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Notes -
January 6th agitator Ray Epps has pled guilty to one charge of disorderly conduct. The NYT story contains this sentence:
I'm not so sure about that. For those who haven't paid attention (a group that included myself until a discussion here a while back), Epps is on video repeatedly urging other members of the crowd to go into the Capitol. Many people have speculated that he was in fact some form of federal agent or informant. The fact that this is the legal outcome for him heightens, rather than lessens, my personal suspicion that he was working for the feds.
It is a very minor charge. Now granted, Epps did not enter the Capitol himself - but his open agitation of the attack nonetheless seems to me like it should constitute a significantly more serious offence, such as incitement to riot.
Speaking of which, it's very odd that he did not go into the Capitol himself, given that he loudly and repeatedly urged others to.
The fact that this minor charge plea deal has taken so long is very eyebrow raising as well. We typically saw the less serious cases dealt with quite quickly, while the big trials with serious jail time on the line took much longer - and even they got dealt with more quickly than Epps!
It's also extremely curious to me that they arranged a plea deal with Epps before he was ever charged with anything. That's not the normal way things go, as far as I'm aware - usually they throw everything they can at you, and then agree to drop some charges in exchange for guilty pleas for the others.
Now, it may be that there are matters of fact or law that I'm not aware of that makes all of this very normal and reasonable, and if so I would be delighted to be informed of them. But as it stands I am at a loss to explain how this guy is getting this treatment if he is not some kind of undercover operative.
EDIT: Thanks to @huadpe and @Gillitrut who have convinced me that the elements of more serious charges against Epps could probably not be satisfied.
Just as an aside, I'd like to post the strongest version of the "case" against Ray Epps that I've seen so far - which is the Revolver News breakdown. It raises questions that I don't think anyone in this thread has really answered or grappled with, especially all the things he was caught on camera doing and co-ordinating.
https://revolver.news/2021/10/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/
Did you not know these things? If so, why didn't you mention them in your first post when you were wondering how any other charges would be supportable? Why did you wait until others mentioned them to now bring up some video of Epps attempting near the end of his hour+ long agitation in restricted areas around the Capitol to de-escalate tensions between participants and cops?
this is quite an exaggeration to the point of caricature of what is required to to prove for any of the felony charges regularly being discussed from felony obstruction, to civil disorder, to 1512(c)(2) and others, based on interpretations already used to convict and sentence people to decades in prison
the "big conspiracy" could be a "wink or a nod" with a single other person and we have that in droves with Epps
and, in fact, other defendants who were charged with the above did present similar evidence of calming people down, telling people cops aren't the enemy, calmly walking with police, calmly leaving as soon as police asked them to leave, among other similar conduct (leaving aside for now the games the government has been playing this entire time to avoid giving people exonerating evidence, another difference we see between Epps and others)
and it meant a 1 hour deliberation instead of 30 minute deliberation
it did not mean a complete acquittal
and then the judge reads an instruction and the prosecutor assures the jury that literally nothing about Ray Epps attempting to calm down the crowd and defend cops later on exonerates his earlier conduct where he did plan to do X, Y, and Z, and there is video evidence showing he did do those things from being among the first to breach restricted grounds, to being in a crowd jeering with cops, to being in a crowd using flags similar to one he at one point was holding to spear cops attacking them, to him talking to people who then immediately breach the bike rack blockade on the west side of the Capitol, to him telling a fellow unidentified crowd member, "when we go in, leave that here, you don't want to get shot," to him interfering with law enforcement, to him being involved in multiple breach points, to him texting his son claiming credit for being involved in the debacle
your claim a DC jury would find complete acquittal because of this video is nonsense; in other cases with similar evidence of the defendant de-escalating tension, the most it meant was the jury not convicting on the most serious felony
and to pretend this speculated possibility would stop this DC US Atty office under Mathew Graves from bringing those charges given the abysmal conduct of his prosecutors in many of these cases is simply ridiculous
not to mention if we go by standards applied to other Jan6 defendants, it's not a sure thing the video would even be allowed without significant edits gimping its effect in defense
none of this is required to still believe Epps was "a fed" and is little more than another of your caricatures
So the choice of narratives is between a caricature or the simpler more reasonable sounding other choice? Hmm, I think I pick the reasonable one too given the framing. What now?
The way the State is treating Ray Epps is the way every single defendant should be treated by the legal system, but this is a testament to how disparate, illegal, and downright embarrassing the treatment of other Jan6 defendants and their show trials are to any person attempting to argue this is all above board and within the bounds of the law. It's either true, in which case "the law" is fundamentally broken, or it's not true and it's fundamentally broken.
then why didn't you mention any of them? because it's puzzling you wondering how any other charge could be brought when there is more evidence against Epps to bring charges than almost any other defendant, especially when your argument is basically 'yeah, there's plenty of evidence to bring charges, but there is also this mitigating factor which I think would make it difficult to get a conviction'
which reinforces what is necessary to prove and "big conspiracy" is not despite your insistence of it only in the context of seditious conspiracy despite this being regularly charged for felony obstruction, civil disobedience, and civil disorder
"when we go in, don't bring that, we don't want to get shot" is pretty similar to "no no not yet it's still early" for George Talios to support his conspiracy charge
even the video you think makes Epps conviction-proof, the guy admits to his planning to come to the Capitol and one could argue go IN to the capitol when he leads off, "We've done what we came here to do... "
first, let's acknowledge that the current publicly available evidence does show far more evidence in both content of the plan as well as far more than a "wink and a nod"
claiming more is required is simply wrong and the instruction you summarized at the start doesn't contradict that, so here you move the goalpost to it's theoretically possible, but no sane prosecutor would bring the case
which brings us to one of the defendants in the recent Proud Boys trial who was convicted of conspiracy to multiple charges with the judge allowing the prosecutor to make the statement that a "wink and a nod" did satisfy at least one of the elements to conspiracy which you admitted was theoretically possible but no sane prosecutor would bring that case except at the very least the prosecutor is communicating the baseline with the judge agreeing to it telling the jury what is required to prove
first, this isn't a discussion of only conspiracy to the sedition charges and also "seeking to overthrow the government" is specifically not required to prove the sedition charge
second, depending on the context of the trespass and statements describing that planned trespass, it can and has been argued by prosecutors in these Jan6 cases that this underlying "trespass" was meant to obstruct which was meant to commit behavior covered in the statute (again, "overthrow the government" is not necessary)
which is part of what was argued in the Proud Boys trial to support sedition charges
this is a pattern of your argument whereby you overexaggerate what is necessary to prove elements of a crime and then when it's pointed out what you're claiming is simply wrong, you move the goalpost to 'okay, that's technically/theoretically possible, but no sane prosecutor would do this' ignoring that in these specific cases that's what DC prosecutors have argued and done
which highlights the clownish and embarrassing show trials going on now brought by Matt Graves's US Atty office in Washington DC in front of DC district "judges" and DC jurors; it's honestly comical to compare the differences in amount of and substance to the evidence and behavior between this case and the cases against multiple Oath Keepers and Proud boys who have been convicted of the sedition charges
and if only any of motions for change of venue were granted, maybe we would get back somewhere closer to the norm, for example in the Michigan Governor Fednapping cases with half the defendants being acquitted (with another quarter of the defendants being subjected to a similarly clownish unfair 2nd trial after the first one had a single juror stopping an acquittal), but the DC Jan6 fiasco is not
in front of an Eastern District of Michigan jury and judges, maybe the video of Epps calming police would be enough of a mitigating and humanizing piece of evidence to give them pause for serious charges and serious time and it should ( although it definitely wouldn't make him conviction proof as you're attempting to claim), this is not an accurate reflection of Jan6 cases in front of DC judges and DC juries
again, this is not remotely required, and the sedition charge isn't the only available other charge which could be applied to Epps which you couldn't see a case for
For Epps to be working in concert with the government either as an informant or as an agent provocateur, examples of which can be seen all over the Michigan Governor Whitmer Fednapping trial. Nothing about this accusation requires Epps to be working in concert with or for only the FBI.
Not to mention, DOJ officials, Capitol police leadership, and others have already admitted to Congress that there were indeed many undercover agents and federal informants on the ground in Jan6 inside the demonstrations, with admissions in Court by the FBI itself that there were informants and people cooperating with the FBI specifically as well as a half dozen other government institutions in both the Oath Keepers and the Proud boys as well as other groups who made the trip.
Your attempt to portray this as ridiculous is perplexing because the FBI as well as a half-dozen other agencies have already admitted through testimony of leadership from the Capitol police, to the FBI, to the DOJ, to the intelligence community, to have exactly the sort of things on the ground which Epps is being accused of being. Epps served as the original example in order to crack the narrative and get independent media and people to pressure politicians to start digging revealing all of the above. The response has been to lock down any transparency and prohibit the state from admitting to details and instead pushing out very carefully worded statements with respect to Epps and then flat-out refusal to take questions or comment further.
The proud boys trial itself was a comical farce whereby Judge Kelly repeatedly sought to protect FBI and other government informants working inside the Proud Boys from scrutiny or admitting details of this substantial operation to the point where he forced the Proud Boys' defense attorneys to pre-clear cross-examination questions with the prosecution in the cases!
Do you just not know any of this? Or is this another example of you knowing these things but going through the performance of expressing incredulity about it until others bring it up?
This demand strikes me as very disingenuous. A member of the public will not be able to give you direct evidence of anything a law enforcement agency did undercover, unless official documents on the matter are entered into the public record. Since he was not given full access to the FBI's documents and communications, you have no right to make such a demand of him.
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