Trump supporter sues Fox News after being called a Capitol riot instigator
A Trump supporter has sued Fox News after a former host for the network baselessly named him an undercover agent who instigated the Capitol riot.
Ray Epps, who voted for ex-President Donald Trump twice, filed a lawsuit alleging Fox News of its ex-host Tucker Carlson defamed him by pushing a ‘fantastical story’ that he was a covert government agent who incited the January 6 insurrection.
The suit, filed on Wednesday in Superior Court in Delaware, accuses Fox of ‘creating and disseminating destructive conspiracy theories’ to shift blame for the 2021 attack off of Trump and Republicans.
‘Just as Fox had focused on voting machine companies when falsely claiming a rigged election, Fox knew it needed a scapegoat for January 6th,’ states the complaint obtained by The New York Times.
‘It settled on Ray Epps and began promoting the lie that Epps was a federal agent who incited the attack on the Capitol.’
Carlson on his late-night show Tucker Carlson Tonight in July 2022 claimed without evidence that Epps was a ‘federal agent who helped stage-manage the insurrection’. The show also aired video footage of Epps urging fellow Trump fans to join him in breaching the US Capitol building.
Epps has said on 60 Minutes said that the conspiracy theory led to death threats against him and his wife Robyn and that they had to sell their business and home and move away from Arizona.
Fox News and Carlson in April ‘agreed to part ways’ for nondisclosed reasons,
Carlson’s departure was announced less than a week after Fox News settled a lawsuit over its 2020 presidential election reporting.
The Trump supporter is seeking an unspecified amount in damages.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.