Graig Graziosi
Wed, July 13, 2022 at 1:19 PM
There was no return to normal for Ray Epps, a man who became the hingepoint of a right-wing conspiracy to pin the Capitol riot on the FBI.
Before the Capitol riot ended, supporters of former President Donald Trump were manufacturing stories as a way to ease the pain of the cognitive dissonance they were experiencing. The first story claimed that the Capitol police invited the protesters inside. The second was that Antifa was actually behind the riot, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
When those stories didn't stick, MAGA-world tried another. That one told the tale of an FBI informant who planted the idea of breaching the Capitol in the rioters' minds — proof that the Capitol riot defendants were led astray by a false flag operation, and not willing participants in an attempted insurrection.
The story needed a face, and 61-year-old Mr Epps became the poster boy for the conspiracy theory.
According to The New York Times, which interviewed Mr Epps at an undisclosed location where he's hiding out with his wife in an RV, right-wing media outlets began running selectively edited clips of Mr Epps that they claimed proved he was an FBI asset.
As disinformation often does in the right-wing media ecosystem, the story generated enough talk that pundits with larger platforms — including Fox News' Tucker Carlson — began repeating the conspiracy theory. Conservative lawmakers, like Representative Thomas Massie and Senator Ted Cruz also picked up on the stories.
It wasn't long before Mr Trump himself seized on the story.
more
https://news.yahoo.com/ray-epps-reveals-life-ruined-181950614.html
