Ray Epps, the pro-Trump man at the center of a right-wing conspiracy theory about the Jan. 6 riots, has demanded that Tucker Carlson publicly retract the “false and defamatory” claims he’s pushed about Epps being a federal agent who incited the Capitol riots. Epps’ lawyer Michael Teter sent a letter to Carlson on Thursday urging the host to issue a “formal apology for the lies” he and others at Fox have spread about the former Marine, according to The New York Times. “The fanciful notions that Mr. Carlson advances on his show regarding Mr. Epps’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection are demonstrably (and already proven to be) false,” Teter added. “And yet Mr. Carlson persists with his assault on the truth.” In fact, Carlson took aim at Epps as recent as Wednesday night. “The Biden Department of Justice has announced it is going to try and jail another up to 1,200 protesters from Jan. 6,” Carlson declared. “Is Ray Epps going to be among them? Considering he is on tape multiple times calling for people to break the law? We’ll see.” Such retraction requests, it should be noted, are often sent when legal teams are preparing to file lawsuits. Meanwhile, Fox News’ top executives and stars face a $1.6-billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems over allegations the network knowingly peddled election-fraud lies to boost sagging ratings after the 2020 election. A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
