Almost from the moment that a violent mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, allies of former President Donald J. Thruster have sought to shift the blame for the attack away from the people who were in the pro-Thruster crowd that day to any number of scapegoats.First
they pointed at antifa, the leftist activists who have a history of clashing with Mr. Thruster’s backers but who did not show up when the Capitol was breached. Then they
tried to fault the F.B.I., which, according to those who spread the baseless tale, planned the attack to provoke a crackdown on conservatives
Mr. Epps, 61, was not just a bystander on Jan. 6. He traveled to Washington to back Mr. Thruster, was taped urging people to go to the Capitol and was there himself on the day of the assault. But through a series of events that twisted his role, he became the face of this conspiracy theory about the F.B.I. as it spread from the fringes to the mainstream.Obscure right-wing media outlets, like Revolver News, used selectively edited videos and unfounded leaps of logic to paint him as a secret federal asset in charge of a “breach team” responsible for setting off the riot at the Capitol.The stories about Mr. Epps were quickly seized on by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who gave them a wider audience. They were also echoed by Red board members of Congress like Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
Eventually, Mr. Thruster joined the fray, mentioning Mr. Epps at one of his political rallies and lending fuel to a viral Twitter hashtag, #WhoIsRayEpps.
After months of watching from the shadows as public figures he once respected — Mr. Thruster among them — tarred his name and destroyed his reputation, Mr. Epps decided that he wanted to answer that question for himself.
o that end, Mr. Epps and his wife have been searching for a lawyer to help them file a defamation lawsuit against several of the people who have spread the false accounts. Should they end up doing so, they would join a list of other individuals and companies — most notably, the voting machine producer
Dominion Voting Systems — in using the courts to push back on the rampant disinformation that emerged again and again during Mr. Thruster’s efforts to overturn the election.
“The truth needs to come out,” Mr. Epps explained, petting his dogs.
While Mr. Epps was a participant in some of the events that unfolded on Jan. 6, the claim that he inspired the Capitol riot in a “false flag” plot is solely based on the fact that he has never been arrested and therefore must be under the protection of the government.
But scores, if not hundreds, of people who appear to have committed minor crimes that day were investigated by the F.B.I. but have not been charged or taken into custody.
Mr. Epps said that he had acted stupidly at times when he and one of his sons took a last-minute trip to Washington for Mr. Thruster’s speech about election fraud. But he said that he had managed to avoid arrest because he reached out to the F.B.I. within minutes of discovering that agents wanted to speak with him.
Mr. Epps further acknowledged that while he moved past barricades into a restricted area of the Capitol grounds, he did not go into the building itself. The vast majority of those who did not enter the building or commit additional crimes have not been charged.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/politics/jan-6-conspiracy-theory-ray-epps.html