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Notes -
@ArjinFerman also
I don't want any ambiguity here, I never said or implied that Alex Jones "would do something like this" (I still don't know what is the 'something' you're referring to here), I never spoke of potential or possibilities about his conduct. The reason he came to mind is because I was trying to think of individuals comparable to Epps, and I first did so by deconstructing Epps's conduct into "He was on Capitol Grounds but did not enter, but encouraged others to enter". I figured finding someone who was caught on tape precisely asking people to enter was going to be a challenge, so I abstracted the latter factor into a more generalized "whipped up crowd to head towards the Capitol" to broaden the search. Alex Jones came to mind because he was there and I remembered him leading a "1776!" chant with a crowd. It's not going to be a perfect comparison, but I'm trying to do the work SlowBoy hasn't by proactively looking for individuals to compare Epps against, and I'm more than open to other suggestions.
I think Arjin summed it up well. Basically Alex Jones isn't a comparable example. I don't know if someone else is.
I'm not really sure on the whole original argument to begin with. Was Jan 6th instigated by intelligence agencies to create a false flag scenario? Probably not, seems like it was done too poorly. I think some actual lawmakers would have died if the FBI or CIA was really behind it and trying to sell it.
I instead think most of the hulabaloo around Jan 6th is media manufactured outrage. Most of the security footage from that day shows very boring stuff happen. There are like a few dozen tapes out of tens of thousands that show something approaching violence. One protestor was shot. 6 other people died of heart attacks. It delayed Trumps transition of power by day. It was largely a ceremonial event anyways. I know that's not the discussion you came here to have, so I only had my limited objection to the Alex Jones comparison.
Thanks for clearing it up, what edits should I make to my post to avoid giving other people the same wrong impression?
If there are no other comparable examples, then it's literally impossible to assert that Ray Epps was treated "unusually". I don't agree that there are no comparable examples, because I don't believe it's reasonable to expect the precision of a randomized controlled trial to ascertain how unusual a defendant's treatment is. So while we can't find a Ray Epps clone, it's still fair game to examine individuals who are close enough.
I looked some more and wish I found out about Ali Alexander earlier. He posted a video on January 7th saying "I did call for people to enter the US Capitol" and later during a livestream "I started a riot for the sitting president of the United States" (though he also admitted he's prone to exaggeration and hyperbole). He was never charged with a crime. A judge even examined his conduct and dismissed him from a civil lawsuit brought by Capitol Police officers because the judge ruled his speech did not rise to the level of incitement. Do you believe this guy is comparable enough to Ray Epps? Compared to Alexander, Epps was treated harshly.
There's more people who called for occupying the Capitol ahead of J6, like Matt Bracken who said "we will only be saved by millions of Americans moving to Washington, occupying the entire area—if necessary, storming right into the Capitol. You know, we know the rules of engagement: If you have enough people, you can push down any kind of a fence or a wall." I don't know if Bracken was ever on site so it's not directly comparable to Epps, but Bracken never being charged with a crime is one more data point on the comparison board.
I made a bird's eye view comparison by contrasting Epps to all other J6 defendants and nothing stood out. I then tried to make a more direct comparison to individual cases and nothing stands out there either. So overall I see no reason to believe that Ray Epps was treated with unusual anything. Do you think that's an unreasonable conclusion?
Again, I am probably the wrong person to be talking to, I don't really think Epps is an undercover agent. I don't think the FBI or CIA instigated jan 6th. I think it happened somewhat organically, and then the media blew what happened way out of proportion.
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The "something" is:
cjet is claiming this is pretty much opposite of what happened, and you said you don't have any evidence to prove otherwise.
Except you didn't mention that you decided to loosen the criteria in your original post at all, so how can you claim to be surprised we took your post as implying Alex Jones "was on Capitol Grounds but did not enter, but encouraged others to enter" if this is what you yourself claim Epps' conduct boils down to?
So why don't you just say "oops, my bad, I didn't mean to imply that", and get back to the topic at hand?
If that's what cjet is indeed referring to then oops, my bad, I didn't mean to imply that and I'm curious how that misinterpretation occurred with what I wrote and what edits I should make to rectify that. I thought "encouraged others to march towards the Capitol but did not enter themselves" was clear enough but I'm open to edit suggestions. I'm also open to other individuals who serve as better comparisons.
If we're allowing for imperfect comparisons, what exactly is the reason to not compare him to Tarrio or others that got got for "seditious conspiracy"?
No reasons at all. Comparisons get less relevant the more distant they are but there's still some insight to be gleaned. Here's Tarrio's sentencing memos filed by prosecutors (includes all other codefendants) and the one filed by Tarrio's attorney.
That's a 100 pages worth of documents, is there anything in particular I should be seeing there?
I haven't reviewed them so I don't know. I tried multiple comparisons that people had various objections to so I'm inviting others to find better ones to contrast against. The sentencing memos tend to be the most helpful one-stop-shop to quickly scan for information so I figured linking to them would be helpful.
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