Podcasters are very popular Joe Rogan push again Unfounded conspiracy theory that the January 6 Capitol insurrection was a false flag organized by the federal government, adding that the pro-Trump rioter Ray Epps “clearly instigated” the attack.
Earlier this month, Epps He sued Fox News to discredit him with the “fictional story” that he was an undercover federal agent who incited violence at the Capitol in an attempt to bring down former President Donald Trump and his supporters.
rogan who I signed a contract worth 200 million dollars with Spotify in 2020 I hugged again and again The unsupported claim that federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies used “agent provocateurs” like Epps to manipulate the crowd into attacking the Capitol. In previous episodes, Rogan has said that the intelligence community has “a vested interest in this sideways trend,” adding that “if someone wanted to disparage a political party or maybe have some kind of justification for getting someone as influential as Donald Trump off the internet, that would be the way they would.” They will do that.”
While hosting comedian Jim Gaffigan on his July 28 broadcast, the program podcaster conspiracy Again he promoted the idea that the FBI and CIA had helped engineer the chaos on that fateful day, noting that the agencies have a history of disrupting “peaceful protests” in order to unsympathetically portray protesters as violent.
“The January 6th thing is bad, but also, the intelligence agencies were involved in provoking people into the Capitol. That’s a fact,” Rogan declared before calling Epps’ supposed involvement in getting rioters to attack the Capitol.
While he called it “a fact” that the federal government used “agent provocateurs” on January 6 while citing Epps, he also emphasized that he still did not know if Epps was actually working with the FBI. Instead, he was just asking questions and suggesting that other people seemed to think Epps was an undercover agent.
“I don’t know, but I do know that everyone else, I think everyone else who was involved in January 6th, who was involved in orchestrating the storming of the Capitol and then inciting people, they’ve all been arrested,” he insisted. “It wasn’t this guy. Not only that, but they were defending him.” the The New York TimesAnd the Washington PostAll these different things saying that Fox News unfairly accused him of incitement when he clearly incited, he did it on camera. I do not know if he is fed. I know a lot of people think he was being fed.”
According to Rogan, the reason the intelligence community was so determined to frame Trump during the riots on January 6—a protest against the halting of the 2020 presidential election—was because of the former president’s dislike of the so-called “state.”
“Trump has been very open about his disdain for the intelligence community,” Rogan said. Throughout history, people with unchecked power and unchecked influence have had enemies, and Trump has been their enemy.
He added that the intelligence services “will catch him any way they can,” claiming that January 6 offered them an opportunity to portray him as “responsible for this attempted insurrection.”
In the months after the insurrection, Epps — a former Trump aide who believed the 2020 election had been “stolen” from the former president — quickly found himself the focus of attention. fantasy novel Former Fox News star Tucker Carlson relentlessly weaves it night after night.
“Just as Fox focused on the voting machine companies when it falsely claimed a rigged election, so Fox realized it needed a scapegoat on January 6th,” Epps’ complaint against Fox News reads. “It settled on Ray Epps and began promoting the lie that Epps was a federal agent who instigated the attack on the Capitol.”
Finally, Carlson Appointment and unsubstantiated allegations that Epps had incited rioters to storm the Capitol on their way to Congress, leading Republican lawmakers to link Epps to planning the attack. According to the lawsuit he filed against Fox, Epps began receiving countless death threats and had to move to a remote trailer park for safety.
Ironically, in Epps’ complaint, he says he was a loyal Fox News viewer. The network’s amplification of false claims that voting machines rigged the election against Trump helped convince him to go to Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. The network settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million this spring.
Epps also says that since the governors have accused him of being a federal agent, the Justice Department told him in May that it would file criminal charges against him for his role in the riot. His lawsuit indicates that the notion that he is protected from prosecution because of his supposed role as an insider agitator has been undermined by the pending charges.
An attorney for Epps and a Spotify representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Get the biggest scoops and scandals of the Daily Beast straight to your inbox. Open an account now.
Stay in the know and get unlimited access to our unparalleled Daily Beast Reports. subscribe now.
