conspiracy, other defendants from January 6 have expressed concern over the impact of the thousands of hours of film.
Republican House Administration Committee Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk allegedly stated that individuals charged in connection with the events of January 6 will have access to footage from McCarthy’s office on a case-by-case basis.