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In this episode, we talk about the deep state, J6, and Ray Epps.
Participants: Yassine, Shakesneer.
Links:
Jack Posobiec's Pipe Bomb Allegation (Twitter)
Pipe Bombs in Washington DC (FBI)
'I started a riot for the sitting president': Why Ali Alexander won't go to jail for his role in Jan. 6 (Raw Story)
J6 Select Committee Interview of Ray Epps
Ray Epps Defense Sentencing Memo (Courtlistener)
Proud Boys Sentencing Memos (Courtlistener)
Wishing For Entrapment (Yassine Meskhout)
Recorded 2024-01-19 | Uploaded 2024-01-22
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Notes -
Remind me not to get into a factual argument with a lawyer.
Overall I found the argument that Epps is a federal informant extremely unconvincing. It seems like what was presented in the podcast wasn’t so much evidence that Epps was an informant as it was presenting a narrative that is congruent with Epps being an informant.
If you want to say that Epps got a uniquely easy deal compared to others on the FBI seeking information list, then like… show me. Are those records not public? Couldn’t somebody go through and theoretically demonstrate that he got a light treatment compared to others on the list?
If you want to tell me that Epps being removed from the list is suspicious timing, then I would want to see a timelines of names being removed, of when the FBI talked to Epps, of what the media was saying about him. Based on what I heard it seems just as likely that the FBI didn’t bother updating their list until he became a public figure.
A few random thoughts-
While I don’t see any evidence of govt. efforts making J6 worse, I do concede the idea that just a few individuals can whip up a crowd. I think crowd dynamics are somewhat conformity based- At a given protest every member of the crowd has a particular proclivity to jump a police barrier, for example. As soon as one or two people with little restraint do that, it makes it much more acceptable, leading to more people doing it, compounding the effect. Thats why police fight so hard at these barriers initially. They don’t need to stop the entire crowd from jumping the barrier, just the first few people.
Obviously you still need people willing to do it, I’m not saying this is an excuse. But as it becomes more normal, it makes the actual action less notable. There were plenty of people who ‘trespassed’ on J6 by crossing the police barrier, but aren’t worth prosecuting since at that point the barrier had been basically erased. (I have an aspiring journalist cousin who even climbed the scaffolding to take better pictures. As far as I know he’s never been contacted about that.)
I don’t particularly buy the idea that Epps ‘thought the capital was open’. That does sound like covering his ass after the fact. I think a reasonable guess is that he was simply talking a big talk, and when confronted with actually fighting police, he wises up/chickens out/realizes people will get hurt.
There's videos of Epps encouraging people to go into the capitol since long before it was it was close. There is video of him removing the barricades in preparation to trick people into going on the property. He's seen coordinating with megaphoneman and other key actors. He is also seen repeatedly saying to not hurt anyone (because he's one of the opps). If anyone would have been convicted for multiple years of jail time it should of been him for being one of the main reasons people went into the capitol. The internet identified him day one, including name, job, role, etc. that's why he was top of the wanted list. His FBI contacts had to go and remove him from the list days later. And the internet found the connection where he had previously worked for the government as a snitch. He was being called a Fed agent for trying to get people to break the law long before he broke a single law. He had glowie energy the whole time he was in the city.
Epps sentence was nothing, no punishment. Others who did nothing wrong had gotten months in prison for being there from the same judge. Epps was the most public ring leader and he got zero punishment AND the judge thanked him during his sentencing and apologized for the incident.
These statements deserve some hyperlinks.
I usually have fun trying to find reliable sources myself for ridiculous claims that might turn out to be true or might turn out to be interesting rabbit holes of bad epistemology, but I've got nothing to get a handle on here.
Searching for videos of Epps and barricades gets me to Epps at a barricade being breached, but (at least in the glimpses of him caught on shakycam) he's standing several feet back while others bring the barricade down, or even nudging one of the front-line people away from the barricade briefly, and the barricade is not removed to leave a deceptively open path, it's toppled to leave a climbable obstacle.
Searches for text about Epps being a government informant prior to Jan 6 naturally get me to a million articles about the theory that he was an informant or instigator on Jan 6.
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