While the Dominion defamation lawsuit against Fox was making headlines about Fox personnel pushing “election fraud” stories they knew were not true, another defamation case may have been bubbling up: that of Ray Epps. He’s the MAGA J6er and Oath Keeper member who, for some reason, Tucker Carlson has repeatedly tried to blame for the insurrection. The theory, as David Neiwert explained last year, is that Epps was “secretly in cahoots with the FBI to make the Capitol siege happen as a way to entrap ‘Patriots.’”
Never mind that the theory, which is ridiculous on its face, has been completely debunked, as nicely laid out by Neiwert. Yet Carlson has persisted in pushing it and it has made Epps’ life a living hell, according to his lawyer. Not surprisingly, Epps threatened a defamation suit against Fox in late March. To my knowledge, Carlson has neither retracted nor apologized.
Grossberg worked as a producer for Carlson but is now suing the network for, among other things, the toxic work environment that was his show. In her jaw-dropping MSNBC interview with Nicolle Wallace this week about her time at Fox, Grossberg dropped some important tidbits about Epps and how little regard the Carlson show had for truth.
“I found it difficult to cover the kind of stories that they wanted me to cover,” Grossberg said. She cited January 6th as an example. “Tucker was very set on finding an FBI person who was implanted in the crowd and spinning this conspiracy that they were ultimately the ones responsible for the Capitol attack,” she added. She went on to explain that she could find no evidence for such a thing, that an attorney for one of the Proud Boys had told her, twice, "There is no conspiracy, get away from this stuff. This is dangerous, tell Tucker to stop.”
"The response was, 'Well, find somebody else. Tucker is really intent on this.'"
Wallace caught the significance of that. “Did he [Carlson] ask you guys to look through the tapes, looking for Mr. [Ray] Epps? Is that what you're suggesting or other FBI informants?” Our video drops out when Wallace names Epps but she says his name clearly in the MSNBC video on YouTube.
Grossberg replied that she was not part of the team looking at tapes but she said, “They were having me just look for a lawyer of a Proud Boy that was willing to say that there were FBI informants infiltrating the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.”
“And none of them were?” Wallace asked.
“Not that I could find,” Grossberg replied.
My theory about Carlson’s firing is that it was about money somehow. Grossberg reportedly has 90 tapes. She could well have proof that Carlson defamed Epps recklessly (an essential element for a defamation case). And that could be very expensive for Fox.
