A man has sued the right-wing US news broadcaster Fox News for damages for spreading a conspiracy theory about the Capitol storming on January 6, 2021. In the lawsuit, filed in a Delaware state court on Wednesday, Ray Epps alleges that the broadcaster misrepresented him as an undercover FBI agent who instigated the storming of the Washington state legislature.
“Following the events of January 6, Fox News was looking for a scapegoat to blame someone other than (then President) Donald Trump or the Republican Party,” the lawsuit reads. Fox News then circulated the “fantasy story” that Trump supporter Epps, involved in the attack on Congress, acted as an FBI undercover agent and was “responsible for the mob that violently broke into the Capitol.”
Epps and his wife subsequently received death threats, the lawsuit states. They had to sell their property in the state of Arizona and now live in a trailer in the neighboring state of Ohio. The man, who claims to have voted for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, is demanding damages and damages from Fox News in an undisclosed amount.
Radical Trump supporters had stormed the Capitol to prevent a final confirmation of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election. Trump had previously spread the false claim for weeks that a victory had been stolen from him through massive election fraud.
According to Epps, he believed this account – and traveled from Arizona to Washington to attend a Trump rally on January 6, 2021. Video footage shows he was also involved in the ensuing attack on the Capitol and spoke to other protesters.
On Fox News, star presenter Tucker Carlson, in particular, then spread the theory that Epps was an undercover FBI agent. According to conspiracy theories, the FBI is said to have instigated the Capitol storm in order to discredit Trump and his supporters.
The authorities firmly reject this representation. FBI Chief Christopher Wray told a congressional hearing on Wednesday that the notion that the Jan. 6 violence “was somehow part of an operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ridiculous and a testament to our brave, hard-working and dedicated men and women a disservice”.
Ray Epps’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News is not the first lawsuit against the right-wing news network in connection with the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath. In April, the broadcaster, which belongs to the media empire of controversial billionaire Rupert Murdoch, agreed to pay 787.5 million dollars (around 715 million euros) to voting machine manufacturer Dominion as part of a settlement.
Dominion sued Fox News for $1.6 billion in damages for spreading false allegations of voter fraud. Shortly after the comparison, Fox News fired its equally successful and controversial presenter Carlson, who is known as a right-wing agitator and whom critics have repeatedly accused of making racist statements and spreading misinformation.
