Adam Kinzinger Shames Ted Cruz & Marjorie Greene For Being Traitors

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Republicans in Congress, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, and Thomas Massie, have helped directly promote or provide space for the conspiracy theory a Trump supporter named Ray Epps was or at least may have been instigating the Capitol riot in coordination with federal authorities.

As he prepared to depart Congress this week, and as the House committee investigating January 6 moved towards its work’s end, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) fact-checked Cruz and Greene’s nonsense Monday. “Every member of the house and senate @tedcruz @RepMTG @RepThomasMassie among the loudest, who lied to you saying Ray Epps was an FBI agent or informant must now own what they said and not try to change the conspiracy content without accountability,” Kinzinger said. “Where is the press on this?”

There’s no remotely conclusive evidence Epps had some kind of relationship with authorities and was working on their behalf for whatever reason. Those interested in Epps have pointed to footage from the day before the riot in which he encourages listeners to enter the Capitol and unsupported contentions about his role on January 6 in instigating the violence. In an interview he did with Kinzinger’s committee, Epps also discussed a text he sent a nephew of his in which he said he “orchestrated it,” and asked about that comment, he told the panel he “helped get people there,” seemingly meaning the march to the Capitol building from Trump’s speech that day. Also, Epps evidently rather abruptly left the building, seemingly having departed before rioters actually breached the building itself, so it’s unclear he would’ve even known about the full extent of what was going on (and in part hadn’t even happened yet).

And here’s the thing, or part of the thing: a whole lot of people committed remarkably similar acts! Over and over again, it’s come up in a Capitol riot case that some defendant helped essentially lead a portion of the mob, and Epps himself wasn’t even accused of violence. Epps also strongly pushed back against those who engaged in violence in his committee interview. Some have turned to a brief exchange Epps had with Ryan Samsel, a riot participant, outside the Capitol on the day of the violence shortly before Samsel confronted police, but Samsel himself told the FBI that someone he didn’t know — who was apparently Epps — was actually trying to get him to tone down his actions. “He came up to me and he said, ‘Dude’ — his entire words were, ‘Relax, the cops are doing their job,’” Samsel told investigators back in 2021.