- Ray Epps sued Fox News, saying host-turned-Twitter vlogger Tucker Carlson defamed him.
- Epps went to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, because he thought the election was rigged and Trump won.
Ray Epps — the longtime supporter of Donald Trump and self-described fan of Fox News — filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against the right-wing media network over a baseless conspiracy theory that he was actually an FBI informant who incited the January 6 Capitol riot.
In the lawsuit, lawyers for Epps argue that Fox News sought a scapegoat for the January 6, 2021 insurrection after the network pushed the lie that Trump, not now-President Joe Biden, was the true victor of the 2020 election.
The network settled on Epps, the lawsuit says.
"Having promoted the lie that Joe Biden stole the election, having urged people to come to Washington, DC, and having helped light and then pour gasoline on a fire that resulted in an insurrection that interfered with the peaceful transition of power, Fox needed to mask its culpability," the lawsuit says. "It also needed a narrative that did not alienate its viewers, who had grown distrustful of Fox because of its perceived lack of fealty to Trump."
Epps has been the subject of a conspiracy theory among right-wing media pundits and politicians claiming he was actually working with the FBI to incite the riot.
In reality, he voted for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections. According to the lawsuit, Epps and his wife, Robyn Epps, both listened to Fox News push falsehoods about the results of the 2020 election. As a result, the suit says, they traveled to Washington, DC, for Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally on January 6, 2021, which turned into the deadly riot at the Capitol.
"The lies that Fox told were heard by Ray and Robyn Epps, loyal Fox viewers and fans of Tucker Carlson and other Fox personalities," the lawsuit says.
The conspiracy theory about Epps has been frequently advanced by Tucker Carlson, a Twitter vlogger who was fired by Fox News in April. Chadwick Moore, a right-wing columnist who says he's writing an authorized biography of Carlson, said earlier this year that Carlson had prepared a monologue about Epps on the day Fox took him off the air.
Epps had gone up to the Capitol, but resisted going into the building after seeing that other people at the event were attacking police officers, his attorney said in the lawsuit. His photo was posted on an FBI website, prompting him to contact the FBI and explain his presence at the Capitol, the suit says. Epps met with the FBI in March of that year, according to the lawsuit.
At about the same time, Fox News — along with other right-wing media companies and conspiracy theorists — were hit with lawsuits by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, two election technology companies caught up in false allegations that they rigged the 2020 election.
Fox News pushed the Epps conspiracy theory to distract from Dominion, the lawsuit says
Fox and Carlson "decided that Epps was the villain they needed to distract from the Dominion lawsuit and their culpability for stoking the fire that led to the events of January 6th," the lawsuit says.
"To make the factual assertion that Epps was working for the FBI, Mr. Carlson relied on distorted and selectively edited videos, combined with an untruthful voiceover and a false or misleading chyron," the lawsuit says.
In February of 2023, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave producers on Carlson's show security footage from the Capitol from the day of the riot. Although that should have dispelled the myth that Epps spurred the insurrection, Carlson didn't change his position, the lawsuit says.
"Contrary to Fox's lies, Ray was not a federal agent of any kind, was not law enforcement of any kind, and was not any type of government agent or informant, or acting on behalf of the government in any capacity when he participated in the protests on January 6th," the suit says.
Fox paid Dominion a record-breaking $787.5 million to settle its claims in April. Smartmatic's lawsuit remains pending.
Epps and his wife have been constantly harassed as a result of the conspiracy theories, have sold their homes and other possessions, and have remained in hiding, the lawsuit says.
In an interview with CBS News earlier this year, Epps said Carlson was "obsessed" with him and "going to any means possible to destroy my life."
"Some people have said: 'Well just let it go and let it die down,'" his wife, Robin, told "60 Minutes" in an interview. "What they don't understand is that it doesn't."
A representative for Fox News didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.