The Prism Metanews Guide to January 6th - Part 4 Prism Audio

This segment is the final of four parts that comprise this voice essay. You can find this episode on Apple Podcasts here.
Chapter 11 - Aftermath
Ray Epps was there on January 6th, but he never went into the Capitol. But conspiracy theories about him and January 6th derailed his life. You see, Epps is on video, and got Internet-famous, for trying on the eve of the attack to agitate others to not just go *to* the Capitol, but to go *in* to the Capitol. Some people listening supported what he was saying. Some people pushed back. He said it over and over. After Trump’s speech, he directed people in the crowd toward the Capitol. But the kicker was a short clip, taken at an entry point along the Capitol perimeter where a younger guy was frontin’ the police. Ray Epps pulled him aside and whispered something in his ear. Shortly after, the guy busted through the barricade and on toward the building.
Despite appearing on an FBI list of persons of interest for a short time, Epps was never charged. He was not detained. And this seemed suspicious to many people, considering how the government seemed to be throwing the book at all kinds of offenders besides him. The hypothesis arose that he was working for corrupt elements of the federal government, who worked in premeditated fashion to cajole and nudge Trump’s peaceful supporters into violence and anarchy. A trap to lure patriots. Trump himself, along with other prominent Republicans and media personalities, have boosted this narrative.
A few things to say here. First: if this was a trap, you really have to wonder whether anyone at all even fell for it. A person who wasn’t already game for intruding on the Electoral College certification before they encountered Ray Epps on the streets of Washington, DC almost certainly wouldn’t have been swayed to do it on his say-so. To believe that Epps, or even a hundred people on the government payroll if that’s where your imagination takes you, could make lawbreakers out of a crowd of tens of thousands of peaceful people is frankly laughable. And that’s before you consider that the feds have no interest in doing anything like this.
Second, there are many good reasons the FBI would not charge a person like Ray Epps that have nothing to do with him working for the feds. Foremost among them: MAYBE HE DIDN’T BREAK ANY LAWS. Seriously, what is the argument here, that we can arrest people just for *talking* about breaking the law even when they never followed up with action? That’s not the country we live in, and we shouldn’t want to.
Third, the people pushing the Ray Epps conspiracy theory mostly do it in the hope of convincing others that the feds could have masterminded the attack and conned innocent Trump supporters into going along. But the existence and actions of Ray Epps don’t prove anything of the sort, and there is literally no other evidence to even suggest it.
For his part, Ray has had a pretty crummy time of it since January 6th, as these conspiracy theories have given him a bad rap with the MAGA crowd he used to hang with. Now, he is persona non grata. Epps was wrong to say what he did, and to condone what became a lawless riot that got people killed, but I do feel a little bad that, like QAnon Shaman Jacob Chansley, he fell victim to the face-eating leopard of online disinformation.
This chapter deals with the effects that January 6th directly caused. Let’s do a brief recap.
It’s 2020. The President of the United States sows doubt about mail-in ballots for months, then loses reelection in a way that seems suspect to people who believe there is reason to doubt mail-in ballots. He insists without evidence that he actually won and vows to sue to fight to stay in power. All his lawsuits are ultra-fails. He tries to get the Justice Department to make it seem like there are real questions about the validity of the election. Fail. He tries to have the Defense Department look into nonexistent foreign hacking of election m