When I was interviewed by the FBI on October 18, 2021, for my coverage of the January 6 event, the one aspect of their questioning, upon which they focused the most effort, was an attempt to have me admit that I knew I was entering restricted spaces at various times during the unfolding of the riot and eventual Capitol breach.
Why would they do this, when it is generally understood that “ignorance of the law is no excuse?” Because — as any first-year law student knows — that bromide is false, as ignorance of the law is quite often both a valid excuse and justifiable defense against criminal prosecution of non-violent, victimless activities. They had plenty of photography of my whereabouts throughout the day, and my 9,500-word story about everything I did and everywhere I went had been in the public record for over nine months. But they sought to prove that I had intentionally and with foreknowledge broken some law.
When I first arrived at the Capitol grounds on January 6 — at approximately 1:15 pm — visible evidence of previously existing bike rack barricades, snow fencing, and “AREA CLOSED” signs had been removed and hidden by the earliest arriving provocateurs. Not to mention, all Capitol Police had retreated to defend the lower west terrace line.
Then, for the next hour, I videoed what was happening on that west side battle line. I behaved professionally, and never participated in so much as a chant or a refrain of “The Star Spangled Banner.” The two FBI agents interviewing me had ample evidence of my behavior and even thanked me for not participating in violence against police officers. But then they tried to get me to admit that I knew I was entering a restricted area when the protestors broke through, underneath the scaffolding, and began climbing the stairs to the upper terrace.
Again, I denied their insinuation, explaining to the agents that I’d witnessed a “stand down order,” and that it was only after several hundred protestors were filing forward — with police officers standing off to the side, chatting in groups, or talking on their cellphones — that I finally “followed the story where the story went.” A full year passed before I heard the Capitol Police radio comms in which an actual “pull back” order was issued, (several times), verifying what I saw, what I captured on video, and what I originally called a “stand down order” . . . at the exact time I witnessed that reaction by police.
Ray Epps doesn’t have any such defense or an excuse for “ignorance of the law.” At the first barricade breach, Epps was a personal witness to a standing bike rack barricade, manned by several Capitol Police officers, and posted with numerous “AREA CLOSED” signs. After the first breach — and regardless of what he whispered in the ear of Ryan Samsel — he then broke out in a run toward the Capitol’s next police line on the lower west terrace. Racing past Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards. The first officer who was injured that day.
on the west side of the Capitol Building
For all that we don’t know about Epps, what we do know — unfiltered by media interviews or J6 House Select Committee scripted testimony — is that he was at the tip of the spear of the first two police line breaches on January 6. That first barricade breach at 12:52 pm, and then minutes later at the second breach. From the exterior Capitol CCTV video, he is once again seen at the exact point of the second breach. He saw that the second line was clearly fenced and defended by police. When the second breach happens, he once again immediately proceeds forward to the next Capitol Police defensive line. A line that also fully collapsed just after 2:30 pm, in his presence.
None of the aforementioned is the opinion of this writer or part of any conspiracy theory. These are the fully-substantiated facts of where Epps was located at each of these events on January 6. All of these actions and his location at each breach raise legitimate questions, especially about why he has not been charged and arrested for knowingly entering a restricted area so obviously defended by police and violently breached by rioters, in his presence.
Epps wasn’t just in the vicinity of these violent breaches. He was there, at the very point of the first two breaches of the day, and then he purposefully moved forward after each.
As I’ve previously reported, the first time I met Alan Feuer of The New York Times — who famously wrote the first apologetics piece defending Ray Epps, he said to me and the two attorneys I was having lunch with:
“You guys have to forget this Ray Epps thing. Didn’t happen! Look, I’m the guy who flew out to the mountains and met with Epps and his wife. I’m telling you, he isn’t a Fed, and he’s totally believable.”
In that July 12, 2022 article, Feuer wrote, “Mr. Epps, 61, was not just a bystander on Jan. 6. He traveled to Washington to back Mr. Trump, 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.”
In short, Feuer’s article painted Epps as the “victim” of another vast right-wing conspiracy. The rest of the MSM went along and their vast left-wing audience also fully bought in. Inexplicably, Epps, a former Oath Keeper, Trump supporter, loyal Fox News watcher, election denier, and the most videoed provocateur of the crowd to “go into the Capitol,” became the one Capitol grounds breacher to receive a free pass from the Department of Justice, the FBI, the January 6 House Select Committee, and the left-wing of the Twitter-sphere.
Alan Feuer and I developed a friendly rapport over the course of the first Oath Keepers trial. Some weeks later, he phoned me, specifically to answer questions about Epps. He told me I could write about our conversation, even saying emphatically, “Please do.” He told me that Epps was a “big oaf,” and if not for having a really good wife, he “probably couldn’t put his pants on each morning without her assistance.”
Feuer is either a true believer or a palace guard. Which, I do not know.
Then I asked Feuer if he’d seen the latest video reveal about Epps from the online video sleuth, Gary McBride. He hadn’t but told me he would take a look. I’ve not heard from Feuer, since.
In that video compilation — put together by Gary McBride of M5 News — exterior Capitol CCTV video clearly shows Epps at the exact point of the second police line breach, and then moving forward to the next lower west terrace police line.
It is this video and especially the subsequent sequence that 60 Minutes and other MSM outlets conveniently ignore. It is this “lie of omission” which continues to validate the ongoing existence of conspiracy theories about Ray Epps.
The second part of McBride’s video reveal takes place at approximately 2:50 pm, after the “pull back order,” after the full collapse of the remaining DC Metro Police reinforcements, and after thousands of protestors had completely swarmed the west side of the Capitol Building. McBride found Epps among the vast and compacted crowd just before a red flare goes off near Epps’ location. Then, seconds later, Epps is escorted through the crowd by eight other men. Single file, with four in front of him and four behind.
Why is this significant? Because in Epps’ J6 Select Committee testimony and The New York Times story, Epps claims he was in DC with only his son and his son’s friend. Who were these other eight men that immediately extricated Epps from the crowd after the red smoke signal?
In a recent interview I had with a confidential source, who happens to have been a member of the same Army special forces unit I’ve reported as being embedded in the crowd on January 6th, I showed him McBride’s video. He explained to me that the red flare was known to the special forces community as an “avalanche” signal. In other words: time to “get out.” He then explained that the immediate response of the eight men to lead Epps away seemed an obvious response to that red signal. “Planned and coordinated.”
Responding to a 60 Minutes promotional tweet for their upcoming feature on Epps, I linked to McBride’s video and asked them if they’d be showing that in their report. They didn’t respond, they didn’t show that video, and they didn’t ask Epps who those other eight men were.
To the limited and selective context of the 60 Minutes story, we can rightfully call this, “lies of omission.”
Do I know for whom Ray Epps was working on January 6? No. Do I know that he was working for some subversive group or a federal agency? No. But I know that until someone of real import asks the hard questions — unlike the scripted, leading, softballs he’s received from former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of the J6 Select Committee, Alan Feuer of The New York Times, or Bill Whitaker of CBS’s 60 Minutes, we will not know the entire truth of the oft-asked question, “Who is Ray Epps?”
As I’ve said many times, “If The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, NBC, ABC, CNN, and CBS don’t say it . . . then it never happened.”
Those MSM behemoths know the reality of that informational warfare power they possess. We too know it to be true. We also know their lies of omission turn the truth on its head. We didn’t create the Epps conspiracy theory or make him the sympathetic victim as portrayed, embraced, and defended by the government and mainstream media. They did . . . by not reporting the full story or asking the right questions.
60 Minutes’ Bill Whitaker said to Epps on Sunday’s broadcast, “When you add up all of these things, as your critics have done, you've given them a lot of ammunition to paint you as this instigator.”
But 60 Minutes did not add up all the things. Quite the contrary.
There’s no evidence that Epps did any violence against police officers that day, yet while knowingly breaking the law on January 6, he faces no legal consequence for those particular actions. By contrast, many who arrived long after the barricades and “CLOSED AREA” signs were taken down and hidden have had their lives destroyed by the political weaponization of the Department of Justice against those who did and said far less than Epps on January 6.
Does that make Epps a “Fed?” I don’t know. But I know it stinks to high heaven when The New York Times, CBS, and the government itself circle wagons around him, while a 69-year-old grandmother with cancer is sentenced to prison time for the misdemeanor offense of “parading” through an open door into the Capitol. She, having passed by no “CLOSED AREA” signs or having been at the tip of two violent police line breaches . . . as did Ray Epps.
