NY Times Just Wants You to Know That It's 'Been Hell' for Ray Epps

Add one more question to the curious story about Ray Epps.

The NY Times just wrote a story about him, and they want us to know that it’s “been hell” for Epps. Indeed, here’s the title of their story: “‘It’s Just Been Hell’: Life as the Victim of a Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory.”

Here’s what one of their other reporters tweeted about the story.

Ray Epps has suffered enormously in the past 10 months as right-wing media figures and Republican politicians have baselessly described him as a covert government agent who helped to instigate the attack on the Capitol last year. @alanfeuer https://t.co/fDMuiqbHxu

— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) July 13, 2022

“Ray Epps has suffered enormously in the past 10 months as right-wing media figures and Republican politicians have baselessly described him as a covert government agent who helped to instigate the attack on the Capitol last year.”

The NY Times story claims that the videos put out by people in right-wing media used selectively edited videos.

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.

But Ray Epps was on video encouraging people on Jan. 5 to go into the Capitol the next day. He was also on video encouraging people on Jan. 6 to go to the Capitol from the speech. But the NY Times referred to the guy who took the video of Epps as an “agent provocateur.”

“During the event, he was videotaped by a right-wing provocateur encouraging people to go inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 in what he described, even at the time, as a form of peaceful protest,” the NY Times claimed.

I just played this video for AG Merrick Garland. He refused to comment on how many agents or assets of the federal government were present in the crowd on Jan 5th and 6th and how many entered the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/lvd9n4mMHK

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) October 21, 2021

Somehow, to the Times, that guy was a provocateur, but not Epps. This, even though the Times also acknowledged that Epps helped to organize people to go to the Capitol.

Then there’s another curious part of the Times story.

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. Trump’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.

On Jan. 8, 2021, just two days after the Capitol was attacked, Mr. Epps learned from a family member that the F.B.I. had issued a be-on-the-lookout alert in his name. He said he immediately called the bureau’s National Threat Operations Center, and his phone records show that he spoke to agents there for nearly an hour.

The F.B.I. has repeatedly declined to comment on Mr. Epps, but his account of calling the operations center — and of sitting down for a formal discussion with federal agents in March 2021 — is backed by transcripts of those interviews reviewed by The New York Times.

The interview transcripts show that Mr. Epps told agents that he had spent much of his time at the Capitol seeking to calm down other rioters, an assertion supported by multiple video clips.

So, his conversations with the FBI are on transcripts and he reached out to them? Fascinating.

I find it rather curious that of all the people who were at the Capitol that day, the only person who seems to be treated as a “victim” by the liberal media or who is defended by Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) is this guy, Ray Epps. I haven’t even seen the poor protesters who died that day being painted as “victims.” This is interesting, juxtaposed against how everyone else involved that day is painted as a threat to “democracy” by the liberal media and those on the left. Adam Kinzinger even termed “Ray” a “misled man.” Kinzinger said Epps told them he did not work for the FBI.

The NY Times reporter who spread this story got the ratio of all time for how he described Epps as the victim, with many noting that Epps wasn’t incarcerated like many others despite encouraging people to go into the Capitol. Somehow, I don’t think going to the NY Times to convince people was the best move of all time.

So everyone who showed up to the Capitol on January Sixth is a terrorist and a traitor except for the guy who told everyone to storm the Capitol. That guy, for some reason, is really great, and we should all stop calling him a fed. Do I have that right? https://t.co/Zv9Q7ZN9Ff

— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) July 14, 2022