Who Is Ray Epps? Jan. 6 Role, Guilty Plea, and Fox News Suit

Ray Epps is a Marine Corps veteran and former Arizona wedding-venue owner who joined the crowd at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor for his role that day, and became the subject of a widely promoted but unfounded conspiracy theory claiming he was an undercover FBI agent who instigated the breach. He was filmed the night before urging Trump supporters to “go into the Capitol,” was present on the Capitol’s West Front during the riot, and never entered the building itself. The FBI, the House Select Committee, and a December 2024 Justice Department Inspector General report all concluded he had no government affiliation.

Life Before January 6

Epps served in the United States Marine Corps from 1979 to 1983 as infantry, with specialized training in riot and crowd control.¹ After the military he worked as a roofer.² He and his wife Robyn settled in Queen Creek, Arizona, where they ran a wedding venue called Rocking R Farms, also known as “Knotty Barn.” They had been on the property for about a decade by the time of the 2020 election.³

Epps once served as an Arizona chapter leader for the Oath Keepers, the far-right anti-government militia group. He left the organization a few years before January 6 and had no role in its planning for that day.⁴ Several Oath Keepers leaders, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were later convicted of seditious conspiracy. Epps was not part of that prosecution.

What He Did on January 5 and 6

Epps traveled to Washington believing the 2020 election had been stolen. He told CBS News’s 60 Minutes he went to “peacefully protest” the certification of the Electoral College vote.⁵

On the evening of January 5, he was filmed at a gathering of Trump supporters telling the crowd they needed to “go into the Capitol” the next day. The crowd chanted “Fed! Fed! Fed!” at him in response.⁶

On January 6, Epps was on the West Front of the Capitol as crowds pressed forward. Federal prosecutors said he took part in the collective push past police and helped other rioters shove a large metal-framed sign into a line of officers.⁴ One moment that drew heavy scrutiny showed him whispering in the ear of another defendant, Ryan Samsel, just before Samsel helped overrun barricades at the Peace Circle in one of the day’s first violent acts.⁶ Epps told investigators he had been trying to calm Samsel down, saying, “Dude, we’re not here for that. The police aren’t the enemy.”⁵

He never entered the Capitol building and was not charged with violence or property destruction. At sentencing, prosecutor Michael Gordon summarized his role this way: “He didn’t start the riot. He made it worse.”⁷

The FBI Agent Conspiracy Theory

By the summer of 2021, videos of Epps urging the crowd to enter the Capitol were circulating on fringe platforms, starting on a 4chan message board.⁸ The theory rested on a single question: if he had told people on camera to storm the Capitol, why wasn’t he charged? Proponents answered that he must be a covert federal agent.

The claim entered the mainstream through Darren Beattie, a former Trump speechwriter who ran the website Revolver News. On October 25, 2021, Revolver published an article titled “Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears to Have Led the Very First 1/6 Attack on the US Capitol,” followed by a second installment in December. The pieces pointed to the FBI’s July 2021 removal of Epps’s photo from its Capitol Violence wanted list as evidence of a cover-up.⁹ Beattie then appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program, bringing the theory to a national audience.⁸

Elected officials picked it up. Representative Thomas Massie played the Epps video during an October 2021 House Judiciary hearing and pressed Attorney General Merrick Garland on federal agents at the Capitol.¹⁰ In January 2022, Senator Ted Cruz asked FBI executive assistant director Jill Sanborn, “Was Ray Epps a fed?”⁸ Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz promoted the theory at a January 6 anniversary press conference,⁹ and Donald Trump echoed the claims.⁶

What Investigators Found

Every official inquiry concluded the claim was baseless. In April 2023, the FBI told 60 Minutes: “Ray Epps has never been an FBI source or an FBI employee.”⁵ Thomas Joscelyn, a researcher for the House Select Committee, said the committee found “absolutely zero evidence that Ray Epps was a federal agent, or a federal provocateur, or had any kind of contact with the FBI or any other federal agencies.”¹¹ Epps testified before the committee in January 2022 and denied any government affiliation.⁸

On December 12, 2024, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a comprehensive report finding no evidence that the FBI had undercover employees in the protest crowds or at the Capitol.¹² The report identified 26 FBI confidential informants in Washington that day, but 23 attended on their own initiative and none had been tasked or authorized to enter restricted areas.¹³

What the Conspiracy Theory Cost Him

Epps and his wife received death threats by phone and email. Strangers trespassed on their Arizona property. In late December 2021, Robyn found shell casings near the bunkhouse of their wedding venue, evidence someone had shot at the building.¹⁴ People drove past the house waving guns. Others posed as prospective wedding clients to confront the couple in person.¹⁵ Strangers accosted him in public and warned him to “sleep with one eye open.”⁶

The couple sold the wedding venue and their home, losing what Epps said amounted to “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and destroying their retirement plans.¹⁴ They moved into a small RV in the Rocky Mountain foothills, with most of their belongings in shipping containers. Church members and some family members cut ties. Robyn called it an “ongoing nightmare.”¹⁵

Guilty Plea, Sentence, and Pardon

Epps turned himself in to the FBI two days after the riot and cooperated with voluntary interviews.¹⁶ He was not charged for more than two years. On September 20, 2023, he pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one misdemeanor count of disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.⁴

Prosecutors recommended six months in prison and $500 in restitution.¹ On January 9, 2024, Chief Judge James Boasberg sentenced Epps to one year of probation, 100 hours of community service, a $25 fine, and $500 in restitution, with no jail time.⁷ Boasberg said the prosecution’s suggestion that Epps acted as a leader was a “vast overstatement” and observed that he appeared to be the only January 6 defendant who had “suffered for what you didn’t do.”¹⁷ Prosecutor Mike Gordon told the court, “Ray Epps has been unfairly scapegoated.”⁶

Epps addressed the court and renounced the conspiracy theories: “What I witnessed was rage and vulgarity on a level I’ve never seen before, and it was generated by people like me, not the F.B.I. or antifa.”¹⁷ In early 2025, he received a pardon from President Donald Trump.¹⁸

Defamation Suit Against Fox News

In July 2023, Epps sued Fox News for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging the network had falsely portrayed him as an undercover FBI agent who instigated January 6. The suit singled out Tucker Carlson’s on-air statements but did not name him as an individual defendant.¹⁹ The complaint alleged Fox “searched for a scapegoat to blame other than Donald Trump or the Republican Party.”²⁰

On November 27, 2024, Judge Jennifer L. Hall dismissed the suit, ruling that Epps had not shown Fox acted with “actual malice,” the standard requiring proof the defendant knew a statement was false or aired it with reckless disregard for the truth. She allowed him to amend and refile.²⁰ On May 8, 2026, Hall dismissed the case a second and final time, finding the amended complaint still did not show Carlson or others at Fox “subjectively knew that their statements were false or that they possessed a reckless disregard for the truth.”¹⁸

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Stars and Stripes. Capitol Hill Riot Marine Veteran Oath Keepers
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ABC News. Former Oath Keeper Ray Epps Target of Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theories
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Deseret News. Ray Epps Stolen Election Jan. 6
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PBS NewsHour. Ray Epps Gets a Year of Probation for His Capitol Riot Role
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CBS News. Ray Epps Jan. 6 Capitol Protest 60 Minutes Transcript
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Politico. Ray Epps Probation Capitol Riot
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ABC News. Former Oath Keeper Ray Epps Sentenced to Year Probation
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Rolling Stone. Ted Cruz Tucker Carlson Ray Epps Conspiracy Theory
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FactCheck.org. Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory Centers on Baseless Claim About Ray Epps
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Congress.gov. House Report 544
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CBS News. Jan. 6 Committee Staffer: Zero Evidence That Ray Epps Was a Federal Agent
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NPR. FBI Missed Capitol January 6 Attack
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Department of Justice OIG. DOJ OIG Releases Report on FBI’s Handling of Its Confidential Human Sources and Intelligence
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The New York Times. Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory Ray Epps
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The Independent. Ray Epps Jan. 6 Prison Sentence
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NBC News. Prosecutors Seek Six-Month Sentence for Ray Epps in Jan. 6 Case
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The New York Times. Ray Epps Sentenced January 6
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The Guardian. Defamation Lawsuit Dismissed Raymond Epps Fox News January 6
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NPR. Fox News Sued Ray Epps Defamation Jan. 6
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CNN. Fox News Ray Epps Jan. 6 Conspiracy Lawsuit