Ray Epps, in the red Trump hat, center, gestures to a line of law enforcement officers, as people gather on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo:Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty
Now Epps is seeking damages from Fox News for promoting the “fantastical” conspiracy,alleging in a lawsuitfiled July 12 that his livelihood was disrupted as a result of becoming a “scapegoat.”
Epps admits that leading up to the deadly riot, he encouraged others to enter the Capitol in protest of what he believed was a rigged presidential election. He was also there at the barricades when they were toppled.
After Jan. 6, when the FBI posted photos of protesters seeking information, Epps was one of the people pictured. Shortly thereafter, his photo was taken down. Hundreds of people were arrested, but Epps wasn’t, and when the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned FBI leadership about Epps, they declined to answer.
Epps and his wife sold their four-acre Arizona ranch, closed their formerly lucrative wedding venue business and, in May 2022, moved into a small trailer in Utah — all, they say, a result of feeling unsafe after they were made into enemies of the right.
“They are in hiding,” Epps’ attorney, Michael Teter, tells PEOPLE. “They received a number of credible and serious death threats, which become worse each time someone on Fox or Tucker Carlson talk about Ray.”
Tucker Carlson, who at the time hosted Fox News' primetime opinion show ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’.Richard Drew/AP/Shutterstock
Epps fully denies involvement with the FBI or any other law enforcement agency, and claims he spent the day trying to de-escalate violence. The FBI would not comment on Epps for two years, as is standard protocol, but finally made a statement to60 Minutesthis spring saying that Epps has never been a source for them nor an employee.
Epps was a Trump voter, Fox News devotee and former president of the Arizona Oath Keepers — but says he left the group when he found them “too radical." He attended the protest with his son Jim, saying they were convinced that something was fishy about the election as a result of Fox News' reporting, and because he and his wife received three extra ballots in the mail. He wanted to speak up about this perceived fraud, but claims he had no intention of rioting.
Carlson and other Fox News personalities repeatedly posited on their highest-rated broadcasts that the FBI was behind the violence of Jan. 6 — and that Epps was working for them. Carlson made those claims for more than two years until hissudden departure from Fox in May.
“We know that [Epps] did not orchestrate [the attack on the U.S. Capitol], but that’s not even largely what the big lie has been," Teter says. “The big lie has been that Ray was a federal agent who was helping to promote and to encourage people to go into the Capitol [because] he was working for the government. That, of course, is completely false.”
Months ago, Epps’ legal team requested that Carlson retract his statements and apologize on air, according to Teter, but he says there was no response.
Epps claims Fox News used selective and edited clips of him with malicious intent, and that the Department of Justice told him two months ago it planned to seek criminal charges against him. If true, that may be an unwelcome consequence for Epps — he blames Fox News for harming his reputation — but it could also support his longstanding assertion that he’s not a government agent. To date, no charges have been filed.
“The little snips and pieces, the edited film that [the media has] put together, this fictional character that they have put together, doesn’t fit. If you– if you see the whole story, you see that I’m trying to stop the violence, trying to keep people from getting themselves in more trouble,” Eppstold the Jan. 6 House select committeein 2022 about why he thinks he hadn’t been charged.
Epps testified that when he saw the barricade on Jan. 6, he realized the crowd wasn’t going into the building. He positioned himself between the mob and the police, with his back to the police, and tried to get people to back off. He tried to convince a man who was shaking the barricade to stop, he said.
There is police footage of Epps thanking the police officers and telling the crowd to step back. “I thought I could stop it,” he testified. “I got called a lot of names that day.”
Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard and Annie Kuster take cover as rioters attempt to break in to the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Carlson focused on Epps more than 20 times on his showTucker Carlson Tonight, at least once with a graphic reading “FedEpps.” “He’s obsessed with me,”Epps told60 Minutesin April. “He’s going to any means possible to destroy my life and our lives."
On Jan. 6, 2023, Carlson said, “two years after January 6th, long after an awful lot of other people have gone to jail for walking around the Capitol building, Ray Epps is still a free man. He’s never been charged, much less imprisoned in solitary confinement like so many others. Why is that? Well, let’s just stop lying. At this point, it’s pretty obvious why that is. But, of course, they’re still lying about it.”
The lawsuit claims Carlson relied on edited and distorted videos, and even after Carlson was given access to tens of thousands of security and surveillance videos, including video of Epps seemingly trying to de-escalate the situation at the Capitol, Carlson didn’t change his narrative.
The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot holds a hearing on July 12, 2022.Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty
A few of Epps’ actions in Washington, D.C. were enough to raise eyebrows. He was livestreamed the night of Jan. 5 talking to the crowd. “I’m going to put it out there. I’m probably going to go to jail for it, okay? Tomorrow, we need to go in to the Capitol.Into the Capitol. Peacefully.” The crowd immediately chanted, “Fed, fed, fed."
“My vision was get as many people in there as we can and surround it, be there, let them know that we’re not happy with the– with what– what has happened, and that was it. No violence,” he testified to the Jan. 6 House committee. “I never intended to break the law. It’s not in my DNA. It was something stupid that I said. I regret it. It’s caused me and my family many problems."
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source: people.com
