SURELY WE'RE ALL SHOCKED THAT THE TRUMPISTS WERE JUST MAKING THIS UP?:

Federal prosecutors have not charged Mr. Epps with a crime, focusing instead on the more than 1,000 other demonstrators who acted violently or were trespassing in the Capitol. The Justice Department's sprawling investigation into the attack remains open, however, and Mr. Epps could still be indicted.

Yet for more than 18 months, Mr. Carlson insisted that the lack of charges against Mr. Epps could mean only one thing: that he was being protected because he was a secret government agent. There was "no rational explanation," Mr. Carlson told his audience, why this "mysterious figure" who "helped stage-manage the insurrection" had not been charged.

He repeated Mr. Epps's name over and over -- in nearly 20 episodes -- imprinting it on the minds of his viewers.

Mr. Epps was in the Marine Corps but said in his deposition before the Jan. 6 committee that he had otherwise never worked on behalf of any government agency. He and his wife, Robyn, have fled Arizona and are in hiding in another state, having sold their wedding venue business and ranch after receiving death threats from people who appeared to believe the conspiracy theory. And his legal jeopardy is far from over given that prosecutors are still unsealing new cases in connection with Jan. 6.

Now lawyers representing Mr. Epps and his wife are proceeding with plans to sue Fox News for defamation. 

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