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Notes -
Ray Epps, pro-Trump rioter smeared by conspiracy theories, gets probation for role in Capitol riot
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/09/ray-epps-probation-capitol-riot-00134551
There's been an ongoing debate about Ray Epps on this site: Could he really be a Fed if the government is still trying to prosecute him? And the results are in: After heckling demonstrators to invade the Capitol, Epps was charged with a misdemeanor, uniquely leniency for J6 protesters, and will received one year probation. He will not see the inside of a jail cell. His suit against Fox News for defamation will be allowed to proceed, with the promise of a seven or eight-figure payout.
Almost simultaneously, the DOJ has announced that they will begin prosecuting J6 protesters who did not enter the Capitol building but were present in the demonstration outside. These protesters are expected to be charged with something more than misdemeanors.
A quick review of other J6 protesters
Enrique Tarrio was convicted as a terrorist for his role in organizing the Proud Boys even though he was not present at the Capitol or protest on J6
Owen Shroyer was jailed for speaking at the demonstration outside the Capitol, which prosecutors argued violated the terms of his parole (which stemmed from an occasion where he disrupted one of the House's impeachment procedings against Trump)
Joe Biggs, who was present at J6, was given more than a decade in jail after his efforts in taking down a fence around the Capitol were deemed to constitute terrorism, which resulted in his sentence being enhanced.
Steve Baker, an journalist who was present at J6 in his capacity as journalist for the Blaze, has been arrested by federal prosecutors, who sre seeking a 4-year jail sentence.
Ray Epps, who was present at J6, and encouraged people to enter the Capitol Building, will receive no jail time, will still be able to vote and carry a gun, and will possibly win a defamation payout of several million dollars. The government and the media agree that Ray Epps is not a federal agent, and that the accusation that he was caused him significant harm which is far worse than anything he deserves.
I used to think the J6 "fedsurrection" narrative was cope by right-wingers who weren't ready spiritually to defend the J6 protesters. I considered that, if you really believed the election was stolen, then a protest follows logically, except that that would make many conservatives uncomfortable. But, at this point, for me, it's pretty hard to deny that the government was up to something too. I could imagine that the government just had agents embedded to watch and follow along, but Ray Epps clearly did more than that.
I remember arguments on this site that, while it looked like Epps could be a Fed, the fact that he was still being prosecuted implied that maybe it wasn't so. Given his uniquely generous outcome, which almost amounts to an award, I'd like to reopen the discussion.
What is your standard for what counts as uniquely lenient/generous? 40% of all J6 defendants (505 out of 1,265) plead guilty to only misdemeanors. 37% of all convicted J6 defendants (282 out of 749) did not receive any jail time. Of those sentenced to jail time, the median appears to be 45 days.
Only if you ignore the substantial number of defendants who ended up spending 12 - 18 months spent in pre-trial confinement. Note that the linked NPR piece is from April of 2022. That Ray Epps had been allowed to walk while 100s of others arrested for far less egregious behavior on the day were still languishing in prison weeks, months, years after the fact, is how he became the topic of "conspiracy theories" in the first place.
You're right that the sentencing data does not necessarily reflect pretrial detention, but you're not giving me any other data to fill those gaps. The article you linked doesn't cite how many were held pretrial or for how long, but I would assume a high positive correlation between pretrial detention and sentence severity because that's how it works in practice. As of May 2021 70% of J6 defendants had been released pre-trial compared to a release rate of 25% for all federal defendants, which makes sense given the unusually high number of federal misdemeanor prosecutions.
As far as I can tell, Ray Epps is heralded as an unusual case because he plead guilty to misdemeanors (so did 40% of other J6 defendants), served no jail time (so did 37% of others, likely significantly higher if you count only misdemeanors), and was not detained pretrial (so did 70% of others). I don't see what is unusual about any of these factors. I know working with data can be hard, but maybe it can be instructive if you can cite a single example of a J6 defendant who languished in prison for weeks for far less egregious behavior than Ray Epps, because I don't know the evidence behind your claim.
I don't know what gaps you expect me to fill, as the plain facts of the case seem pretty, well, plain.
Like I said the reason Epps came to the public's attention in the first place is that we had so-cal soccer-moms and that guy who took a selfie sitting at Nancy Pelosi's spend over a year in prison only to be released after pleading to misdemeanors. Meanwhile despite being readily identifiable as one of the more prominent bad-actors in several of the publicly available videos, Epps wasn't even charged with a crime until after AG Merrick Garland was asked directly about why he hadn't been charged during a house oversight hearing 9 months after the fact.
I thought you were a lawyer; how can you look at this situation and not conclude that there is something shady going on?
Well you said that the median sentence of 45 days ignores pretrial detention, which is true. I have no reason to believe it would be a meaningful difference, and you're not telling me how including pretrial detention would change the median, so that objection does not appear relevant.
You're presumably referring to Richard Barnett? He was convicted of 8 counts, 4 of which were felonies, and sentenced to 54 months in prison. I don't know if you were going off memory or another source, but either way it doesn't match up with reality. Googling this was very easy and I recommend it.
I already gave you the data for why his case seems very typical of other J6 defendants. Ray Epps is further distinguished by not having entered the Capitol, while only a portion of the 2,000 who did were ever charged with anything. You're more than welcome to either dispute the facts or dispute their relevance.
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You forgot Fuentes, who was videoed exhorting people to go inside from outside the perimeter, and hasn't been charged with anything yet.
Wasn't that made clear by the whole 'insurrection' nonsense that sought to use mass media to turn a mild riot into 'insurrection' a world normally used for armed rebellion so they could then use the dubious 14th amendment against Trump.
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Does anyone have a link to a sincere presentation of the case for him being a federal agent? Googling it literally only shows references to a “debunked far-right conspiracy theory” but not one genuine presentation of it from a right-leaning source
The main bit of "evidence" is the confrontation between AG Merrick Garland and Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie during the October 2021 house oversight committee hearing. An exchange that was subsequently picked up and broadcasted by the likes of Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and a bunch of others. The short version being "why have defendants X, Y, and Z, spent 12+months in jail while guy who was most obviously reponible has been allowed to walk?"
Garland's response was to make a vague appeal to limited resources and prosecutorial discretion then change the subject. The general consensus amongst Republicans is that this is a bullshit excuse and that both Garland and Wray are lying through their teeth.
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Here's the revolver news article that more-or-less started this whole controversy:
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/
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No single link but here's some of the circumstantial evidence:
The night before he's calling for people to enter the Capitol. Given the potential charges that brought to those who entered it would be the interest of the government for as many people as possible to enter.
However, despite his enthusiasm and him being on the Capitol grounds he shepherds many protestors into the Capitol building but didn't enter the Capitol building himself. Odd that he didn't participate in an activity he was encouraging.
After the event, he was listed as suspect number 16 by the FBI. Then he was quietly removed from the suspect list. Without charges being filed. Off for someone so directly involved in encouraging people to enter and assisting their entry not to be charged.
After considerable protest over his role remaing unpunished and draconian punishments for others involved be was charged and pled guilty to one charge of disorderly conduct and was just given a probationary sentence.
The situation suggests he glows to me.
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Check https://revolver.news/
Meet Ray Epps
Meet Ray Epps, Part 2
its interesting that part 2 mentions the pipe bombs. the fake pipe bombs were very weird. apparently, they were placed the night before and there is video of someone suspected of placing of the bombs but one of them (or both?) used a 60 minute kitchen timer as the pretend detonation source. now, its gets weirder because apparently someone 'found' one of the bombs at a point in time where the timing made it look like it would explode around the time of certification. this was partly covered by an interview in congress: https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/republicans-release-new-information-january-6-pipe-bomb-investigation and FBI Director Wray's testimony: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DaL5RM-ZYt0 the cell phone data from the area was also mysteriously corrupted which impeded any investigation.
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Expected by whom?
Let’s make a prediction: out of cases brought against outside demonstrators, I don’t think very many will see felony charges. Perhaps none. The government has already picked its low hanging fruit—you’ve listed plenty of them. If they haven’t already been brought in, why do you think that will change?
As for Ray Epps, I do believe the truth is still an absolute defense against defamation. That makes it very hard for him to win dishonestly. If the suit succeeds, it means the centerpiece of right-wing media couldn’t put together enough evidence to cover their asses. If it fails, perhaps you’re on to something, but at least the plant won’t get a payout for it. I suppose the most likely outcome is a settlement, which could happen either way.
Maybe if the judiciary weren't so politically captured, you'd be right. As it is, the people who get to decide whether Fox News has to pay millions in damages are the same kinds of people who decided, say, that Trump paying Stormy Daniels is criminal, or that Alex Jones owes billions of dollars in damages.
I want to understand your position better, so what exactly is your evidence that the "judiciary" is politically captured? From what I can understand, you're citing:
None of those things were directly decided by a judge, but I'm willing to read between the lines and presumably you meant that decisions by the judiciary resulted in those outcomes. Granting that, how exactly does that establish political capture? Should every adverse legal ruling, criminal prosecution, or jury verdict loss be considered sufficient proof of political capture?
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What would it take to convince you that the judiciary is not, in fact, that captured? That their motivations include things like “doing a good job” or “upholding their oaths” or just “not being a defendant.”
Entering false judgment on the largest right-wing media giant in the country seems like a particularly bad way to keep one’s corruption under wraps. Doing it for a random federal plant?
Trump was found liable for defaming E. Jean Carrol for calling her a liar when she called him a rapist. Her evidence was nothing but a claim that it happened. The judiciary is captured; there's no other reasonable interpretation. Default judgements (and not for not showing up, either -- they were denied their day in court) for not one but TWO different right-wing figures is icing on the cake.
I'm sympathetic, but "The judiciary is captured" is a little too broad for me. There's a lot of Federal judges out there, do we mean all of them? I'm perfectly willing to believe a substantial number of Federal judges are extremely biased against the right and will bend over backwards to ensure harsh outcomes for anyone deemed too right-wing, but I don't think we can reliably say all of them.
Of course, if as least some of them are and you know who they are, it's quite powerful to be able to ensure all appropriate cases get heard by one of them. As far as I know, most of the most frivolous cases against Trump have been filed New York, which probably holds some of the most biased judges and jury pool.
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That finding of liability cannot indicate capture of the judiciary because it was not made by the judiciary. It was made by a jury.
You can of course argue that New Yorkers are so anti-Trump that a NY jury will deliver an anti-Trump verdict no matter what, but even if so, that's not the judiciary's fault.
Doesn't the law that allows this to even get to a jury come from the judiciary? And the law specifically extended the statute of limitations to get Trump.
I'm not sure what you mean. The statute of limitations was indeed extended, but that was done by the NY legislature.
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I'm sure that the political judges who let criminals go out on bail or throw Trump off the ballot think they are just "doing a good job" and "upholding their oaths". That's not a very high standard.
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It is clear to me that the Feds/Deep State (pretty much the same thing by now) executed a brilliant (surprisingly brilliant, given their routine incompetence when it doesn't concern their survival) operation of surfacing, isolating and utterly destroying the passionate part of the right that was ready to fight against the left's long march through the institutions and against total alienation of power from any possibility of democratic control on the federal level. That operation was an overwhelming success, the right were easily provoked, totally unprepared and easily routed and utterly defeated, while the "mainstream" politicians either stayed away from the fray, or, like Pence, actively helped to destroy them. Was a specific person an employee of the Feds, an asset or just a fool easily manipulated by them - is not very important, though I do believe Epps had if not direct than at least once-removed contact with the Feds, and there were probably many provocateurs and instigators in the crowd beyond him. But again, the important part is not who they personally were, but the crushing defeat that the right suffered, from which they still did not recover and largely did not even realize what happened. This does not portent well for them for 2024 - even if Trump manages to gather enough votes to overcome the Dem machine efforts - which, given how actively he is promoted by Democrats, is not out of the realm of possible. That I can testify to myself - a year ago, I was very reluctant to the idea of voting for Trump, given his previous record and present behavior. Now, I am thinking I may not have any other choice. Not that my vote would mean anything, living in a deep red state. But the bad news is even if Trump is elected, his election would not be recognized by the left, and he will spend another 4 years fighting trench warfare against the Deep State, collecting more impeachments that any president ever lived, and achieving absolutely nothing. Maybe he'd appoint some good judges. Maybe.
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I changed my mind on Epps during our last discussion. I'm not particularly invested in the question of whether some participants in Jan 6 were feds or not, and I was totally willing to believe Epps was. However, I think a careful examination of the relevant law makes it much less likely that his light punishment is indicative of him being treated with kid gloves.
The most notable things Epps did was loudly advocate for entering the capital. But it's difficult to actually make a case based on this. First amendment jurisprudence makes it really really hard to prove incitement, and conspiracy charges require agreement - and it's notable that he gets shouted down with accusations of being a fed when he starts yelling about going into the capitol. If he's a conspirator, who are his co-conspirators? There's a video of him whispering to another guy shortly before a barrier is breached but both Epps' and the other guy's accounts of what he said aren't incriminating.
In short, I got convinced by the fact that the charges that I thought he should be up for are just a really hard lift - as also evidenced by the fact that no one else, even Trump himself, has been charged for incitement of a riot (and as an aside, while the Colorado court found Trump to have incited Jan 6 by the standard of "clear and compelling evidence", an implication of that ruling is that he was not guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt"). And the feds hate losing cases, so they tend to drop charges that aren't rock solid.
Take out any way of charging him for things he said, and it's hard to nail him on anything other than weak "disorderly conduct" type charges. Someone who entered the Capitol later during the event and walked around a bit before leaving while damaging nothing feels morally much less culpable than Epps, but they actually have committed an action that is easier to prosecute more harshly. The law doesn't match our intuitions perfectly, some people get a raw deal and some get lucky. Such is life.
The main remaining thing that I find strange about the Epps case is that he went on repeatedly about entering the Capitol, but then didn't actually do so himself. A lot of people clearly shared his belief that they should enter the Capitol, and acted on it, but he didn't. Why? Change of heart? Just a coward? Could be, I guess. It's weird, but not so weird that him being some sort of plant is the only plausible explanation.
At the end of the day though, regardless of whether the motte of "some government officials were involved in Jan 6" is true or not, the bailey of "Jan 6 was orchestrated by the feds to make Trump and his supporters look bad" is obviously false. Maybe some Capitol police shared the goals of the rioters and deliberately let them in. Maybe some crook who was being used as an informant went and committed more crimes. But the driving force behind Jan 6 was obviously Trump and his supporters, and there is no clearer evidence of this than the fact that they continue to defend and justify Jan 6. If it was all a ploy to discredit Trump, why is he going around demanding Biden release the "J6 hostages"? Why is he promising to issue pardons? It can't simultaneously be true that it was a "fedsurrection" and that it was just a "peaceful and patriotic protest" whose participants are being unjustly prosecuted.
The "far-right anti-government militia" group (thanks wikipedia) that he was chapter president of? Prosecutors have had no trouble putting together conspiracy charges based on very little actual conspiring for other members of such groups.
I know that you think that the bar for conspiracy charges is high, and you are probably even right based on an honest reading of the law -- but that's not how the law is being used around J6, and I'm very confident that this case could have been made if someone were so inclined.
Clarification: Incitement is a high bar to reach. Conspiracy is actually a pretty low bar, and Epps is very lucky he doesn't reach it.
To convict you of a conspiracy, the prosecutor needs proof beyond a reasonable doubt of:
An agreement between you and at least one other person to commit a crime
At least one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy (which does not itself need to be illegal).
In an alternate universe where Epps shouted "We need to go INTO the capitol!" and someone else shouted "Hell yeah!", that would be the agreement to commit a crime. Joining the rally marching toward the capitol would be an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy (even if he didn't actually go in). In other words, Epps was playing with fire and did everything necessary to be guilty of conspiracy charges, but because the people around him called him a fed instead of agreeing, he dodges a bullet.
I wouldn't be shocked if Epps indeed conspired with members of his militia to commit some crime or other, but I haven't seen any evidence of that, and evidence is necessary for a conviction.
That's just it -- these 'militias' are riddled with for-sure feds, if they wanted to go after basically anyone involved for conspiracy there's plenty of evidence to be had -- given that Jan6 itself is being treated as a criminal act.
Have you read the Revolver articles on Epps? It's been a while, but as I recall while they are focussed on the idea that Epps is a fed, they've gathered enough publically available information to make a pretty good conspiracy case -- never mind all of the evidence that the actual feds have from all the other prosecutions.
I've read them, I don't see the evidence. In particular, I don't see evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone made an agreement with him to commit a crime.
OK, I looked at it again -- check the part towards the end of Pt 1, in which Epps is on video conspiring with 'MaroonPB' and Ryan Samsel just before they push the barricades down and rush the Capitol.
He tells the 'MaroonPB' guy to 'leave your pepper spray here when we go in there, we don't want to get shot' -- the guy then leaves the pepper spray and goes in there. That alone seems like enough for current-day definitions of conspiracy -- but Revolver News is not the FBI; if the FBI were inclined to go over these dudes' phone records (as they did with the other Oath Keepers et al) I'd be extremely surprised if they couldn't find some more fodder.
As I understand it both Epps and Samsel say that Epps just told him not to attack police. They might both be lying but we don't have audio of what was actually said, so it seems hard to make the case that statement constitutes an agreement to commit a crime.
This is getting closer, but I don't think it reaches "beyond reasonable doubt". "MaroonPB" doesn't seem to acknowledge Epps in the video. He's talking on the bullhorn, and he keeps talking even as Epps is telling him to leave the pepper spray. I think a reasonable person could have some doubt as to whether there really was an agreement between the two men.
I'm unimpressed by assertions that further evidence must surely exist if only the FBI would look for it. Maybe so, maybe not. But the fact that someone has not been charged on the basis of evidence that we haven't seen seems like an awfully long stretch to conclude that he must be an undercover agent.
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What's your explanation for why the FBI removed him from its Most Wanted list?
My understanding is that he called them and identified himself.
I'm not actually sure what the purpose of a Most Wanted list is, but if I had to guess I would say it's for finding wanted individuals when you don't know who and/or where they are. If I'm correct in assuming that, then once you've located and identified a target, there's no reason to keep them on the list generating tips you no longer need.
The archives of those pages are linked in the first Revolver article, which shows the FBI had been updating the /wanted/capitol-violence page as each person's status changed (leaving each person's 'photograph number' the same). They were putting big red "ARRESTED" labels on everyone and leaving their picture up. The day before that July 1st update of quietly removing Epps, the top 50 people on the page had over 60% marked 'ARRESTED', while only two numbered suspects had been removed (Suspects #36 and #37, and then Epps #16 was removed the next day).
So the removal was clearly not just triggered by a successful identification. Moreover, based on looking at those red Arrest labels, it seems like their priority was roughly similar to the order of 'photograph number', where being Suspect #16 was close to the top (not many marked arrested in the 250-400 range at that time).
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What are you talking about? DOJ Attorney Matthew Graves has even announced this week that they are looking into prosecuting J6 Protesters who did not enter the Capitol building but might have entered other restricted areas -- the entire J6 campaign by the DOJ is inventing new applications of existing laws. If they can't find anything to prosecute Ray Epps for, it's because they don't want to. Why else would motivate the judge not to reprimand Epps at all, but to instead say he was a good boy who got caught up in unfortunate conspiracy theories?
I don't understand why these are two irreconcilable positions: "The feds entrapped MAGA in a sting." Not only does that reconcile your two positions, but it is in fact the argument being made by just about every J6 truther.
What do you expect those lesser offenders to be charged with? I expect they will cop charges very similar to the ones Epps got - "disorderly conduct" and suchlike.
The positions are irreconcilable because they disagree on the fundamental question of whether or not J6 was actually a bad thing. There's an incoherence to saying "the Jan 6rs did nothing wrong, and also, the feds made them do it". If they did nothing wrong, how were they "instigated" into doing it? Conversely, if the feds instigated an insurrection, that means that Jan 6 was an insurrection.
If MAGA was entrapped in a sting, it was a "sting" where they were "entrapped" into conducting what the majority of Republicans now consider a legitimate protest.
I've been with you all the way up to here, upvoting and even reporting one of your comments in this thread as a QC, but this is clearly wrong: the feds can be guilty of luring the protesters/rioters into taking risks that would make them look bad and expose them to prosecution.
Eh, fine, I'll back down a bit. Yes, it's possible to thread the needle, I guess.
But I still think that the widespread support for both the goals and actions of Jan 6 among Trump supporters offers a much more likely and harmonious explanation for why Jan 6 happened than some fed entrapment theory. If they caught Snoop Dogg with weed and he claimed they planted it, I'd be similarly sceptical.
After all, does anyone seriously think that if Trump loses to Biden again he's going to slink off sullenly into the night? No, he's going to do the exact same crap - angrily insist the democrats cheated, file lots of garbage lawsuits, pressure officials to change results, tell his supporters they need to fight or lose their country, etc, etc. And are all these people who say Jan 6 was a "legitimate protest" just going to sit back meekly and wave signs a bit and then go home? I hope so - the prosecutorial response at least provides some deterrent - but I'm not convinced it will be enough.
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No there isn't. The feds don't need to make them do something that's actually insurrection in order to make them do something that can be easily called insurrection by a partisan judge and the media.
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it was just a protest that got out of hand. a similar thing happened in Australia except it was the left protesting against a right wing government, i'm sure the right tried to make it out like it was the end of the world but i don't think anyone ended up serving 20 year prison sentences because of what happened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Parliament_House_riot
Yeah, say what you like about Howard but he was a savvy politician. He chose not to demonise the actual rioters or to really ascribe them agency for their own actions. Instead he made it all about the union leadership that organised the rally and blamed them for riling up their members and letting it get out of hand. He used the event to tar and discredit the unions and justify his aggressive anti-union moves - the most dramatic of which was supporting Patrick Stevedores to fire their entire union workforce.
The unions today have a fraction of the membership they did then, many of their formerly routine activities have been criminalised, and their officials have been hit with criminal convictions and massive fines. The long term damage done to the organisational left as a result was very substantial.
I do think there's a meaningful difference between the events, in that neither the union leadership nor any organised group involved in the '96 riot was trying to prevent an elected government from taking power. But it was still a disgusting event, and the actual participants should have been treated much more harshly.
Is this some form of nominative determinism? The Wire Season 3 (?) revolved around the Stevedores Union, dockside in Bawlmer.
No? Patrick Stevedores is a stevedore company, presumably named after some bloke called Patrick. "Stevedore" is just another word for a dockworker, so the connection is just that the political event and the TV season were both about dockworkers' unions.
Ah, I see now.
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The normie Republican position is that J6 was justified because it was not an insurrection. The government's position is that J6 was an attempt to overthrow the government. The "sting" theory is that the Feds took justified protest and tried to make it look like an attempt to overthrow the government, so they could persecute it.
Who decided that Ray Epps was a "lesser offender"? The feds are charging lots of people with more for less. Ray Epps was egging people on into entering the Capitol, and the media and government are all talking about how this poor guy has been targeted by a smear!
How did the feds make J6 look like an attempt to overthrow the government without getting anyone to do anything wrong?
The Supreme Court of the United States, in 1969, when it decided in Brandenburg v Ohio that the First Amendment protected speech so strongly that it became nearly impossible to convict a person of inciting a riot. Alternatively, the framers of the First Amendment itself.
I agree that the feds are charging people with more for less, but the rules they have to play by say they probably can't convict Epps for inciting a riot. Personally I think the First Amendment should be abolished which would make it much more possible to prosecute the kind of egregious behaviour Epps engaged in. But a lot of Americans disagree with me and it's their country.
I'm going to repost the original Revolver News article here, since I posted it in another comment. Ray Epps did a lot more than exercise his First Amendment rights:
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/
Epps orchestrated the breach of the capitol, announced before J6 his intention to breach the Capitol, incited protesters during J6 to join him in breaching the Capitol, and then was put on the FBI's "Capitol Violence Most Wanted List," from which he was quietly dropped as soon as investigative reporters started asking questions. And there's more.
They are not playing by any rules, a claim I have repeated several times now to which you seem not to have said anything.
You're posting on a website that was created to escape censorship. Are you trying to look silly?
This is your reminder that AshLael is literally a paid political operative in meatspace. Any conversations you have with them should be viewed through that light.
In Australia.... He has his biases, which color his responses to this issue, but we all do.
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Which crime do you think he could be convicted of, what are the elements of that crime, and what evidence exists to prove all elements beyond a reasonable doubt?
I think the best way to contest that claim is to talk in detail about the actual rules that are observably being applied, which I am doing.
I have a longstanding view that the US bill of rights was a big mistake, which I have articulated multiple times. It has put judges in the position of having to effectively make policy decisions about what constitutes due process or equal protection or free speech that are always going to be somewhat arbitrary and politically controversial, and that in turn has made it very important to staff the judiciary with judges that interpret these very vague provisions the way your side wants, which has created a highly politicised judiciary.
I think a much better system is to allow democratically elected governments much more latitude in making the laws they want, for policy choices to be explicitly legislated, and for judges to have a much more restrained and uncontroversial role in applying the law. Sometimes governments will pass bad laws, but there is a much more direct and workable system for the public to rectify those cases than when judges make bad constitutional rulings.
If the same standard was being applied to everyone (which is different question from what I think he should be convicted of), I see no reason to not at least try to pin "seditious conspiracy" on him, like the guy that got 20 years without ever being present in Washington.
This is not a valid criterion to prove or disprove the point being debated here. The attempt to prove something beyond reasonable doubt happens after the charges are made, in court, not before. Rittenhouse was charged with murder despite exonerating evidence being public before the charges were made, for example.
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+1 evidence for him being a Fed, and for the feds spying on everyone, all the time.
His sentencing was changed from in person to online, supposedly because he was going to be served in a lawsuit at the sentencing.
Epps is, of course, an agent of the intelligence apparatus.
What does online sentencing have to do with being a plant, exactly?
If I'm understanding correctly, the allegation is that the court is actively helping him avoid being served in a lawsuit regarding his actions on jan 6th.
As a lawyer who represents clients who get sued almost weekly, I can assure you that avoiding service isn't an effective strategy to defend a lawsuit. It's not like the case gets dismissed if they take too long or can't find you after three tries. What really happens is they document their attempts and go to court to get permission for alternative service which, depending on the jurisdiction, could amount to nothing more than running an ad in the paper. In the meantime, you've been turning your life upside down to avoid the process server, and you've been so successful that while you were hiding in your friend's basement you got legally served and didn't know it. In the meantime, the case has proceeded and resulted in a default judgment against you. Now you get to go to court yourself to try and convince the judge that there was a good reason you didn't get served and he should throw out the default judgment. If you're successful, the best case scenario is you get to go back to the position you would have been in had you just accepted service in the first place, excepting for all the money you spent on attorneys to get the default judgment overturned. I don't know how the idea that it's a good idea to avoid service became a thing.
Are you sure on that? Usually it’s the complaint that controls time for statute of limitations purposes, but under federal rules plaintiffs only have 90 days to serve a defendant before they must show cause or have the complaint dismissed without prejudice. That lets them start over again, but it means starting over again.
For sophisticated plaintiffs going after unsophisticated targets, it doesn’t usually matter — you don’t let things get close to running the clock, and know exactly what is to dot to demonstrate necessary attempt of service — but I don’t think that’s the case here.
Right, so he's being sued by someone that doesn't even know how to attempt service? Or hire it out to a reputable one?
Because, as you say, if he's sued by anyone competent then they are gonna demonstrate that they made sufficient efforts.
Since "sufficient efforts" are whatever the court thinks they are, if the court wants to decide that things which would normally be sufficient aren't in this case and just dismiss for lack of service, they will.
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Oh. I suppose the plaintiffs must be powerless to serve him at his home or definitely-not-federal job, then.
Is he there?
Maybe? On one hand, he was allegedly living off the grid after receiving enough death threats. On the other, 60 minutes had that location.
yes, but I would imagine the difficulty of finding him would ramp up in inverse correlation with the notoriety of the person doing the searching. Not unlike someone ducking loan collectors but being readily available to go to the pub with friends.
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I can say that at the state level, there is a tactic law enforcement uses with regards to confidential informants/insiders/undercover officers to avoid blowing their cover is to put them through a prosecution that inevitably results in probation, on paper, which means as long as they don't get arrested again they'll never be in a jail but at least it looks like they got punished along with the rest.
To be a proper Bayesian I'd need to hear the base rate for how many J6 Defendants got probation sentences, but this does nudge up my belief that Ray Epps was, in some sense or another, involved with the Feds.
Isn't this at odds with the other view that much of what the J6 defendants did wasn't felonious?
I think the Bayesian thing is to find other defendants whose conduct was substantially similar and compare what the DOJ recommended across that class.
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That would be a complicated comparison: if we presume that Epps is a fed, there are probably more, many we would not know about. Who's to say which J6 Defendants on probation are part of a cover-up and which are genuine protesters who got off relatively light?
Yes there's a whole analysis to be done here, but I'm going to go with the basic assumption that <50% of the crowd are involved with Federal agencies and see what that does to the expected convictions.
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According to the Washington Post:
But there's not a lot of good sources for how comparable behavior is: see another, albeit longer, probation sentence today for one example. But some people have gotten probation after entering the Capital building proper.
Sentencing also depends on an individual's prior criminal history, which is one heck of a confounding variable.
I'd focus in on the ones who have ZERO prior criminal convictions who still got prison time as the ones who are almost certainly not Feds, and compare their behavior to others, then compare severity of punishment.
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