Firebrand Congressman Matt Gaetz Demands Answers from Merrick Garland In Wake of Revolver’s Bombshell 1/6 Reporting
November 3, 2021 (1d ago)
Congressman Matt Gaetz and eight other House Republicans have sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding more information about the U.S. government’s possible role in the leadup to the January 6 incident, Revolver News can exclusively report.
Gaetz’s letter is short enough to post in its entirety right here:
Merrick Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
Re: Status of the FBI’s Capitol Violence Most Wanted List
Dear Attorney General Garland:
Following January 6th, were there people that you took off any of the Most Wanted lists that were federal assets or federal agents? If so, did any of the decisions to remove those people come as a consequence of cooperation between the federal government and the people that were animating the violence?
We look forward to your truthful and transparent response.
Along with Gaetz, eight other House Republicans affixed their name to the letter: Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Bill Posey and Greg Steube of Florida, and Bob Good of Virginia.
Gaetz’s letter is built directly on Revolver’s breakthrough reporting highlighting the role of likely federal informants in fomenting the events of 1/6. In fact, the letter quotes Revolver’s proposed question for the attorney general nearly verbatim. In its Ray Epps exposé, Revolver asked:
Here’s a question we’d like to see Merrick Garland dodge: Mr. Garland, is there now, and has there ever been, any individual(s) who appeared on the Capitol Violence Most Wanted List whose activities at the Capitol turned out to be part of their work as agents or assets of a US government agency?
Garland cannot fall back on that question probing to an ongoing investigation. We’re not asking about an investigation. We’re asking a process question related to the FBI’s decision-making process for adding individuals to its Most Wanted list.
Revolver looks forward to an honest response from the attorney general, or to his desperate attempts to evade a fully truthful answer. As Revolver wrote in its exclusive last week:
[O]n January 8, 2021, the FBI begged the public for information regarding the identity of Suspect 16, Ray Epps, and even offered a cash reward.
The public obliged, and in less than three days, Ray Epps was identified as Suspect 16. Researchers corroborated his identity with troves of unassailable direct evidence, including an effective confssion from Epps himself to his own local newspaper.
Then, for nearly six months, amidst the biggest manhunt in American history, the FBI did nothing with this information. As the FBI did nothing on Epps, it was simultaneously investigating, arresting, raiding and imprisoning hundreds of completely benign MAGA moms and social media trolls — mostly for minor misdemeanor trespassing charges.
As Revolver noted, not only has Ray Epps never been arrested, despite the FBI’s tremendous initial interest in his identity, but in July the FBI belatedly tried to pretend it was never interested in him at all:
[O]n July 1, between the hours of 3:37 a.m. and 5:55 p.m., the FBI finally took action on Ray Epps. But not to prosecute him, or to announce a sweeping investigation or FBI SWAT raid on Epps’s house for all of his phones and electronics. Instead, someone at the FBI quietly and stealthily purged every trace of Ray Epps from the Capitol Riots Most Wanted database.
Using the Wayback Machine from archive.org, we see that from January 8, 2021 until 3:37 a.m. on July 1, every archived version of the FBI.gov website shows Ray Epps as Suspect 16. … To anyone checking the January 6 FBI Most Wanted List today, “Suspect 16” is just a ghost.
https://www.revolver.news/2021/11/firebrand-congressman-matt-gaetz-demands-answers-from-merrick-garland-in-wake-of-revolvers-bombshell-1-6-reporting/