(John Ransom, Headline USA) North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn said that if the GOP retakes the US House in the November election, he thinks the Jan. 6 committee should be convened by Republicans to investigate the role of federal agents in fomenting the riot.
“We should investigate what the true origins of this were,” Cawthorn told the Daily Caller.
“There’s a man named Ray Epps who I believe has ties to some federal groups,” Cawthorn added. “There are a lot of situations where we heard that the FBI and other agencies had prior knowledge that some of these things were going to be happening.”
Republicans have accused the J6 committee of stonewalling over questions of whether Epps, 60-years old and a former Marine, was working as an informant for the government when he urged people to enter the Capitol illegally during the protest.
.@SenTedCruz: “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th? Yes or no?”
FBI’s Jill Sanborn: “I can’t answer that.” pic.twitter.com/Z5Sj1tSyNx
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 11, 2022
“Epps was seen on video the night of Jan. 5 asking other people to ‘go into the Capitol’ the next day before others began chanting ‘Fed, Fed, Fed’ at him,” said NBC News.
Several Republicans have asked law enforcement officials if, in fact, federal agents were present at the J6 riot, undercover, egging on demonstrators as Epps was seen doing.
“I questioned Attorney General Garland about whether there were Federal Agents present on 1/6,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., “and whether they agitated to go into the Capitol. Attorney General Garland refused to answer.”
Similarly Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked the FBI’s executive assistant director of the National Security Branch, Jill Sanborn: “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th? Yes or no?”
“I can’t answer that” said Sanborn, according to a video shared by C-Span.
Cawthorn wants more detailed answers to the question of what happened on Jan. 6 that ended up with protestors trespassing in the Capitol. He thinks the J6 committee, controlled by Democrats, already knows what happened but doesn’t want anyone else to know what they’ve learned.
“I’d love to see some of the footage of exactly what happened inside of the Capitol,” Cawthorn told the Daily Caller.
“I believe the reason they’re not wanting to release that footage is because, I suspect, there are several actors who are involved inside of this riot and inside of what happened on January 6 that they don’t want to have named,” he said.
