July 9, 2023

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters told MSNBC that the next shoe to drop for Fox News could be if MAGA-smeared Ray Epps sues Fox News for defamation after Tucker Carlson hyped the QAnon conspiracy theory scapegoating him as a government agent over the January 6 insurrection.

Far right conspirator site Revolver News and its white-nationalist editor/writer Darren Beattie, concocted a conspiracy theory that Epps was at the Capitol as an FBI plant inciting Trump supporters to riot.

Beattie was a constant guest on Tucker Carlson, and along with Glenn Greenwald promoted this outrageous lie with no proof to try and give aid and comfort to the seditious traitors led by Donald Trump.

After a group petitioned with the Federal Communications Commission to deny the broadcast license renewal of Fox Corp-owned Philadelphia TV station FOX 29, Peters said this is not the end.

There's this individual, Ray Epps, who was a Trump voter, but he was there on January 6th and somehow became the target of various Trump, pro-Trump conspiracy theories that Tucker Carlson repeatedly uttered on his show.

And talking to defamation experts in a story that I have coming over the next couple of days, this could be the next Dominion-type defamation lawsuit, because this guy's life was basically ruined by Tucker Carlson's promotion of false stories about him being a secret government agent.

So Fox paid big for Dominion, almost a billion dollars, and it's very likely that they will continue to pay because of lawsuits like this and challenges like this, you know, this FCC or FCC, rather, petition.

I don't know how successful, ultimately, that's going to be, but it's an example of the kind of legal pressure that Fox is under.

Every person and company that was derided, smeared, and defamed by Trump supporters in and out of the media to justify the Big Lie should be sued to the high heavens. And yes, Fox News should lose their broadcast license after the damage they've done.

A democracy cannot stand if fascist conspiracy theories are allowed to go unpunished when punishment is warranted.

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