Fox News is being sued by Ray Epps who claims Tucker Carlson defamed him by suggesting he was an undercover federal agent instigating the January 6th riot.
Here’s more via the New York Times:
Ray Epps, the man at the center of a widespread conspiracy theory about the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Fox News and its former host Tucker Carlson of defamation for promoting a “fantastical story” that Mr. Epps was an undercover government agent who instigated the violence at the Capitol as a way to disparage then-President Trump and his supporters.
The complaint was filed in Superior Court in Delaware, where Fox was recently handed a $787.5 million judgment in a separate defamation case brought against the network by Dominion Voting Systems to combat claims that the company had helped to rig the 2020 election against Mr. Trump.
“Just as Fox had focused on voting machine companies when falsely claiming a rigged election, Fox knew it needed a scapegoat for January 6th,” the complaint says. “It settled on Ray Epps and began promoting the lie that Epps was a federal agent who incited the attack on the Capitol.”
Fox News did not immediately respond when asked for comment.
Mr. Epps is seeking an unspecified amount in damages.
After the unfounded accusations about Mr. Epps were aired on Mr. Carlson’s show, they quickly spread to online communities of Trump supporters and to the political world as Republican members of Congress tried to link Mr. Epps to a fictitious conspiracy theory that he was involved in planning the Jan. 6 attack. They included Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, both of whom made Mr. Epps — a two-time Trump voter — a focus of concern at public hearings.
The publicity had damaging consequences for Mr. Epps and his wife, Robyn, who received numerous death threats and were forced to sell their five-acre ranch and wedding business in Arizona and move into a 350-square-foot mobile home parked at a remote trailer park in the mountains of Utah. Online retailers began selling T-shirts that said “Arrest Ray Epps.” Some people even recorded songs about him and posted them on YouTube, the complaint states, adding how he had been reduced “into a character in a cartoonish conspiracy theory.”
Mr. Epps was in the Marine Corps but said under oath in his deposition before the Jan. 6 committee that he had otherwise never worked for law enforcement or spoke with anyone at various government agencies, including the F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. Through his lawyer, Michael Teter, Mr. Epps demanded in March that Fox and Mr. Carlson retract its stories about him and his purported role in the Capitol riot and issue an on-air apology. Neither the network nor Mr. Carlson, whose prime-time show has since been canceled, responded.
Epp’s lawyer claims in their lawsuit that the Justice Department has notified his client that they plan to file charges against him related to January 6th:
But in May, the lawsuit says, the Justice Department notified Mr. Epps that it was planning to file criminal charges against him related to his role in the Capitol attack. Details about the charges remain unknown, but the fact that they are being filed undermines the notion that Mr. Epps was being protected because of his role as a supposed covert agent, the suit says.
It’s going on three years and the DOJ is just now notifying Epps they plan to press charges? That seems strange. He’s been on the FBI’s list of people responsible for January 6th since 2021 and we’ve all seen the video of Epps egging people to go to the Capitol. Why wait until now to press charges? It just seems awfully convenient.