WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz has been peddling a conspiracy theory for weeks suggesting that the FBI incited the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In this scenario, the nation’s prime law enforcement agency prodded supporters of defeated President Donald Trump to ignore police lines, assault officers, smash through doors, turn flagpoles into spears, invade the Senate chamber and threaten the vice president and House speaker.
No evidence has surfaced for this explosive theory. And the purported motives for such a conspiracy are murky.
The FBI director, under oath two months after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, ruled out that there were “fake Trump protesters” of any kind in the mob. Another top FBI official told Cruz at a hearing last month that no federal agents incited violence.
That has not deterred the two-term Texas Republican from persisting with the “false flag” theory in a Senate hearing and a flurry of campaign emails, and on social media and his popular podcast.
“If the federal government was actively encouraging illegal conduct, was actively encouraging violence,” Cruz said on an episode of his podcast devoted almost entirely to the so-called “fed-surrection” theory, “that is incredibly concerning, because it is an abuse of power.”
The key word there is “if.”
Cruz has offered no evidence the FBI has done anything wrong – an allegation-by-insinuation approach that critics view as demagoguery.
His office sidestepped requests to provide any factual basis for the speculation. Instead, an aide pointed to this and other comments that ignore the FBI’s denials and put the onus on the bureau to disprove a theory that remains baseless:
“I asked the FBI over and over and over again: Did FBI agents commit acts of violence on January 6? The FBI refused to answer that question – whether or not FBI agents committed acts of violence,” Cruz said on his Jan. 14 podcast. “I asked, did they incentivize? Did they incite? Did they urge others to commit acts of violence? Again, the FBI refused to answer.”
The theory is full of contradictions.
Throughout his presidency, Trump complained that the FBI was working against him. Why would this purported “deep state” want to derail Joe Biden’s victory and prolong Trump’s time in power?
Cruz and others who promote it have not explained why the FBI would be on both sides – hunting down rioters, yet also encouraging sedition and trying to overturn the election.
“He is lying for the sake of getting power. It’s a very cynical game,” said Russell Muirhead, a Dartmouth College political scientist who co-authored a book on innuendo in the Trump era titled "A Lot of People Are Saying." “I’m absolutely certain he does not believe it. Ted Cruz has an IQ that’s way beyond what most of us could ever aspire to.”
Trump, who exhorted followers to “fight like hell” to stop Congress from certifying the election, promoted the false flag theory at an Arizona rally last month.
“Exactly how many of those present at the Capitol complex on Jan. 6 were FBI confidential informants, agents or otherwise, working directly or indirectly with an agency of the United States government? People want to hear this,” he told thousands of supporters.
Cruz didn’t begin to point a finger at the FBI until a full year after the riot.
At a hearing the day before the anniversary, he’d called the event a “violent terrorist attack.”
That did not play well with right wing commentators and others who downplay the violence and want to deflect blame away from Trump.
Cruz shifted into damage control mode, starting on Tucker Carlson’s prime time Fox News show the night of the anniversary.
The senator expressed remorse for using the same language as Democrats described the riot, emphasizing that he only viewed attacks on police as acts of terrorism.
Carlson accused the senator of lying, given he’d used the term at least 17 times in the past year.
Then Carlson – enormously influential among Trump supporters and a gatekeeper to the 2024 Republican nomination that Cruz covets – broached a pet theory that puts a man named Ray Epps at the center of the false flag scheme.
Cruz played along. It was apparently the first time he publicly embraced the theory.
“For him to appear on the FBI’s most wanted list and come off, it certainly suggests he was working for the FBI. That’s not conclusive, but that’s the obvious implication,” Cruz told Carlson.
At a Senate hearing five days later, Cruz was hammering the incitement-by-feds theory.
How many FBI agents or confidential informants participated in the events of Jan. 6?
“I’m sure that you can appreciate that I can’t go into the specifics of sources or methods,” Jill Sanborn, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, responded.
Did any FBI agents or informants take part? Did any encourage or incite violence?
“I can’t answer that,” she said.
Cruz pivoted to Epps, a former Marine who owns a ranch and wedding venue called the Knotty Barn in Queen Creek, Arizona.
In 2011, Epps led the Arizona chapter of Oath Keepers, one of the main anti-government militia groups involved in the riot. He was at Trump’s rally the day of the riot.
Video from the night before showed Epps urging protesters to “peacefully” enter the Capitol. The advice prompted a man nearby to start chanting “Fed! Fed! Fed!”
Cruz called the chants evidence that Epps’ behavior was suspicious.
He pointed to footage from outside the Capitol: Epps whispered into a man’s ear just before the man pushed past a police barrier, as thousands of others did.
He showed the FBI’s most wanted list from two days after the riot, with an as-yet unidentified Epps in photo #16. Then the list in early July, with Epps removed.
Very mysterious, Cruz said, given that Epps has never been charged.
“Ms. Sanborn, a lot of Americans are concerned that the federal government deliberately encouraged illegal and violent conduct on Jan. 6. …Did federal agents or those in service of federal agents actively encourage violent and criminal conduct on Jan. 6?”
This time, she gave a direct answer: “Not to my knowledge, sir.”
That and other flat out denials from the FBI have not deterred Cruz – and others – from sticking with the theory.
Muirhead noted Cruz’s technique: “asking ominous questions without a shred of evidence.”
In the past week, Cruz has gone further to ingratiate himself with Jan. 6 deniers, calling it a “serious mistake” for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to describe events of that day as a “violent insurrection” after the Republican National Committee labeled it “legitimate political discourse.”
Cruz has touted his exchange from the Jan. 11 hearing in news releases, social media and at least a dozen emails to would-be campaign donors with the subject line “Who is Ray Epps?”
“The reason so many people are concerned about Mr. Epps is what we saw in the video. He is urging people to commit criminal activity,” Cruz said on his podcast. “If anyone genuinely cares about the integrity of law enforcement, you ought to be troubled by law enforcement entrapping people (and) incentivizing criminal conduct.”
Cruz has offered no evidence of that.
“It may be that he’s not (a fed). His behavior is very curious. And the fact that the FBI was unwilling to deny it raises serious questions,” Cruz said.
But the FBI did deny it.
Sanborn had denied it just three days earlier, under questioning by Cruz himself.
FBI director Christopher Wray – installed by Trump in 2017 – had testified at a March 2 Senate hearing that “we have not seen evidence” of any “fake Trump protesters.”
Asked recently about the speculation from Cruz and others, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said: “FBI Director Wray has already said that the FBI had no evidence of this baseless conspiracy, and he would certainly know.”
If the man who chanted “Fed! Fed! Fed!” thought Epps’ advice to enter the Capitol was a trap, that didn’t stop him.
The man was quickly identified when the Epps video surfaced. He’s Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet, a far-right social media personality who addressed the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., that involved a torch parade of neo-Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
He’s been charged with violent entry, disorderly conduct and illegally entering a restricted building on Jan. 6.
Epps referred an inquiry to his lawyer, John Blischak, a former FBI agent.
Blischak says there’s no mystery why his client dropped off the most wanted list: He was no longer unidentified. Epps contacted the FBI after learning he’d been spotted in news footage.
On Jan. 14, the House committee investigating the riot debunked the Epps theory, announcing he’d already been questioned.
“Epps informed us that he was not employed by, working with, or acting at the direction of any law enforcement agency on Jan 5th or 6th or at any other time, and that he has never been an informant for the FBI or any other law enforcement agency,” the committee wrote.
The FBI declined to elaborate.
“I laughed when I saw this,” said conservative commentator Liz Wheeler, co-hosting Cruz’s podcast. “Ray Epps denying he’s a fed is exactly what he would say if he were a fed.”
“It could be true. It could be false,” said Cruz. “The Jan. 6 committee is wildly partisan….I don’t give a lot of credence to their statements.”
The day after the committee discredited the Epps theory, Trump was peddling it.
“How about the one guy, ‘Go in, go in, get in there, everybody.’ Epps. ‘Get in there, go, go.’ Nothing happens to him. What happened with him? Nothing happened,” the former president told the crowd.
Claims that Jan. 6 was a “false flag” operation began to simmer in right-wing circles while the riot was underway. The initial spin was that Antifa or other leftists infiltrated a peaceful crowd to embarrass Trump.
Trump supporters in the mob rejected that, some with great indignation, and no evidence emerged of Antifa mischief.
On June 14, Revolver News, a website run by a former Trump speechwriter, published an article speculating that “unindicted co-conspirators” referred to in indictments were undercover operatives for the FBI or other intelligence agency.
That, said the article, made Jan. 6 “a monumental entrapment scheme used as a pretext to imprison otherwise harmless protestors” and “frame the entire MAGA movement as potential domestic terrorists.”
Fox’s Carlson opened his show the next night with a segment devoted to the allegations, telling viewers “it sounds like the FBI was organizing the riots of Jan. 6.”
Conspiracy-minded Trump defenders turned the speculation into a caveat-free statement of fact.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, now running for state attorney general, cited the story June 17 on the House floor, asserting that protesters were “egged on by federal authorities.”
“This is really disturbing.… We don’t like to see federal agents stirring up trouble,” he said. “This is like, Putin kind of activities.”
Revolver News is run by Darren Beattie, who left the White House in 2018 after revelations he’d attended a conference with prominent white nationalists.
On Oct. 25, the site identified Epps as a “Fed-Protected Provocateur” who “Appears To Have Led” the riot.
So Cruz was months behind when he began peddling the theory.
“Ted Cruz, who is as hungry for power as anyone alive, studied the Trump playbook and learned how to play the conspiracy game,” said Muirhead, the Dartmouth professor. “Ted Cruz wants to be president.”
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