Fox News host Tucker Carlson challenged the House committee investigating the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to declare that Ray Epps was not working with any government agency.
He raised the question Tuesday in response to the select panel issuing a statement that said it interviewed Epps, an Arizona resident and a former president of the Arizona Oath Keepers militia group seen on video urging people to march to the U.S. Capitol in the hours leading up to the riot, and Epps claimed he was not an informant for the FBI or any other law enforcement agency.
“Would the committee be willing to broaden that statement and affirm in writing that Ray Epps wasn’t working with any government agency, law enforcement or otherwise? That would be a very simple change to make. Let’s see if they make it. Let’s see if Republicans will force them to make it,” Carlson said.
DOJ EVADES QUESTIONS ON CAPITOL RIOT INFORMANTS AS RAY EPPS DENIES WORKING WITH FBI
Epps had been on the FBI’s Capitol Violence most wanted list before he was removed without explanation after nearly six months. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republican members on the Jan. 6 committee, tweeted that Epps was taken off the list “because apparently he broke no laws.” He also said Epps “has cooperated and is nothing but a Jan 6 protest attendee, in his own words.”
It’s clear the DOJ had some role in the events of January 6 pic.twitter.com/aR8SaiNZoU
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 12, 2022
Carlson took issue with the statement.
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Epps was “of course the opposite of that. Of everyone there, Ray Epps is the one you should be the maddest at if you are the Democratic Party. And yet they are telling you he was an attendee — not an insurrectionist, not a terrorist — just an attendee, another engaged American just exercising his constitutional rights,” he said. Carlson, whose top-rated show pulls in millions of viewers, said it is a “huge” change that does not make any sense.
Carlson also questioned the timing of the panel’s statement and asked if the public, as well as anybody who has been charged in connection with the Capitol riot, could see a transcript of the interview conducted with Epps.
