No evidence Jim Jordan announced Ray Epps will testify against FBI
Epps is an Arizona man who was among protesters supporting former President Donald Trump.
(Reuters) - No evidence supports online claims that U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said Ray Epps, a figure linked to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, will testify about alleged FBI involvement in the attack.
Epps is an Arizona man who was among protesters supporting former President Donald Trump on the day they stormed the Capitol to overturn the 2020 presidential election result (here) , (here), and has been a focus of conspiracy theories that the FBI orchestrated the insurrection. Reuters has previously factchecked claims related to Epps (here ).
Posts about the alleged announcement by Jordan, a Republican, started circulating on Feb. 28. One tweet said Jordan “just announced” Epps “flipped and will testify” against the FBI, and “watch as they now start to testify against each other-OMG..” (here).
Another example of the claim can be seen (here).
A search for the announcement returned no reliable news reports to substantiate the claim. Jordan has not posted about Epps or the Jan. 6 attack on his website (jordan.house.gov/), Twitter (twitter.com/Jim_Jordan) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/repjimjordan/).
Archived versions of Jordan’s Twitter account as of March 1 do not show any posts about Epps (here), (here). Archived versions of Jordan’s Facebook account at the time are unavailable and any potentially deleted posts could not be uncovered.
A spokesperson for Jordan did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Epps was a controversial figure in the Jan. 6 attack, with some Trump supporters alleging that he was an FBI informant. The U.S. House of Representatives’ Democrat-led committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack tweeted in January 2022 that it had interviewed Epps, who told the committee that he had no connection with any law enforcement agency (here).
Epps was not arrested or charged in connection with the assault on the Capitol. Reporting on how Ray Epps became the target of these conspiracy theories can be found (here ), (here).
VERDICT
No evidence. There is no evidence that Rep. Jim Jordan publicly announced Ray Epps will testify against the FBI regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
