Mike Huckabee
Who thinks Nancy Pelosi’s “9/11-style commission” to investigate what happened on Capitol Hill last January 6 is actually there to fact-find? Me, neither. But I’ll tell you who's doing some first-rate investigation and reporting on the security breach at the Capitol building, and it’s not congressional Democrats or this administration’s Department of “Justice.”
It’s REVOLVER NEWS. But what they seem to be uncovering does not fit with the narrative Democrats want to maintain. In fact, it’s what they want to hide.
An Arizona man named Ray Epps, a Marine sergeant allegedly involved in the group the Oath Keepers, clearly was acting as a provocateur the evening before the rally. According to the REVOLVER report, “...Epps was insistent that everyone stay focused on a common mission: storming the Capitol. On multiple livestreams, Epps moves from group to group throughout the plaza barging in and insisting everyone ‘stay focused’ on ‘what we’re here for’ --- which he would then explain meant going inside the U.S. Capitol building. When asked to give a reason for his crazy plot, Epps would continually fall back on his catch-all rationale: ‘It’s about the Constitution.’” People in a couple of the groups he gave his little pep talk to even suggested that he might be “a Fed.”
You’d think that if the FBI were rounding up suspects to hold them for many months without bail, essentially as political prisoners, one person very close to the top of their list, if not THE top, would be this guy. But no. They had him on their “most wanted” list for a while, but when REVOLVER NEWS came out with their first big story, he was dropped off the list.
Not only did the FBI do that, but the day after REVOLVER ran another story on Stuart Rhodes, also of the Oath Keepers, they scrubbed Epps’ face from their database. Rhodes, like Epps, remains unindicted to this day, while others who might have just walked into the Capitol Building to take a selfie are languishing in solitary, some reportedly unable even to talk with their attorneys.
The videos of Epps, seen pretty widely on Twitter, show him talking with Trump supporters the evening of January 5, repeatedly encouraging them to enter the Capitol Building the day of the rally. He’s saying in a voice that cuts through the background noise, “I don’t even like to say it because I’ll be arrested. I’ll say it. We need to go into the Capitol.”
And now, the irony is that Epps seems to be one of relatively few people identified as having been involved in the security breach who WEREN’T arrested. But also unindicted are people who worked with him the day of the rally to, in the words of the REVOLVER team, “carry out a breach of the police barricades that induced a subsequent flood of unsuspecting MAGA protesters to unwittingly trespass on Capitol restricted grounds and place themselves in legal jeopardy.”
To give a little perspective, Epps was not even arrested, while another Oath Keeper, a Green Beret veteran named Jeremy Brown, is even now behind bars, bail denied until trial, simply for standing 100 feet too close to the Capitol steps. It hardly seems possible that the government isn’t protecting Epps.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie asked Attorney General Merrick Garland about Epps’ activities during Garland’s recent hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, playing some of the video for him of Epps talking up the idea of going inside the Capitol. Unfortunately, it was played on a very small screen that Rep, Massie was holding, but the audio of Epps telling people they need to go inside the Capitol the next day is unmistakable.
Massie informed Garland that the same person who was doing this the night before the rally was actually directing people to the Capitol during the rally. Then he asked Garland if he –- after “one of the most sweeping investigations in history,” as Garland had called it –- had seen this video. Garland avoided the question with the old “we don’t comment on pending investigations” dodge. His deflection did have an extra dash of creativity, though, with Garland also saying it’s one of the “norms” of the Justice Department not to comment on “particular scenes or particular individuals.”
“I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5 and January 6,” Massie said to Garland. “Can you tell us without talking about particular videos how many agents or assets of the government were present on January 6? Whether they agitated to go into the Capitol? And if any of them did?”
Garland would not address this at all. “I’m not going to violate this norm of the rule of law,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on investigation that’s ongoing.”
If Garland had wanted to allay Republicans’ concerns that the feds might have actively encouraged Trump supporters to breach the Capitol building, this would have been the perfect time to do it, with a denial. On the other hand, if Epps and others actually were working undercover as agents to make sure the “insurrection” happened, the excuse Garland cited would be a very convenient “norm” indeed.
For when you have time, REVOLVER NEWS has put together an amazing piece of investigative journalism. It’s quite long and detailed, but highly recommended. (If it’s too exhaustive, at least skip down to the conclusion.) I’ll just tell you that Ray Epps is not the only one who played an extremely active role in the breach but was mysteriously never arrested. To cite another striking example, another Marine veteran, still unidentified but called “MaroonPB,” was going around using the same “It’s about the Constitution” line as Epps did. He also removed barricades and entered Senate offices during the breach itself, armed with bear mace. No arrest for him. Not even an identification, though he is maskless and beautifully photographed, in such a way that shows off his distinctive knuckle tattoos.
The team at REVOLVER NEWS say they're just getting started. Look at everything they’ve uncovered so far, and it suggests the FBI has a way of actually becoming the thing it purportedly hates. In this case, it might even have caused, or helped cause, the Trump “insurrection” narrative needed so desperately by leftists to prime Trump for impeachment #2 and tar his supporters as "domestic terrorists." (Note: that does NOT excuse the Trump supporters who got swept into it and caused incalculable damage to the conservative cause.) We know the FBI helped fake the Russia Hoax; who knows what else they might have faked?