Can we take Ray Epps off the list now?

Yup… but Trumpers still make that claim
Being FBI does not mean a permanent employee.
He could just be an FBI contractor for that one role, similar to Emad Salem being hired by the FBI to blow up the WTC in 1993.
 
{...
Several things from that New York Times report are key to the theory about Ray Epps:

  • The FBI had an informant in a midwest chapter of the Proud Boys and were tracking him leading up to Jan. 6.
  • The informant stated repeatedly that the Proud Boys had no plans to cause violence or breach the Capitol.
  • When the informant arrived at the first barrier to the Capitol with members of Proud Boys chapters from across the country, it had already been breached.
Now, neither The Times nor Revolver News is saying this informant was Ray Epps, but the story implies that the FBI had warnings about the Proud Boys, had at least one informant in their midst, and that the Proud Boys did not lead the initial breach of the Capitol.

In some ways, the presence of informants shouldn't be surprising. We know, for instance, that months before Jan. 6, members of the FBI had helped plan the kidnapping of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The government failed to prosecute its case against the alleged domestic terrorists, almost certainly because the FBI itself played such a huge role in organizing the planned kidnapping. They weren't charged with entrapment, but if you read the details of the case it’s tough to think of a better word to describe what happened.
...}
 
{...
2) The video footage. The next piece of evidence is the deluge of video footage featuring Epps. This is where Revolver News' reporting has been so influential. They compiled highlight reels of Epps collected from the thousands of videos posted on social media. The footage spans from the night of January 5 to the riots of January 6. In many of the videos, Epps is encouraging rioters to go "in" to the Capitol. In one of the most viewed, Epps implores protesters on the night of January 5: "We need to go into the Capitol! Into the Capitol!"

"What? No," someone can be heard saying off camera. "Peacefully," Epps emphasizes, before the crowd starts chanting "Fed! Fed! Fed!" at him, apparently already suspicious of some of the people among their ranks.

In other videos, Epps says “I don’t even like to say it because I’ll be arrested. I’ll say it. We need to go into the Capitol.” In still others, Epps again tells protesters, “We need to go inside the Capitol”— insisting that anything besides that objective is a "distraction."

Epps was also part of the initial "breach" of the outer Capitol premises. This has been a major focus of the Revolver News account, but is a fact that isn't really disputed elsewhere. Once protesters arrive at the first barricades surrounding the Capitol complex, Epps can be seen speaking quietly in one person's ear before that man pushes through a barricade. That barricade was one of the first documented breaches of the Capitol, and the area that opened up became a thoroughfare for protesters who would leave Trump's speech, walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, and soon become rioters. While Epps himself doesn't participate in pushing through, he follows the crowd once they overwhelm the police.

Later, as the crowd gets closer to the actual Capitol building, Epps is again featured prominently in videos online. In these, he can be seen walking up and down the front lines between police and protesters and at times taking a posture of leadership, insisting people not hurt any of the officers.
...}
 
{...
3) He hasn't been charged. The glue that holds all of these pieces together is the way the FBI has handled Epps' case. Fundamentally, everyone who wonders about his involvement asks this question: Why hasn't he been charged?

By January 8, just two days after the Capitol riots, Epps was on the FBI's most wanted list. They offered a cash reward to identify him, and internet sleuths — at the time, mostly leftists and "insurrection hunters" — quickly did so. Months later, Revolver News published the first of several stories questioning the role Epps played, and on June 30 The New York Times published an exhaustive piece about January 6 that named and identified Epps.

Instead of quickly prosecuting the man they had offered a cash reward to identify, though, the FBI did something odd: It quietly purged Epps from the most-wanted list with no explanation. You can still find his listing using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, but he no longer shows up anywhere else on the FBI website.

Since then, there hasn't been any explanation for this. The House committee investigating January 6 has said it interviewed Epps in November of 2021, and that he denied reports of urging anyone into the Capitol on instructions from federal law enforcement. The committee essentially absolved Epps of any wrongdoing, concluding that he wasn't charged by the FBI because he didn't commit any property damage or assault any police officers.
...}
 

Forum List

Back
Top