A fired Capitol Police officer revealed to Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday that he wore a red MAGA hat to blend in with the crowd during the January 6 riots and help evacuate the Capitol while claiming that his supervisors stopped responding to radio calls during the incident, leaving him to rely on his own instincts to evacuate people to safety.
Tarik Johnson told Carlson that his bosses appeared to be ill-prepared for the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Johnson, who was fired from the Capitol Police, said he was attempting to evacuate the Senate side of the building as the crowd became more aggressive, but his attempts to contact his supervisors went unanswered.
“The person that I thought was going to authorize the evacuation … didn’t do it,” Johnson told Carlson.
Johnson explained that he called multiple times over the radio, asking repeatedly for permission to begin evacuating the Senate side of the building because he had a clear line of sight to a safe exit path.
“He said dispatchers also assisted in calling for an evacuation, but the response from supervisors never came — and eventually, Johnson began escorting the senators to safety on his own. At one point he was told fellow officers were in need of help,” the Daily Wire noted.
Johnson added that the Democrat-run Jan. 6 Committee never bothered to call him in for testimony.
Former Capitol Police Officer Tarik Johnson tells Tucker Carlson he wore a MAGA hat during the January 6 riot so he could blend into the crowd and that it was an act of “self-preservation.”
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 8, 2023
Johnson, who claims he was fired for wearing a pro-Trump cap, explained that someone in the crowd put it on his head. When the person asked for it back, he kept it as an act of self-preservation while he rushed to help his colleagues.
“I figured if I had the hat on, it’d be easier for me to navigate my way through the crowd,” he said. “It was basically self-preservation and de-escalation. And I needed to get up those steps. I couldn’t say what would have happened walking through that crowd without it.”
Johnson, who claimed to have voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election, emphasized that his primary objective was to ensure the safety of “the members of Congress and their staff.”
Carlson said video footage his team reviewed as part of the 41,000 hours of surveillance tape House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) gave access to confirms Johnson’s version of events.
“A photo emerged of Johnson wearing a MAGA hat outside the Capitol,” Carlson said. “That picture cost him his career.”
Johnson noted regarding the hat, “sometimes I look at it and I’m like, ‘Thank you, God for blessing me with this hat. And sometimes I’m like, ‘Wow, I wish this hat never came in my life.’”
