text: Reacting to a Republican resolution demanding the Justice Department turn over documents related to suspected federal informant Ray Epps, a member of the Jan. 6 committee insisted during a House hearing there was nothing to see.
  Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., was being pressed by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who noted that Epps was interviewed by the Jan. 6 committee and a transcript had been promised.
  Raskin argued “none of the transcripts have been released,
  “You guys are trying to make this poor schmuck who showed up to this protest into something a lot bigger than he is. OK?” Raskin said. “He’s just trying to survive, and he’s on your side. You don’t have many voters left, and you might want to try to hang on to them without demonizing and vilifying your people. That’s the Donald Trump way – sell everybody else down the road – unless you can get a pardon.”
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  Raskin concluded: “Now you guys are doing it to this poor Ray Epps. Leave that guy alone! Whoever he is.”
  Epps is the one man who has been captured on video urging people to storm the Capitol on the day before the Jan. 6 riot and then directing the breach of the guarded perimeter while Donald Trump was still speaking one mile away.
  He was one of three men whose names mysteriously disappeared from the FBI’s Capitol Violence Most Wanted list.
  Epps’ role in the breach of the Capitol has been reported by Revolver News, which has presented evidence that FBI informants and Antifa operatives turned a peaceful Jan. 6 rally into a riot. In a follow-up report in December, the news outlet presented evidence, backed by videos and images, that there were others who worked in tandem with Epps to orchestrate the Capitol break-in.
  Epps was featured in a recent New York Times story that lamented he is “a man whose life has been ruined by a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory.”
  A Jan. 6 defendant who faces decades in prison on charges related to the Capitol riot claims Epps tried to recruit him to go inside the Capitol. He wonders why Epps is “not in jail for inciting the crowd or obstruction of Congress or seditious conspiracy.”
  The Republican resolution of inquiry regarding Epps was submitted by Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.
  Gosar, in a statement, argued “multiple videos show Ray Epps repeatedly urging crowds of people in Washington, D.C., on January 5 and January 6, 2021, to go to the United States Capitol and breach the building.’
  “Epps is the one person seen on video directing people towards the Capitol seconds before violence broke out, yet he has never been arrested or charged with any crime while more than 800 others have and countless more remained jailed,” the congressman said.
  He reasoned that if the Department of Justice “has nothing to hide and is genuinely interested in what happened on January 6, they should release every piece of information relating to Ray Epps’ involvement on that day.”