The Man Behind the Capitol Breach, Ray Epps, during his sentencing hearing. Experienced journalist Julie Kelly shares startling conclusions drawn from the transcript.
Compared to the majority of the demonstrators who were detained that day, Epps, who was among the first to cross Capitol Police lines on January 6, was treated unexpectedly leniently by federal prosecutors. The FBI is currently conducting no-knock raids for protestors, who often face charges of four misdemeanors, more than three years after the events. These accusations cover trespassing-related offenses such as disorderly behavior, picketing in the Capitol Building, and staying on forbidden property.
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Additionally, hundreds of demonstrators have been found guilty of various charges and imprisoned “obstruction of an official proceeding,” which, according to a complicated legal theory, has been put out by federal prosecutors and is presently awaiting a decision from the US Supreme Court. Despite the upcoming Supreme Court decision, federal prosecutors are still using the felony law to prosecute nonviolent demonstrators in a few of cases, even though they have generally stopped doing so.
Ray Epps was given an unusually light punishment after being found guilty of disorderly behavior. While many peaceful protestors faced severe penalties—months or years in jail—Epps received just a year on probation and 100 hours of community service.
Julie Kelly was able to get a transcript of the sentencing hearing, in which the prosecutors acknowledged that on January 6, Epps had “committed several crimes.”
“Your honor, Ray Epps has been unfairly scapegoated, but he is not a victim. He was not a secret agent of the government on January 6, trying to trick unwitting Trump supporters into committing federal crimes,” stated Michael Gordon, an assistant US attorney, during the hearing last month. “That’s not what happened. But he is not innocent, either.”
Gordon continued by acknowledging that Epps “did not start the riot or cause it, but he did make it much worse.”
“He committed multiple crimes on that day,” The federal prosecutor went on. “He’s only pled to one because that’s the plea offer we made with him. But he committed multiple crimes that day. He was convinced the election has been stolen and that the steal needed to be stopped.”
Gordon went on to say that Epps “did everything he could” to ensure that people entered the Capitol the next day, and that on January 5 he made an attempt to “persuade” others to do so.
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Prosecutors stated in other places in the record that they decided not to file charges against Epps for felony interference of an official procedure and other crimes since he was “the victim of this widespread conspiracy theory that is both false and continuing to be promoted by many.”
This is how the prosecution chose to award Epps a “significant break of a misdemeanor plea offer.”
In a letter of remorse, Epps also accused Trump of having led him to believe in “the big lie.” In addition, he commended the FBI, saying : “the blame of the insurrection is not on the FBI. It is on those who were at the Capitol engaged in insurrectionist activities and those who misled Americans, like myself, into believing the election had been stolen.”
Gordon applauded Epps for characterizing the demonstrations as a “insurrection” with the intention of voiding a “lawful, correct election result.”
Several corporate and pro-Biden media outlets have backed Epps, even if they had previously justified or minimized left-wing violence in 2020. While categorizing all January 6 protestors as violent “insurrectionists,” these publications have not done the same for Epps.
Rather, 60 Minutes offered him a softball interview in which he was asked to clarify why he is the subject of “conspiracy theories.”
