Prominent Republicans — including former President Donald J. Trump — have for months promoted a conspiracy theory that an Arizona man named Ray Epps was a federal informant who helped to instigate the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The claims, made in congressional hearing rooms, on Fox News and at Mr. Trump’s political rallies, have largely been based on a video taken just before violence erupted at the Capitol, showing Mr. Epps at the barricades outside the building whispering into the ear of a man named Ryan Samsel.
Within moments of the brief exchange, Mr. Samsel, a Pennsylvania barber, can be seen moving forward and confronting the police in what amounted to the tipping point of the riot. Despite lacking proof for their claims, many Republicans have surmised that Mr. Epps instructed Mr. Samsel to antagonize the officers. They have also pushed the notion that because Mr. Epps has not been arrested, he must have been working for the government.
But for more than a year, well before the name Ray Epps was widely known in right-wing circles, federal authorities have had information — from both him and Mr. Samsel — suggesting that he was not a government agent and did not encourage the younger man to engage with the police that day.
Just two days after the attack, when Mr. Epps saw himself on a list of suspects from Jan. 6, he called an F.B.I. tip line and told investigators that he had tried to calm Mr. Samsel down when they spoke, according to three people who have heard a recording of the call. Mr. Epps went on to say that he explained to Mr. Samsel that the police outside the building were merely doing their jobs, the people said.
Then in late January of last year, in an interview with the F.B.I., Mr. Samsel said much the same thing, telling investigators that a man he did not know came up to him at the barricades and suggested he relax, according to a recording of the interview obtained by The New York Times.
“He came up to me and he said, ‘Dude’ — his entire words were, ‘Relax, the cops are doing their job,’” Mr. Samsel said.
The theories surrounding Mr. Epps have been debunked before, most notably after he spoke last year to investigators working with the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 attack. During the interview, committee officials said, Mr. Epps said that he was not an F.B.I. informant and denied reports that he had urged protesters to go into the Capitol at the behest of federal law enforcement agencies.
Still, the rumors about him have persisted, becoming regular fodder for right-wing politicians and media figures.
Last month, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, mentioned Mr. Epps — and his supposed role in fomenting the Capitol riot — during a hearing in Atlanta held to determine whether she should be labeled an “insurrectionist” and barred from office under the Constitution.
The recordings of Mr. Epps and Mr. Samsel were released by the government last week as a discovery disclosure to scores of defense lawyers representing people charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol attack. A spokesman for the Justice Department did not respond to a request to explain why prosecutors have held on to the material so long and decided not to make it public.
Right-wing chatter about Mr. Epps, who is 60 and runs a wedding and event venue in Queen Creek, Ariz., began last spring after videos of him at a pro-Trump rally in Washington started to circulate online. Aside from the clip with Mr. Samsel, Mr. Epps was caught on video standing in a crowd of Trump supporters on the night of Jan. 5, 2021, urging his compatriots to “go into the Capitol” the next day.
At a hearing in October, Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, showed the clip of Mr. Epps encouraging the crowd and used it to question Attorney General Merrick B. Garland about whether federal agents had acted as agitators on Jan. 6.
The story about Mr. Epps gained further traction near the one-year anniversary of the Capitol attack when the Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson featured it in a documentary called “Patriot Purge,” which suggested that the Capitol attack might have been a “false flag” operation by the government.
Not long after, questions about Mr. Epps were raised again at a Senate hearing — this time by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas.
“There are a lot of people who are understandably very concerned about Mr. Epps,” he said.
According to the people who have heard the recording of Mr. Epps, he told the F.B.I. during his call that instigators might have been in the crowd outside the Capitol on Jan. 6. But he explained that he was not one of them and did not suggest that anyone who might have encouraged the mob that day was working for the government.
Mr. Epps also suggested during the call that he believed that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump.
The recording of Mr. Samsel appears to be a brief clip of a longer interview with the F.B.I. that took place in late January 2021 after he was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer at the Capitol.
In the same interview, Mr. Samsel told the F.B.I. that another person in the crowd outside the Capitol, Joseph Biggs, a leader of the far-right group the Proud Boys, also pulled him aside that day and spoke to him just before he confronted the officers.
While Mr. Biggs has denied the account, Mr. Samsel told investigators that Mr. Biggs encouraged him to push at the barricades and that when he hesitated, the Proud Boys leader flashed a gun, questioned his manhood and repeated his request.
Did you miss our previous article...
https://trendinginthenews.com/usa-politics/biden-and-harris-meet-with-labor-organizers-from-amazon-and-starbucks
