A Trump supporter at the heart of a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory pushed by MAGA allies filed a defamation lawsuit accusing Fox News of a years-long smear campaign.
Ray Epps, who attended pro-Trump rallies in D.C. on Jan. 5 and 6 and was seen on a video encouraging people to enter the Capitol but was not initially charged with entering the building himself, sued the network after former Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested that he was a government informant — which the FBI and Epps have denied, according to The Washington Post.
Epps claims in the suit that the Justice Department informed him in May it "would seek to charge him criminally," which he attributed to "the relentless attacks by Fox and Mr. Carlson and the resulting political pressure."
"Fox, and particularly Mr. Carlson, commenced a years-long campaign spreading falsehoods about Epps," the lawsuit alleges, claiming that the falsehoods "destroyed" the lives of Epps and his wife, forcing them from their home.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware, alleges that Fox and Carlson knew Epps was almost definitely not a federal agent but chose to disregard that information.
"Fox engaged in purposeful avoidance of the truth, intentionally ignoring information and evidence that directly contradicted Fox's outlandish lies about Epps," the complaint says. "Fox refused to retract, correct, or apologize for its demonstrably false and defamatory accusations against Epps well after Fox knew definitively that they were false, providing yet additional circumstantial evidence of actual malice. Fox thus broadcast its lies about Epps with a high degree of awareness of probable falsity."
Michael Teter, an attorney for Epps, sent a letter to the network in March demanding it retract its claims but did not receive a response.
"This lawsuit marks another moment of accountability for Fox News," Teter said in a statement. "For years, Fox News and Mr. Carlson created and amplified conspiracy theories about Ray that lacked any foundation in fact. Their lies exposed Ray and his wife, Robyn, to harassment, intimidation, and abuse – voicemails warning Ray to sleep with one eye open, bullet casings found on their property, death threats sent to their home."
Epps gained attention in right-wing circles after videos recorded on Jan. 5 showed him urging Trump supporters to "go into the Capitol."
Epps in the lawsuit claimed that he believed parts of the Capitol would be open to the public and that Trump supporters could legally enter them. Epps' photo briefly appeared on the FBI website seeking information about various protesters but was removed after he was interviewed by agents in July 2021.
The disappearance of the photo and lack of charges prompted a series of right-wing conspiracy theories alleging he was planted by federal agents to provoke otherwise peaceful Trump supporters into violence.
Carlson in January 2022 described Epps as a person who "helped stage-manage the insurrection."
During another show earlier this year, Carlson focused on the fact that Epps hadn't been charged.
"Why is that? Well, let's just stop lying," Carlson said. "At this point, it's pretty obvious why that is."
During a July 2022 episode, Carlson guest Darren Beattie, a former White House speechwriter, called Epps "the smoking gun of the entire fed-surrection" without any pushback.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham also discussed Epps in an October 2021 segment that featured a graphic asking "Were Federal Assets Involved in Capitol Riot?"
Some Republican members of Congress have also embraced the conspiracy theory.
"I think somebody that worked that hard to get people to go in the Capitol, why aren't they rotting away in the D.C. jail?" Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said during a live stream last summer.
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, during a hearing with FBI Director Chris Wray on Wednesday, brought up Epps and accused the FBI of "protecting this guy."
Wray refuted Republican claims that the FBI was involved in the attack on the Capitol.
"This notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous and is a disservice to our brave, hard-working, dedicated men and women," he said.
The lawsuit says that Epps and his wife were "loyal Fox viewers and fans of Tucker Carlson and other Fox personalities," and "were persuaded by the lies broadcast by Fox" that the election had been stolen. After Carlson's segments, the lawsuit says, he and his wife were deluged with threats and harassing messages, forcing them to flee from Arizona, selling the property at a low price.
"After destroying Epps's reputation and livelihood, Fox will move on to its next story, while Ray and Robyn live in a 350-square foot RV and face harassment and fear true harm," the complaint says.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a nearly $800 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems over false claims the network aired about the election. Media Matters' Matthew Gertz flagged that Brian Farnan, the lead Delaware counsel for Dominion, is listed as one of Epps' lawyers in the lawsuit.
For me, the big news in the Ray Epps filing is that it is signed by Brian Farnan, the lead Delaware counsel for Dominion Voting Systems in their suit against Fox. pic.twitter.com/Ej0JAJmBms
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) July 12, 2023
University of Utah Law Prof. RonNell Andersen Jones told the Post that Epps can show that he was harmed by the false claims but "the key question here is whether he was defamed, and that is going to require some careful situating of his facts within the framework that the law recognizes."
Though Carlson never directly said Epps was a federal agent, "when the whole story added together leads to a defamatory meaning, it can be found to be defamatory," Andersen Jones said. "This will almost certainly be the underlying theory of some of Epps's case."
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Thursday said Epps was one of numerous "ordinary people" whose lives had been ruined by Trump's election lies, also citing Georgia poll workers attacked by TrumpWorld and predicting the network would be found liable for defamation.
"Let me say that again, not a public figure, not used to this," he said. "The death threats, the security problems they had, I'm telling you, if I'm representing Fox News, I'm saying, 'Get your checkbook out and start writing.' They're going to have to do it again, Tucker Carlson is probably going to do it again because this guy isn't a public figure. It's not going to be hard for him to prove defamation."
