The media love affair with the most suspicious person involved with the Left’s Jan. 6 hoax, Ray Epps, continues. On Sunday evening, 60 Minutes is planning to air a profile of Epps, a man whom they claim has been unjustly vilified in the conservative media. In doing so, they’re just calling new attention to the gaping holes in their Jan. 6 propaganda narrative.
The Leftist political and media elites have been insisting ever since Jan. 6, 2021, that the disturbance at the Capitol on that day constituted an “insurrection,” an actual attempt to overthrow the government of the United States and, presumably, to install Donald Trump as a dictator. Over the intervening two years, the Left’s case has steadily unraveled, and one of the most glaring examples of its weakness has been the curious case of Epps. Amid all the hysteria about “MAGA Republicans” supposedly determining to storm the Capitol and overthrow the government, Epps is the only person who was captured on video actually exhorting people to enter the building. Yet instead of being arrested, Epps has become a media darling. Suspicious? In the extreme.
First, it was the New York Times. In July 2022, the Paper of Record lamented that “Ray Epps has suffered enormously in the past 10 months as right-wing media figures and Republican politicians have baselessly described him as a covert government agent who helped to instigate the attack on the Capitol last year.” It quoted the poor target himself saying, “It’s just been hell.” Speaking of hell, the Times did not address the fact that people who, unlike Epps, never told anyone to storm the Capitol have languished in prison without trial for over two years now, in shocking conditions. They never got a Times puff piece in which they were given a chance to complain about how bad it has been, either.
And now 60 Minutes is stepping up to the plate, tweeting on Friday, “In conservative media, Ray Epps is a notorious villain, responsible for turning the protests on January 6 into a riot. It is a convoluted conspiracy theory he denies. He’s now in hiding, facing death threats. This Sunday, Epps sits down with 60 Minutes.”
In conservative media, Ray Epps is a notorious villain, responsible for turning the protests on January 6 into a riot. It is a convoluted conspiracy theory he denies. He’s now in hiding, facing death threats.
This Sunday, Epps sits down with 60 Minutes. https://t.co/mEN4CWeXMW pic.twitter.com/DnooNqQWck— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 21, 2023
A convoluted conspiracy theory? Really? How convoluted is this? Ray Epps is on video on Jan. 5, 2021, saying, “I’m gonna put it out there. I’m probably gonna go to jail for it, okay?” He didn’t. “Tomorrow, we need to go into the Capitol. Into the Capitol.” The people around him in the video aren’t buying it and start chanting, “Fed! Fed! Fed!”
Ray Epps denied working for the FBI during Capitol Riot. Protesters at the scene didn't buy it. I don't buy it. pic.twitter.com/jGQTFwe7kM
— Tony Keiser (@keiserrott) December 30, 2022
At another point, Epps says, “Tomorrow — I don’t even like to say it ‘cause I’ll be arrested…” He wasn’t, and no one has ever explained why not. Someone in the crowd responds, “So let’s not say it.” “We need to go —” Epps continues, and looking at the man who told him not to say it, insists, “I’ll say it. We need to go in to the Capitol.” Once again, his exhortation is received with derision.
Related: Ray Epps’ Lawyer Threatens Tucker Carlson: ‘You Didn’t See What You Saw on J6 Video — or Else’
Even that isn’t all. In yet another instance, Epps is caught on video saying, “We are going to the Capitol, where our problems are.” Pointing, he helpfully tells protesters, “It’s that direction. Please spread the word.” Epps is also on video whispering something to those who pushed down the barriers between the protesters and the Capitol just before they began breaking down the barriers; then he is seen running with them toward the Capitol.
In light of all this, and knowing that Epps has never even been arrested and is now the focus of not one but two establishment media puff pieces, it’s increasingly difficult to escape the suspicion that he was an agent provocateur trying to ensure that protesters breached the Capitol so as to establish the Left’s bogus and hole-ridden “insurrection” narrative. If this were not true, Epps would be languishing in prison in Washington today along with the others who did far less than he did.
The timing is likewise striking. The 60 Minutes puff piece comes just weeks after Epps’ lawyer sent Tucker Carlson a letter demanding that Carlson stop talking about the strangeness of Epps’ case. Besides the videos in which he exhorts people to storm the Capitol, there is more that makes it difficult to believe Epps’ claim that he wasn’t a fed trying to provoke the entry into the Capitol. As Victoria Taft noted, “one must ignore the fact that Epps told everyone that he traveled across the country to see President Trump’s speech, but he didn’t,” and the fact that “he is seen on video whispering into the ear of a person who then took down barricades.”
60 Minutes, however, considers this a “convoluted conspiracy theory.” But in trying to impugn the credibility of Epps’ critics, they’re only proving them right.
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