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Former Trump Supporter Sues Fox News for Defamation

A former Donald Trump supporter who became the center of a conspiracy theory about January 6, 2021, filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Wednesday, saying the network made him a scapegoat for the U.S. Capitol insurrection. 

Raymond Epps, a former Marine who said he was forced from his Arizona home because of threats, is asking for unspecified damages and a jury trial. 

He filed his lawsuit in Superior Court in Delaware, the same court where Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox for lies broadcast following the 2020 presidential election. Shortly before a trial was to begin this spring, Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787 million to settle the charges. 

Fox did not respond to texts, phone calls and emails seeking comment on Epps’ lawsuit. 

The suit also states that the Justice Department told Epps in May that he faces criminal charges for his actions on January 6. The lawsuit blames that on “the relentless attacks by Fox and Mr. Carlson and the resulting political pressure.” 

Epps, who had traveled to Washington for the January 6 demonstration, was falsely accused by Fox of being a government agent who was whipping up trouble that would be blamed on Trump supporters, the lawsuit claims. 

“In the aftermath of the events of January 6th, Fox News searched for a scapegoat to blame other than Donald Trump or the Republican Party,” the lawsuit says. “Eventually, they turned on one of their own.” 

Although the lawsuit mentions Fox’s Laura Ingraham and Will Cain, former Fox host Tucker Carlson is cited as the leader in promoting the theory. Epps was featured in more than two dozen segments on Carlson’s prime-time show, the lawsuit said. Fox News fired Carlson shortly after the Dominion settlement was announced. 

Carlson “was bluntly telling his viewers that it was a fact that Epps was a government informant,” the lawsuit says. “And they believed him.” 

Carlson ignored evidence that contradicted his theory, including Epps’ testimony before a congressional committee investigating the insurrection that he was not working for the government, and videos provided by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that showed Epps’ efforts to try to defuse the situation, the lawsuit says. 

Carlson is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Epps’ lawyer, Michael Teter, noted that Carlson “was an employee of Fox when he lied about Ray, and Fox broadcast those defamatory falsehoods.” 

“Fox is therefore fully liable for Mr. Carlson’s statements,” Teter said. 

The former Fox star did not respond to a text message seeking comment. 

Also Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray, in an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, addressed Epps being a “secret government agent.” 

“I will say this notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous,” Wray told lawmakers. He refused to say, however, how many of the people who entered the Capitol and surrounding area on January 6 were either FBI employees or people with whom the FBI had made contact. 

Epps claims in his lawsuit that, as a result of the alleged defamatory statements made by Fox, he and his wife have been the target of harassment and death threats from Trump supporters, forced to sell the Arizona ranch where they ran a successful wedding venue business, and now face financial ruin. According to the lawsuit, Epps and his wife are now living in a recreational vehicle in Utah. 
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FBI Director Rejects Claims of Political Bias Within the Bureau 

FBI director Christopher Wray defended his agency against Republican accusations of political bias Wednesday, dismissing claims he was “protecting” Democratic President Joe Biden’s family while going after former President Donald Trump, a Republican, and other conservatives.  

“Absolutely not,” Wray retorted during a combative House Judiciary Committee hearing when asked by Republican member and staunch Trump supporter Matt Gaetz if he was “protecting the Bidens.”  

“The FBI does not, has no interest in protecting anyone politically,” Wray said.  

The hearing marked Wray’s first appearance before the oversight panel since Republicans recaptured the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections.  

Wray, who was appointed by Trump and retained by Biden, has become a lightning rod for Republican criticism that the Biden Administration has “weaponized” the FBI and the Justice Department against its political foes.  

The criticism has intensified over the past year, particularly after the FBI executed a search of Trump’s residence in Florida last August as part of an investigation into the former president’s mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House in 2021.     

The unprecedented search, which led to Trump’s indictment last month, has fueled Republican allegations that the FBI is out to get Trump.   

Republican criticism of the FBI is not limited to the Mar-a-Lago search. During the hearing on Wednesday, Republicans aired a litany of old grievances at the FBI, from the bureau’s alleged failure to investigate the Biden family for their alleged corruption to its proclivity to target pro-life activists and work with social media companies to “censor” conservative speech. 

Wray, a long-time Republican, scoffed at the notion that he was hostile to conservatives.  

“The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” Wray said.  

In his prepared testimony, Wray highlighted the FBI’s critical investigation and national security work, citing the arrest of more than 20,000 violent criminals and child predators and investigations of cartels and malicious Chinese activities.  

Those highlights fell by the wayside, though, as the hearing devolved into what has become a familiar display of partisanship before the House Judiciary Committee in recent years. 

The panel’s Republican chairman, Jim Jordan of Ohio, a staunch Trump supporter, said there is a “two tier system of justice” in the United States. 

Jerry Nadler, the Democratic ranking member of the panel, said that “it’s absurd that House Republicans are attacking the FBI and DOJ for doing their job and ensuring that no person is above the law.” 

Republicans angry at the FBI’s perceived “politicization” have threatened to “defund” the bureau. However, Wray warned that cutting off the bureau’s funding would be disastrous. 

“We’d have hundreds more violent criminals on the streets,” he said in response to a question. “Dozens more violent gangs terrorizing communities. Hundreds more child molesters on the loose. Hundreds more kids left at those predators’ mercy instead of being rescued. Scores of threats from the Chinese Communist Party being left unaddressed. Hundreds of ransomware attacks left unmitigated. Terrorist attacks, both jihadist-inspired and domestic violent extremists not prevented that would succeed against Americans.” 
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Iowa Republicans Pass Bill Banning Most Abortions After About 6 Weeks; Governor to Sign Friday

Iowa’s Republican-led Legislature passed a bill banning most abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy during a marathon special session Tuesday that continued late into the night. Governor Kim Reynolds immediately said in a statement she would sign the bill Friday. 

The bill passed with exclusively Republican support in a rare, one-day legislative burst lasting more than 14 hours over the vocal — and sometimes tense — objections from Democratic lawmakers and abortion rights advocates protesting at the Capitol.  

Just after 11 p.m., lingering protesters in the gallery booed and yelled “shame” to state senators in the minutes after the bill was approved. 

Reynolds ordered the rare session after the state Supreme Court declined in June to reinstate a practically identical law that she signed in 2018. 

“The Iowa Supreme Court questioned whether this legislature would pass the same law they did in 2018, and today they have a clear answer,” Reynolds said in a statement. “The voices of Iowans and their democratically elected representatives cannot be ignored any longer, and justice for the unborn should not be delayed.”  

Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. The legislation will take immediate effect with the governor’s signature on Friday. It will prohibit almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. 

Preparations were already underway to quickly file legal challenges in court and get the measure blocked, once Reynolds signs it into law. 

“The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood, and the Emma Goldman Clinic remain committed to protecting the reproductive rights of Iowans to control their bodies and their lives, their health, and their safety — including filing a lawsuit to block this reckless, cruel law,” ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Mark Stringer said in a statement. 

In the meantime, Planned Parenthood North Central States has said they will refer patients out of state if they’re scheduled for abortions in the next few weeks. The organization, the largest abortion provider in the state, will continue to provide care to patients who present before cardiac activity is detected. 

There are limited circumstances under the measure that would allow for abortion after that point in a pregnancy where cardiac activity is detected — such as rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life;” and if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman. 

For much of the morning and afternoon, chants from abortion rights advocates echoed through the rotunda and could be heard from rooms where state representatives and senators were meeting in the morning and afternoon. Members of the public for and against the bill alternated conveying their viewpoints to lawmakers from both chambers for nearly four hours in total. 

Sara Eide of the Iowa Catholic Conference encouraged lawmakers to vote in favor. 

“The unborn child is a distinct human life with her own value, with her own DNA, and with her own right to life and right to legal protections,” she said. “As a state and as a society, we should commit ourselves to protect all vulnerable populations wherever we find them.” 

Hilary McAdoo, a fertility nurse, said her two daughters motivated her to voice her opposition Tuesday. 

“Just because a person has the ability to become pregnant does not mean they should be forced to become a mother,” she said. “The people before me want to govern women’s bodies without understanding how they work.” 

McAdoo called the six-week cutoff “impossible and irresponsible.” 

Laws such as Iowa’s ban abortion when a “fetal heartbeat” can be detected, a concept that does not easily translate to medical science. That’s because at the point where advanced technology can detect that first visual flutter, the embryo isn’t yet a fetus, and it doesn’t have a heart. An embryo is termed a fetus beginning in the 11th week of pregnancy, medical experts say. 

A district court found the 2018 law unconstitutional in 2019 based on rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and Iowa’s Supreme Court that had affirmed a woman’s fundamental constitutional right to abortion.  

After both bodies overturned those rulings last year, the governor sought to reinstate the 2018 law. But the state’s high court deadlocked last month without ruling on the merits of an abortion ban, leaving the law permanently blocked.  

And so Reynolds called lawmakers back to Des Moines. 

Democratic lawmakers proposed amendments to the language to expand the exceptions, which were swiftly rejected. 

“Iowa women are less free than they were a week ago and it’s because of the work of Republicans in the legislature and the governor,” said House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, who voiced concerned that there will be instant chaos and confusion when the bill is signed into law.  

“We will spend every day between now and Election Day letting voters know that the Republican Legislature was too extreme, went too far and voted against the interests of everyday Iowans,” she added. 

Most Republican-led states have drastically limited abortion access in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and handed authority on abortion law to the states. More than a dozen states have bans with limited exceptions and one state, Georgia, bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected. Several other states have similar restrictions that are on hold pending court rulings. 
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Trump Can Be Held Liable in Writer’s Defamation Lawsuit After Justice Department Reverses Course

The Justice Department on Tuesday said that Donald Trump can be held personally liable for remarks he made about a woman who accused him of rape — a reversal of its position that Trump was protected because he was president when he made the remarks. 

In a letter filed with the judge presiding over a defamation lawsuit that columnist E. Jean Carroll brought in Manhattan federal court in 2020, the department says it no longer has “a sufficient basis” to conclude that Trump was motivated in his statements about Carroll’s claims by more than an insignificant desire to serve the United States. 

Previously, the department had agreed with Trump’s attorneys that he was protected from the lawsuit by the Westfall Act, which provides federal employees absolute immunity from lawsuits brought over conduct occurring within the scope of their employment. 

Lawyers for Trump did not immediately comment. 

In May, a jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after concluding that Trump sexually abused her in 1996 at a midtown Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman store and then defamed her last fall with comments he made about her and her claims. While the jury concluded Trump sexually abused Carroll, it rejected her rape claim. 

The trial resulted from a lawsuit Carroll brought last November after New York state temporarily allowed victims of sexual abuse to make civil claims for attacks that occurred even decades earlier. 

In the government’s letter, U.S. lawyers cited the jury’s verdict, Trump’s October deposition, and new claims Carroll has since made that Trump defamed her again with comments he made during a CNN town hall a day after the verdict. 

The letter gives fresh fuel to Carroll’s original defamation lawsuit, which had been delayed by appeals over whether Trump could be held liable for statements he made while president. 

The original claims are scheduled for trial next January and stem from comments Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first went public in a memoir with her claims about being sexually attacked by Trump. 

Carroll’s lawyer, Robbie Kaplan, welcomed the DOJ submission, saying it was one of the “last obstacles” to the lawsuit reaching trial. 

“We are grateful that the Department of Justice has reconsidered its position,” she said in a statement. “We have always believed that Donald Trump made his defamatory statements about our client in June 2019 out of personal animus, ill will, and spite, and not as President of the United States.” 

Earlier in the day, Carroll’s lawyers filed papers challenging a counterclaim in the defamation lawsuit by Trump’s lawyers who maintained that Carroll had defamed him with comments she made after the May verdict — in part because she repeated statements that he had raped her. 

The lawyers wrote that his counterclaim was “nothing more than his latest effort to spin his loss at trial.” 

They said the sexual abuse Trump was found liable for was equivalent to rape under some criminal statutes and would require him to register for the rest of his life as a sex offender if it had been a criminal claim. 

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
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