Fox News have come under fire from Capitol police for trying to spin the January 6 riot as ‘peaceful’ and playing down the violence.
Right-wing host Tucker Carlson showed a previously unseen clip on Monday night, arguing it “does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress”, but rather “mostly peaceful chaos”.
The footage was handed to Mr Carlson by House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a close ally of Donald Trump and one-time Chief of Staff.
However sections of the Republican party say the Fox host mischaracterised the raid on Congress.
Mr Carlson has long insisted that other media outlets exaggerated violence at the Capitol on 6 January 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the complex as lawmakers met to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
He has also suggested without evidence that government agents could have instigated the riot.
In the roughly 45-minute segment, Mr Carlson said the video showed that while a minority of protesters did commit violence, most were “sightseers”.
Mr Carlson said only a small number of those who illegally entered the Capitol as Congress was attempting to formally certify President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral win were "hooligans", but the overwhelming majority were not.
"They were peaceful, they were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists, they were sightseers," Mr Carlson said.
In a Senate speech, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer condemned the broadcast and urged the cable network to cancel any follow-up segment.
He called Carlson's conduct "a dangerous, unforgivable attempt to destabilize our democracy and rewrite the history of the worst attack on our Constitution since the Civil War". He added that McCarthy was "every bit as culpable as Mr Carlson" for providing the footage.
"To say January 6 was not violent, is a lie, a lie, pure and simple," Mr Schumer said.
A Fox News spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
"Each person can come up with their own conclusion," Mr McCarthy later told reporters. "I think the fairest way to do it ... is allow all the transparency so everybody can see, so January 6 never happens again."
Mr Schumer later tweeted that he had been invited onto Mr Carlson's show and said he would agree to appear "after Tucker Carlson admits to his viewers live on air that he has been lying to them".
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment on Mr McCarthy's decision to supply the videos. However he told reporters that he totally agreed with criticisms made by U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger.
Those criticisms came in an internal memo Manger wrote, according to a source on Capitol Hill.
The source said the memo described Mr Carlson's commentary as being "filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the Jan. 6 attack".
Manger was quoted as saying the Fox News report "cherry-picked from the calmer moments" of that day and failed to portray the "chaos and violence".
"It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that's completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here in the Capitol thinks," Mr McConnell said.
In the broadcast, Mr Carlson accused the House select committee that has investigated the riot and the events leading up to it of lying and concealing videos that he said showed peaceful protesters.
Mr Carlson said the video record, which has been denied to other news organizations including Reuters, "demolishes" the claim that an insurrection was attempted by supporters of former President Donald Trump on January 6.
Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after the riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. Then-Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and staff ran for their lives amid the chaos.
