Fox News sued by man at centre of Jan 6 conspiracy theory

A man at the centre of a conspiracy theory related to the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, has sued Fox News for defamation.

James Ray Epps filed the lawsuit on Wednesday, launching the latest legal action against the conservative media giant in connection with its coverage of the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath.

The lawsuit claims that Fox News spread a “fantastical story” about Epps, amplifying a conspiracy theory that he was an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who intentionally fomented the violent mob that broke into the Capitol in 2021.

That attack was, in fact, led by supporters of former President Donald Trump who sought to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

But in the lawsuit, Epps alleges that the rumours about him and his wife Robyn, circulated on Fox News, “destroyed” their lives. According to his complaint, the coverage — notably from former host Tucker Carlson — provoked death threats and harassment that forced the couple to sell their home and business and move into a trailer.

The lawsuit draws a parallel between Epps’s case and other recent legal battles pertaining to Fox News’s coverage of the 2020 election.

In April, Fox reached an over $787m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over false claims pushed by some of the network’s hosts that the company’s voting machines were connected to election malfeasance. Fox also faces a separate $2.7bn lawsuit from another electronic voting company, Smartmatic, which alleges the network broadcast falsehoods that have “decimated” its business prospects.

“Just as Fox had focused on voting machine companies when falsely claiming a rigged election, Fox knew it needed a scapegoat for January 6th,” the lawsuit reads. Epps, it asserts, was that scapegoat. Al Jazeera