Ray Epps May Sue Fox News For Defamation After Tucker Carlson Repeatedly Claimed He Was A Fed Who ‘Helped Stage-Manage The Insurrection’: Report

Tucker Carlson may have plunged Fox News into hot water again, this time for repeatedly spouting conspiracy theories about an Arizona man who may sue the network for defamation.

Monday’s New York Times report that the now 61-year old Ray Epps may take legal action, comes nearly three months after Fox settled a defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. During the discovery phase of the case, Carlson’s inflammatory emails and texts were revealed, and Fox fired Carlson shortly thereafter.

Since then, Fox settled a harassment suit with former Carlson producer Abby Grossberg for $12 million, and still faces a $2.7 billion defamation suit from Smartmatic.

Epps was a “two-time Trump voter,” according to The Times, who was part of the crowd outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Epps was seen on video surveillance calling for calm once the demonstrations turned violent. Epps, himself, was not seen entering the Capitol. Jeremy Peters and Alan Feuer with The Times reported:

Federal prosecutors have not charged Mr. Epps with a crime, focusing instead on the more than 1,000 other demonstrators who acted violently or were trespassing in the Capitol. The Justice Department’s sprawling investigation into the attack remains open, however, and Mr. Epps could still be indicted.

Yet for more than 18 months, Mr. Carlson insisted that the lack of charges against Mr. Epps could mean only one thing: that he was being protected because he was a secret government agent. There was “no rational explanation,” Mr. Carlson told his audience, why this “mysterious figure” who “helped stage-manage the insurrection” had not been charged.

Peters appeared on MSNBC and said a possible Epps case could be “Fox’s next Dominion.”

“Here you have 18 months of Tucker Carlson’s shows over and over again, repeating these false stories that somehow Ray Epps is, you know, a secret agent that was in the crowd inciting the riot. And, you know, it never happened. Now, none of that precludes Ray Epps from being charged, right, because what essentially Ray Epps’ opponents were arguing, is that because he hasn’t been charged, that somehow makes him a government agent. Well, we don’t know that Ray Epps isn’t charged; we have no visibility into the government’s investigations, and he very well could be charged. And so, it was the absence of a charge that led people to sort of run wild with these allegations that somehow this guy is responsible for the entirety of Jan. 6.”

Watch the MSNBC clip above.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com