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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.
You might want to add an additional edit reflecting that Huadpe's point got so demolished that he deleted his entire account and vanished from the site. Leaving up just your prior edit might give a misleading impression.
It's not clear to me from those arguments that the actual point that I'm interested in was in fact demolished - namely, whether or not evidence exists to prove more serious charges against Epps. I'm open to being persuaded back to my original position, though.
The charge I had in mind was incitement to riot - that seemed the clearest match to his actions. But I wasn't aware of how strict the SCOTUS precedent was on that.
What's the specific charge that you think could be proven against Epps? @Bleep seems to be gesturing towards conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. Is that what you have in mind?
if he was being treated like other Jan6 people, he would have been raided and arrested 2 years ago, his electronics would have been seized 2 years ago, and he would get slapped with the full range of charges applied to others with conspiracy + felony obstruction, civil disorder, 1512(c)(2), seditious conspiracy, resisting/impeding cops, and a bunch of others, AND tack on assaulting a cop because there is enough evidence to support an initial charge given there is video of him holding a sign with a sign looking almost exactly the same later being used by a hard to distinguish hand to poke cops (you can see the standard applied to others by this US Atty Office by looking at the multiple people charged with allegedly using bear mace on a Capitol cop - they didn't need anything more than what is currently available with Epps to support that charge)
when it comes to other Jan6 defendants with a fraction of the publicly available evidence as Epps of their conduct that day and previous days, the US Atty Office under Matt Graves charged first and looked for evidence later, launched raids and seized all electronics, demanded pretrial detainment even for people with no criminal history and nonviolent charges, subjected them to horrid conditions in the DC gulag for years, and quite a bit else
The DOJ website has a list of "Capitol Breach Cases" and outside of non-conspiracy charges which require the person to be INSIDE the Capitol, a case can be made to charge Epps, and a case can be made for conspiracy to go in to the Capitol for those crimes. In my apparently deleted exchange with /u/huadpe, I go through some of the elements and the evidence against Epps using examples from other defendants to show we already have evidence to not only charge but convict Epps. I'm not going to go through a bunch of other charges and elements and list/link evidence. That's enough time and effort for it's own top-level post and not for a days old thread in an old post.
As far as I know, the DC US Atty's office hasn't charged anyone with incitement. Epps's conduct on video in Jan 5 and Jan 6 almost certainly fails the Brandenburg test. However, I'm not going to pretend that judges on the DC court or DC juries wouldn't allow it to proceed and convict if the US Atty office brought those charges even if they're very likely unconstitutional.
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First of all, I'd just like to say that I come squarely down on the side of "this dude is obviously a fed" - Huadpe's arguments were just utterly unconvincing when compared to the Revolver piece, and when he explicitly mentioned in one comment that he was angry over people trying to blame the government so they didn't have to blame Trump I just lost faith in his ability to be an honest interlocutor. Where's any attempt whatsoever to grapple with the fact that this supposed Trump supporter who claimed he went to Washington to hear Trump's speech missed Trump's speech because he was too busy telling people that they have to go into the Capitol? Why did he then send a text message about how he "orchestrated the movement of people into the Capitol"?
That does however put me in a slight bind when it comes to answering your question - I'm not sure exactly how he could face any actual charges without being able to proffer the defence "I did this because the government asked me too, and I was not trespassing or causing damage because I was authorised to do so by the federal government". But if we assume he isn't a fed and the DOJ just...forgot to charge him (I honestly can't even come up with a good excuse that also covers the removal from the most wanted list)? Then it turns out I'm actually lucky, and someone has already done my homework for me. Specifically Darren Beattie, who put up a nice twitter thread on the topic - https://twitter.com/DarrenJBeattie/status/1547396130513846275
From what I can see, his "when we go in" comment gets him done for conspiracy the same way George Tanios does, and I REALLY want to know what he was saying to PB Maroon (and who was that guy anyway) because it really looks like he was giving orders and organising the removal of barricades. I'm not sure I'd be able to convict with that footage, but I'd definitely be able to get a warrant for more information! He also goes into the restricted zone, but that's just icing on the top at this point. There are probably more charges that could be summoned up, but I'm not enough of a lawyer or prosecutor to figure out exactly what they would be. All I can do is compare his conduct to that of other people who were convicted, and so that's the standard that I use.
The guy is on video saying "The Capitol IS the Enemy." The guy's sermons are just ridiculous and only make sense in hindsight given what happened the next day. I've never seen anything remotely similar being said by others and it's such a goofball thing to say his fellow diehard MAGA/Trump supporters were weirded out and regularly called him a Fed and other names.
Given the mountain of publicly available evidence and how the guy fits a perfect caricature of how the government and their media mouthpieces wanted to portray Jan6 (an Oath Keeper leader on video making statements to go IN TO the Capitol which is OUR Enemy and fighting with cops), his wildly disparate treatment for 2.5 years is preposterous to me without an explanation that he was working for the fed gov in some capacity and acting on their behest in some capacity.
you wouldn't be on a DC jury
given what we've seen from DC juries and DC judges, if this was charged against other Jan6 defendants he would be convicted
I totally agree with you here, but I'd just like to point out that
I was assuming this would be from the perspective of a prosecutor... and I agree that they wouldn't let someone like me handle a case like this even if I was.
Ah, I understand now. This crystalized a point I was trying to make but you gave me words to organize it and do so concisely: To me, it's a waste of time/missing the point to engage in technical legal arguments about any particular charge, elements, or hair splitting about interpretations because what we see in the Jan6 cases is prosecutors, judges, and jurors in DC demonstrably do not care. I can give example after example after example of statutory interpretation stretched beyond their breaking point and historical precedent being tossed out the window in order to get "the bad guys."
Every argument which others have posted in defense of Jan6 prosecution or Epps's wildly disparate treatment has already been argued by decent lawyers in some Jan6 cases both in trial and before trial and almost all of the time these arguments were rejected. It's extremely black-pilling to me having spent years of my life in the legal field including in criminal defense to see these clownish showtrials in the Nation's capital.
And the saddest thing about it is these precedents, and lines, and laws weren't crossed and tossed to imprison Satan himself; they were tossed to destroy regular productive otherwise good (even if you disagree with their conduct and their politics here) people with no criminal history in their entire lives.
It's simply incredible to me that anyone continues to give these actors and this system the benefit of the doubt. Sorry for the rant.
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Thank you!
I don't agree that the "when we go in" comment constitutes proof of a conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The core of a conspiracy charge is that there is an agreement to commit a crime - and an agreement requires at least two parties. The person who he's speaking to in that clip doesn't seem to even acknowledge him, much less say anything that implies any sort of agreement.
This is a material difference with the Tanios case - Khater says "give me that bear shit", and Tanios says "not yet, it's still early". This exchange doesn't lay out in detail what the exact terms of their agreement were, but serves as clear evidence that they did have a shared plan that involved the use of "bear shit". If Tanios had not responded to Khater, not only would that exchange not implicate Tanios - it wouldn't implicate Khater either (even though Khater's behaviour would be identical).
That video where Epps appears to be giving orders about removing the barricades certainly looks suspicious and it's very possible that he said something that would prove conspiracy - if only it had been picked up by the mic. But it wasn't. All we have to go on is the testimony of the two men involved - and both Epps and Ryan Samsel - the guy he was speaking to - claim that Epps said "Relax, the cops are doing their jobs".
I absolutely agree that there's more than enough probable cause to secure a warrant and carry out further investigations (e.g. reading his communications, identifying other people in the video, asking them what Epps said and did, etc). My presumption is that the FBI would have done this (well, assuming they don't already know exactly what he was up to because he works for them). But it doesn't necessarily follow that the investigation would have turned up anything that could be used to convict him.
To be clear, I think Epps' behaviour was contemptible and I would very much like to see him punished more harshly - but you have to do it within the confines of the law and I don't see a way to nail him on stronger charges than the ones he got.
(I'm not particularly concerned about the removal from the most wanted list - his story is he called the FBI himself when he saw himself on it. As far as I can tell it seems like it's fair to take a guy off the wanted list when he calls you up and identifies himself. If nothing else it means you stop getting "tips" that you don't need.)
Did you read the revolver piece?
I'm sorry for not including it in my reply to you, because it was brought up and linked in an earlier comment I made, but it really does lay out the strongest form of the case against Epps that I've seen. There's not much point to me relitigating it when they've done all the homework for me.
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/
https://revolver.news/2021/12/damning-new-details-massive-web-unindicted-operators-january-6/
https://revolver.news/2023/09/darren-beattie-ray-epps-misdemeanor-trespassing-charge-and-guilty-plea/
There's a lot there, but I don't think there's much point going through your claims here when these articles do a much better job of laying out the case in question. I'm sorry for not realising that I'd never actually linked you the piece - I got mixed up and I'd actually given the link to huadpe before he self-destructed.
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If that argument was confined to the courtroom, and resulted in a lighter sentence or acquittal, it would be one thing. I can't guarantee I'd be convinced (I'm biased towards conspiracy theories), but I would admit I have no way of arguing conspiracy over something mundane like "subtle difference in behavior, and smart lawyers who knew how to exploit it". The problem is we never even got to that point. It's absurd to believe that when law enforcement was hunting down people who weren't even present at the Capitol, and throwing every charge at them that they could think of, hiding exculpatory evidence, etc. etc., that they'd make an exception for this one guy for an innocent reason.
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The same ones that were thrown at the other J6 protesters?
It's really a shame he deleted his comments, he and Bleep really went into detail on it, and I don't see how you can make the case his treatment made any sense in the light of what happened to people who were convicted.
Which ones, specifically? Different people got charged with different things.
I believe the one that was being discussed was "conspiracy to use violent force", though I'm uncertain with half the conversation missing.
I can't find any examples of "conspiracy to use violent force" in this list of Jan 6 cases. I can't seem to find a statute referring to it either. Possibly though you might be able to point to a comparable offender to Epps among those cases?
Like I said, it's hard to tell now with hard the conversation missing. That was from a quote by huadpe himself, so presumably he had a reason to write it like that. Also there's a lot of "see documents" under that link.
Other charges that were discussed, like felony obstruction, and disorderly conduct seem to be there. They also discussed a video that could possibly have him charged with assault on a police officer.
He was charged with disorderly conduct.
As for "felony obstruction", are you referring to USC 1512(c)(2)?
I'm not aware of any video showing Epps committing assault, could you link me?
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