A participant in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol demanded that foxnews host Tucker Carlson apologize on air for falsely claiming the man was a federal agent.
Ray Epps of Arizona became the target of a right-wing conspiracy theory that suggests he went to the Capitol Hill protest as an FBI informant to provoke supporters of the former president. donald trump in violence. Epps, who has not been charged in connection with January 6 because he never entered the Capitol building, maintains that he went to Washington DC to support Trump.
That didn’t stop carlson and others to the right of promoting the unsubstantiated claim that Epps was working with the government. Epps’ attorney, Michael Teter, sent a cease-and-desist letter Thursday to Carlson and Fox News General Counsel Bernard Gugar, demanding a “formal on-air apology for the lies” spread about his client.
“Mr. Guests and contributors to Carlson and Fox News have incorrectly called Mr. Epps a federal agent, accusing him of acting as a riot maker,” Teter said in the letter, which was provided to HuffPost. “Interestingly, Mr. “Carlson now also espouses the view that those rioters were like peaceful tourists. This leads to the obvious question: is Mr. Carlson now accusing Mr. Epps of provoking peaceful protests?”
Epps came to the attention of conspirators after he was videotaped on the night of January 5, 2021. urging supporters to enter the Capitol the next day. Epps was also seen on video the day of the riot trying to stop a Trump supporter from attacking police.
in a rare statement released last year by the House committee investigating the attack, committee members concluded that Epps had not worked with law enforcement.
“Mr. Epps informed us that you were not employed by, worked for, or acted under the direction of any law enforcement agency on January 5th or 6th or at any other time, and that you have never been an informant for the FBI or any other law enforcement agency agency,” the committee said through a spokesperson.
Despite this, Carlson brought Epps back in a segment earlier this month, still suggesting he was an FBI informant.
What was Epps doing there? carlson asked in a March 6 segment of his show. “We can’t say, but we know he lied to investigators.”
Teter’s cease and desist letter comes on the heels of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. Dominion alleges that Fox News helped spread Trump’s election lies despite knowing the claims were false.
As part of the lawsuit, hundreds of internal text messages of the Fox personalities were released, showing that they pushed the lie even knowing it had no basis in reality.
“Recent revelations from the Dominion Voting lawsuit make it clear that Fox News has no qualms about lying to its viewers,” Teter wrote in the letter. “The fictional story that Mr. Carlson and Fox News have told, and continue to tell, about Ray Epps is just one more example of this. It is time for Mr. Carlson and Fox News to stop the lies and make peace.”
Teter’s letter requests that Carlson and Fox send written confirmation that they will “comply with these demands” by March 31, or risk a lawsuit.
