Ray Epps CHARGED… but It’s a Weird Charge, Plus Judge Tries to Issue GAG ORDER on Trump

Liz Wheeler Show episode 431, take one. Alright with me now it’s independent journalist Julie Kelly. Julie, the reason that we’re talking today is because after years of the Department of Justice just conveniently forgetting about Ray eps, he has finally been charged with one count of disorderly conduct. This seems really odd to me that this would be the charge against Ray Epps, given that we have video showing him agitating people and there’s actually new video that shows him involved in an altercation with the Capitol Police, right by one of the barriers outside the Capitol. What’s your analysis of this? 

I mean, there’s definitely something up, Liz. So as soon as I saw that, and it’s an information, so there’s an indictment, criminal indictment are for people charged with felonies. The misdemeanor version of that is something called an information. It is highly unusual for D O J in the January 6th prosecution to bring a single count in an information. So I did a quick search of the January 6th database at D O J, roughly 15 to 20 January 6th. Defendants have one misdemeanor count against them. The majority of those is the parading inside the Capitol building. So this is highly unusual that Rays has one misdemeanor, not just given the totality of the January 6th prosecution, but his behavior that day. And of course the night before, he easily could be slapped with multiple misdemeanors and felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, et cetera. So the fact that they just hurry up now and charge him with this one misdemeanor, apparently he’s going to accept his plea deal on Wednesday. So this is happening very quickly, but I don’t think this is doing anything. Liz, to assuage people’s suspicions that Ray Epps somehow was working on behalf of the government or political interest on January 5th and sixth. 

Well, listen, the speculation from the very beginning has been that Ray Epps is a Fed right? I think Ray EPS is actually suing Fox News and Tucker Carlson because Tucker stated, well, he’s obviously a Fed because we have him on video doing all of these things. He was on the most wanted list by the F B I in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, and yet as the Department of Justice is rounding up all these American citizens all over the country, Ray Epps has not been touched. They haven’t been interested in him at all. There was a disparity in how he was treated compared to the other people. It seems pretty obvious to me that he was working in some capacity with the feds. And I want to ask you, because a lot of people won’t speculate about this because they’re afraid of Ray Epps suing them. Since he has started suing people for stating opinions that he doesn’t like, what is the most likely scenario here? What’s your speculation? Was he an F B I asset from the beginning? Did he become an informant just because they identified him in the crowd? Which agency would he have been associated with potentially? What’s your speculation based on what you know? 

I mean they were very careful. The January 6th select committee was very careful in their questioning of Ray Epps and so was the interviewer in the 60 minutes piece that portrayed Ray Epps as this victim of right-wing conspiracy theories, including Tucker Carlson. You know Liz, it’s amazing. Everyone who remotely participated in the events of January 6th is considered a domestic terrorist, an insurrectionist by the Biden regime and the corporate media and certainly Democrats in Congress including the January 6th select committee. What was so odd is that as soon as there was criticism and speculation as Toray UPS’s role in the fact that he remained uncharged until this week, suddenly all these same people came to Ray UPS’s defense and saying that he was a victim, that he was subjected to this smear campaign by right-wing media. Well, I mean he did far more on January 6th than someone say like Enrique Tario, the ex-head of the proud Boys who was arrested and charged with Seditious Conspiracy and wasn’t even in Washington on January 6th, nonetheless convicted of seditious conspiracy and now was sentenced to 22 years in prison. 

Ray Epps, as I said, could easily have been charged with multiple offenses. And so the fact that he has all these defenders now that this information, this charge kind of came out of nowhere. He’s taking a quick plea deal and that’s supposed to be the end of it. And Liz, keep in mind his photograph is still on the FBI’s most wanted list. It is pinned to the FBI’s social media Twitter account, so it’s not like he’s been undercover. No one knew who he was, so who was he working for? It could be the F B I, although he did say under oath that it wasn’t, he very easily could be tied with another agency at the C I A, the Department of Defense, the Secret Service, all the law enforcement and government agencies we know who had undercover agents and otherwise personnel on the ground on January 6th. So I don’t think these questions are going to go away. Also, Liz, the timing is interesting because next month is the scheduled trial for Ryan Samsel, the man with the backwards MAGA hat on who Ray PPS whispered in his ear right before Ryan Samsel and others pushed down the metal barricades on the exterior west grounds of the Capitol. So the timing is even interesting. Will Ryan Samsel call Ray Fs as a defense witness and does this somehow shield him from testifying for the defense in that key trial finally happening almost three years later? 

So this plea deal, do you expect Ray Epps to serve any time in prison? If so, how long? 

I don’t because of the nature of this misdemeanor. I’ll tell you something else interesting. I could only find one other case, similar case where a defendant has been charged with this disorderly conduct misdemeanor one count and his name is a man named Isaiah Giddings. He was with the Proud Boys Liz. He was one of the individuals with these members of the proud boys who were convicted of Seditious conspiracy. There were more than a dozen F B I informants run into the Proud Boys before on January 6th. This makes it even more suspicious that you have a man, Isaiah Giddings, who was with this group but still only faces this basically non-existent charge. He still has not been sentenced. D O J is dragging out his sentencing hearing and did disclose, and I’m telling you, for the first time did disclose in a recent filing that the government had more information on this giddings defendant that it was not disclosing to the court. So the fact that you have another suspected maybe F B I asset or some sort of government asset who was with this key group, the Proud Boys, and he only faces this low level charge even though he was very involved in what the Proud boys were doing that day, again, these questions are not going away and DOJs activity here only raises speculation that their characterization of Ray Epps just has not been truthful. 

The whole thing stinks to high heaven and anyone with common sense can see that. That’s why we’ve been asking questions about Ray Epps all along hypothetically, and I know Ray Epps denied working directly for the F B I and I believe the F B I denied that he was an asset, but one of the things about the intelligence community and the F B I is part of that for the purpose of the comment I’m about to make is they’re very deceptive in their denials. They deny extremely specific, extremely narrow things and leave it to us to generalize it or infer that it applies to a broader thing and that’s not the case. So just because he wasn’t working directly for the F B I doesn’t preclude him being some kind of asset for some other agency or perhaps afterward he struck up some kind of plea deal. This would be a plausible plea deal if you have a misdemeanor on your record. I’m not trying to discount crime real crime, but it’s really not that big of a deal. You don’t lose any of your rights if you’re not going to prison. I mean it really is no skin off. Ray Epsis back if that’s part of the deal for the F B I or whatever other agency to cover themselves. 

And of course the government brings charges against F B I informants and F B I assets and government assets all the time. I saw this firsthand in the Whitmer Fed napping hoax where the defense wanted to call the second highest confidential human source informant, a man named Steven Robeson who already is a convicted felon many times over and D O J came in and charged him with a gun offense and then he was precluded from testifying saying he was going to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination since he had already been charged and could have been facing other charges. This is a game that the D O J plays all the time, and to your 0.1 misdemeanor conviction or plea agreement on Ray S’s criminal record, it’s not going to preclude him from doing anything, but it will be interesting to see how an that plays a role in Ryan Samson’s trial next month. 

Well, we’ll keep our eyes on that. I mean, the only reason we’ll know the information from that trial is because of your diligent reporting, but remember, misdemeanor convictions don’t stop you from owning a gun. They don’t stop you from voting. They don’t usually preclude you from getting any kind of job. I have no idea if Ray Epps is still working or if he’s retired. He’s right about that age. Anyway, another conviction that happened at the same time, and this is also interesting to contrast with Ray Epps. It is a journalist entered the capitol on January 6th because he was covering the events and he wanted to actually capture on videotape what these people that had entered the capitol were doing. His name is Steven Horn. What do you make of this conviction? I mean, is he using the excuse of being a journalist to try to escape responsibility for having entered the capitol or is this literally punishing the press? 

No, I know of Steven, he has done good reporting work on January 6th. In fact, he just released an 80 minute video a few weeks ago talking about what happened on that police sign on the western side, how those confrontations between protestors and police started, how police really initiated a lot of those confrontations by using munitions like stun grenades and rubber bullets and tear gas on that side. So he is a journalist, but look, we also see people tied to Infowars who also have been charged in convicted. Owen Schroer was just convicted and sentenced to 60 days in jail. So the carve out now, Liz, as you know, the place was swarming with media all over the place and not to mention filmmakers like Alexandra Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s daughter. Why have they not been charged in a similar capacity as Steven Horne? I mean Nancy Pelosi’s daughter was in secure locations accompanying her mother to Fort McNair where congressional leaders were going, we don’t even know if she has a security clearance. 

I doubt that she does. However, she is off the hook. While someone like Steven Horne charged again with four common misdemeanors, not only should he not have been charged here, he is convicted in less than I think 70 minutes by a DC jury and now faces, and I’ve seen this up to 12 months in prison for his conviction on those four misdemeanors. So we have this D O J continuing to round up not just trespassers or those who assaulted police, but now journalists as a way to signal to all of us who cover things on the right that you will not enjoy the same protections as corporate media or politically tied filmmakers and documentarians like Nancy Pelosi’s daughter. 

It’s terrible. The only positive thing that I can draw from this is it’s becoming so obvious to many Americans who didn’t believe us when we said, listen, it’s a two tier system of justice. The standards are doubled. It’s not the same if you’re a Republican or you’re a Democrat. It’s so obvious now it’s impossible to deny. So I want to bring up one of your tweets from this week, several pro-lifers, actually elderly pro-lifers in their seventies were convicted of violating the face act. The FACE Act is a law that prohibits people from blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. These women did that. They’re part of what’s called the abolitionist movement. They know it’s basically civil disobedience and they were convicted and sentenced to a decade or possibly a decade in prison. I don’t know if their sentencing has come down yet, but they’re facing possibly a decade in prison. But you noted that the wife of the US attorney that charged them is heavily involved in the pro-abortion movement, which I assume would be a huge conflict of interest. Can you break this down for us? 

Yeah, so Matthew Graves is the US attorney for the District of Columbia. He’s a Biden appointee. He was a Biden campaign advisor. He worked with Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emh at D L a Piper, a white shoe law firm. He was confirmed at the end of 2021. He is the individual who is handling every single six January case, including Steven Horns and now Ray Epps, and now he has charged based on these 2020 activities. He wasn’t even US attorney back then. The activities of this group and has now charged in DC juries have convicted eight of these anti-abortion protestors, including elderly or older people in their sixties and seventies. What’s worse, Liz is the Clinton appointed judge in this case, judge, I always get her name right, Catalia Klar, 80 years old. She should have long retired. They have not been sentenced yet, but after both convictions, she ordered these individuals to be taken into immediate custody, which means that these people, these pro-life activists, nothing like this has ever happened before, are now in the DC jail where they will await her sentencing order, which could take a few months before then they’re transported to whatever prison home that they will languish in for years. 

People do not, and this is why I’m so grateful for your coverage, but for your viewers and a handful of others, people just do not recognize this legal and judicial circle of hell. I call it this tyranny, this Banana Republic style environment in our nation’s capital. Further to your point, the wife of Matthew Grace Fatima Goss Graves runs a $100 million nonprofit called the National Women’s Law Center. She has taken the lead role in not just trying to remove Clarence Thomas from the Supreme Court, but all of her activity is animated by her demands for unrestricted access to abortion. So now her husband is taking this law, this face act, revitalizing charges that I believe had already been dropped against these pro-lifers in 2020 re-upping those charges and now trying to put 72 year old women in prison for years because to your point, they blockhead an abortion clinic. 

This is outrageous. He is disqualified on many levels, her political activism, her anti-Trump statements, and her involvement in all of these left-wing causes near and dear to the Biden administration. Furthermore, Liz, she’s been at the Biden White House. Now I’ve recorded 30 times since her husband was confirmed as US attorney for the District of Columbia. How is that not a huge conflict of interest? We don’t know what information she might be passing along to the Biden White House or what she might be a conduit between the White House and her husband who’s supposed to be an independent prosecutor. It simply is not the case, and I’ll have a big piece up on this in a few weeks, but to your point, I’ve already reported on it, but this is the sort of dual standard of justice and quite frankly, swamp like environment in the nation’s capitol that just outrages our side of the political spectrum, and it certainly should. 

It seems like the most massive conflict of interest possible. And you said something about this that I didn’t even know, and I’m pretty well versed with this case, that these charges were essentially dismissed against these individuals in 2020 and that he brought them back from the dead because what his wife is a radical abortion activist who wants to imprison pro-lifers, 

Right? And so does the head of the civil division of the Department of Justice. They have promised they were the ones who said that they were going to use the Space Act, and I believe others have been charged in this as well. I believe that this is one of the charges brought against the pastor Mark how, I’m sorry I’m swimming in names today, but I believe that he was the one, seven or eight kids who was subjected to an F B I raid in Halden as well. This is a message people who think this sort of weaponization of D O J is just going to apply to people who showed up at the capitol for four hours on January 6th. You are sadly mistaken. They are running all cylinders. They have every weapon, every arsenal aimed full blast at the right, whether it’s pro-lifers, it’s parents protesting at school board meetings, certainly people who are involved in the Capitol protest, and this is just going on with no end in sight. 

This D O j Matthew Grace continues to round up January 6th. Protesters charge them with bigger crimes that we saw with Ray Epps, things like obstruction, civil disorder, assaulting police, and these misdemeanors that Steven Horn faced. He has promised to double the current caseload of 1100 defendants and he is living up to his word and it’s hard to see how his wife, or at least her $100 million nonprofit and all the political connections, all the connections that she has, not just in politics but in the private sector are not being leveraged. And this is a way for Matthew Graves, this sort of qui pro quo in Washington dc, but with huge human and legal consequences. 

It’s actually terrifying as an American citizen. I don’t live in Washington dc but like you, I go there for work all the time. It’s not just the capital of the United States. It’s where everything happens in politics and in media. I’m there all the time. I’ve been part of, I can’t even tell you how many marches and protests and other political activities and it as an American citizen, it makes me frightened to exercise my right to free speech and my right to assemble in the nation’s capital because you just don’t know if you’re going to be targeted based only on your political beliefs and then thrown into this cesspool of the criminal justice system in Washington dc Listen, I’m not a cynic about our criminal justice system. I think it’s great. I think it’s as good as you can get when it’s a country governed by people. I mean, we’re all flawed, but our criminal justice system is decent. It’s good. But in Washington DC it is so polluted with leftists. Even the jury pools that don’t care about our rule of law, don’t like our country and hate us as people based on our beliefs, that you actually don’t get a fair shot like going to court even if you technically are afforded due process. It’s not real. 

It’s not real. And look, I’ve been to these trials, I’ve seen these line prosecutors in action. I’ve seen these judges and we’re talking Republican judges like Tim Kelly who handle the Proud Boys trial to Obama. Judges like Amit Meda down to this Clinton judge I’m talking about, believe it or not, two Reagan appointed judges who are still on that bench. They are pretty much unanimous in their contempt for Donald Trump, their contempt for his supporters. They view the events of January 6th as a personal affront that Americans from across the country dared to enter their personal political and professional fiefdom of Washington dc. They don’t view Washington DC as the capital of our nation. They view it as their little private fiefdom where they operate in secret, where they have all of these compromised relationships or marriages or relatives, et cetera. This is both parties. It’s not just Democrats. 

They express routinely their contempt. They’re shocked that anyone dared to come to Washington that day. I’ve heard judges say, you came here all the way from Texas. You drove here all the way from Florida. Well, of course they did. That’s the right as Americans, they are affronted, they are offended, and that’s why they are punishing them so severely, especially people with no means, people who’ve never been in trouble with the criminal justice system. To your point, a lot of them talk to the F B I voluntarily thinking they were helping law enforcement not realizing that they were the targets. Then you enter this DC courthouse, which is just really a place that every time I go there, I can’t believe what I’m watching and hearing and seeing these judges just handing down these excessive sentences berating people for supporting Donald Trump. I just posted about Tanya Chakin who is now handling the Trump case, suggesting to one defendant that he needs to reconsider his political views because he’s been listening to the wrong people and the wrong sources. I mean, this is like right, these are struggle sessions. These are things that they were happening in other countries we would have you resolutions about. We wouldn’t be applauding it like the corporate media is doing. So I think a lot of Americans are getting their eyes opened up to what’s been happening and continues to happen in this DC courthouse. 

Imagine for a second that a trial of this nature was happening in Russia or in China and that the judge presiding over that told a dissident, right? A dissident in Russia, say, who had criticized Vladimir Putin and who had been arrested? I mean, this isn’t even hypothetical, this happens all the time, but imagine if the judge said, you need to reconsider your political views and what you’re writing. We would probably have condemnation from human rights organizations and free speech activists from all over the world that would be saying, that’s not fair. That’s a Banana Republic. That’s a rigged show trial, and yet it’s happening here in our nation’s capitol and we’re all potentially going to be subject to it. Tanya Chut, the judge presiding over Trump’s case that you just mentioned, she’s trying to issue a gag order to my understanding of President Trump. Can you break this down for me? Because it seems to me, and you can correct me if I’m wrong here, it seems to me that if President Trump is subject to an order that prohibits him from discussing his case, that it’s not only a violation of his free speech potentially, but it is different when you’re running for president of the United States because your opponent can attack you and you couldn’t even defend yourself. 

Right? So this was a proposed motion filed last week by special counsel Jack Smith, and he described it in his motion as narrow as a narrow gag order. But look, it is anything, but if Tanya Chuck Kent approves this order, Donald Trump not just will be prohibited from talking about his case. He will not be able to criticize the Department of Justice. He will not be able to criticize the F B I. He will not be able to criticize judges in Washington DC or DC juries. This is an attempt to take away one of Donald Trump’s key campaign issues. Liz, as you know, which is the corruption and weaponization of the Department of Justice and the special counsel’s office, and the folly of this is that Jack Smith is claims that he’s worried about Trump’s words on social media, on truth, social influencing or poisoning the jury pool. 

Well, come on. D O J has near a 100% perfect conviction rate in January six trials. These jurors come in with, and I mean we saw it in the Proud Boys trial, eight of them had been involved in Left-Wing Democratic party tie demonstrations over the past few years. They were still seated on the jury jurors who talk after the trial say the most outlandish, egregious things about January 6th and the defendants who they just oversaw their trial, so there’s no poisoning. I don’t know how you could further poison a DC jury pool against Donald Trump. Furthermore, what he said is that Trump should be stopped from discussing potential witnesses in the case. He specifically named former Attorney General Bill Barr and Mike Pence, who is one of Donald Trump’s g o p primary rivals. Well, a potential witness could be whoever Jack Smith says, it’s so. This is a broad-based proposed gag order, not only shutting down Trump about his case pending before Tanya Chut Ken, but taking away and attempting to silence Donald Trump from talking about this key campaign issue that’s very important to the base. As you know Liz, which is the Irretrievably Corrupt Department of Justice and F B I. So we’ll see if she signs off on it. I suspect she will sign off on some, at least a partial order, keeping him silent throughout up until his trial, which is scheduled for March. 

It’s really shocking. So when you’re talking about a DC jury pool being poisoned ordinarily when you’re called in for jury duty and it’s a more high profile case, they make sure that you haven’t read anything about the case, you haven’t seen a news report about it. They tell you not to read anything about it because they don’t want you to have any preconceived views on the case. I mean, I’ve been injury due to myself and have had the judge ask, have you heard about this? Did you see the initial report when this alleged crime was committed? Did you read about it? And anybody who said yes was excused from the jury. How does this work in a situation like Donald Trump where literally every single person in our country, let alone in Washington dc, which is the political capital of our country, how do you pick a jury who knows nothing about the case? 

It’s impossible. You don’t, and that’s why defense attorneys over and over have requested change of venue motions based on the publicity of the January 6th matter, not just national media, but local media such as the Washington Post and every outlet in the Capitol. Of course, the January 6th select committee hearings were happening right across the street from the DC courthouse, even in a high profile case. Liz, like the Proud Boys, when their defendants asked for a change of venue. The January 6th select committee was holding broadcast National evening hearings, specifically talking about the proud boys, specifically naming the defendants who were about to go to trial and jury selection was underway. The end of December of 2022 J six Committee released its report it named The Proud Boys a hundred times at least, assigning blame for January 6th to the Proud Boys. The defense attorneys again filed another change of venue motion asking Tim Kelly to move the trial based on this high level of publicity and condemnation for their defendants, and he again rejected it saying the jury selection process, we are confident jury selection process, extensive process questionnaires will weeded out people even if they have biases. 

If they tell us that they can set aside those biases that prejudice to render a fair verdict, then we believe them. Sure, and what happens, they come back with convictions four out of five for Seditious conspiracy, a charge that no American has ever been convicted of before January 6th, and then Judge Tim Kelly renders these excessive harsh prison sentences based on terror enhancements. So you can’t get a fair jury in Washington. The entire trial not should just be removed. Donald Trump’s case, not just should be removed from Tanya Chuck, but far away from Washington DC because look what happens when you’re in a place like say, Michigan, when you have three defendants who are involved in the Whitmer Fed napping hoax. Three of them found not guilty, acquitted on all counts by Michigan jury last week. Far different outcomes when you’re outside of the Beltway than what’s happening inside of it. 

It’s fundamentally unfair what’s happening in Washington dc. Julie, we’re going to have you back on the show when the next trial next month happens. That could involve Ray Epps. I think we’ll know more information about Ray S’s involvement with these Intel agencies depending on his involvement in this trial. Can you tell people where to find your reporting, where to find you online? Because everyone who watches this show adores you. 

Oh, well, I adore you and I adore your viewers. I’m so grateful for all your support and for your viewer support as well. So I’m now at Sub Declassified with Julie Kelly. I’m on Twitter or x, whatever you want to call it, Julie Kelly two and Truth Social at Julie Kelly. 

Perfect. Guys, make sure you go give her a follow. Her reporting is outstanding. She’s always the first to report on this stuff and it’s always accurate. Julie Kelly, thanks for being on the show. 

Thanks Liz. Alright, 

Guys, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Make sure you hit the subscribe button on rumble at rumble.com/liz wheeler. Hit that bell so I can notify you every time we have a new video for you. I’m Liz Wheeler. This is the Liz Wheeler Show.