Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Daily Caller co-founder said he fears that the “equal application of the law is dead” because he believed Capitol rioters were being treated far more harshly than left-wing mobs during the height of Back Lives Matter rioting.
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“The disparity in the way those rioters were treated in compared to the way the rioters last summer were treated as too much, it’s making me feel like equal application of the law is dead,” he said on his show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
“Remember, it was just last summer that rioters in Washington torched the oldest Episcopal church in the city, St. John’s, just steps from the White House; dozens of police officers were injured that day,” Carlson continued. He added that the Secret Service officers were compelled “to take the president to a bunker, remember that?” (RELATED: Pelosi Adds Adam Kinzinger To Jan. 6 Commission, Doubles Down On Ousting Jordan, Banks)
Carlson recalled how just weeks later, “another mob assaulted [Republican] Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and his protection detail as they left the White House.”
The Fox News host noted, “the BLM rioter … punched a cop in the face, a cop who was trying to get Rand Paul to safety.”
After the fact, Carlson said that “the BLM lunatic” was not labeled “a dangerous insurrectionist.”
“[The rioter’s] actions didn’t cause federal politicians to cry, nor did Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney compare the incident to the attack on Pearl Harbor or to 9/11.”
“Why?” Carlson asked. “Because the BLM guy supports the program,” Carlson said, appearing to refer to progressivism.
The host noted that the suspect was “detained briefly for his crimes,” released from jail, and “did not rot in solitary in the D.C. jail for six months and counting for a nonviolent offense like so many Trump voters on January 6.”
Fox senior political analyst Brit Hume agreed with Carlson.
“If this were covered, Tucker, the way the riots of last summer were covered it would be described as ‘mostly peaceful,'” he said. Hume added that some of the rioters were certainly not peaceful which was a “nightmare experience” for Capitol police officers.
Hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol as Congress sought to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
“Some of them obviously had a terrible experience and considered it a near thing,” Hume continued, referring to the Capitol police officers. “But There’s certainly a disparity between the way that this event’s been covered and the way it’s been responded to politically and the way the more serious rioting of last summer with more deaths to show for it have been treated.” (RELATED: McCarthy Selects The Five Republicans Who Will Serve On Jan. 6 Select Committee)
Metropolitan police officer Michael Fanone frequently referred to the Jan. 6 mob as “terrorists” while testifying before the special committee Tuesday. He said he and other officers had been fighting for two hours “unrelieved,” and he told the committee that probably should have included a gas mask in his equipment that day.
