{"id":1214183,"date":"2022-01-13T13:19:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T18:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1214183"},"modified":"2022-01-13T13:19:41","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T18:19:41","slug":"cnns-tapper-gop-lawmakers-who-believe-epps-conspiracy-not-exactly-a-mensa-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/cnns-tapper-gop-lawmakers-who-believe-epps-conspiracy-not-exactly-a-mensa-group\/","title":{"rendered":"CNN&#039;s Tapper: GOP Lawmakers Who Believe Epps Conspiracy \u2018Not Exactly a Mensa Group&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcnns-tapper-gop-lawmakers-who-believe-epps-conspiracy-not-exactly-a-mensa-group%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1214183&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Tapper214-e1552503776422.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Wednesday on his show \u201cThe Lead\u201d that members of Congress forwarding a \u201cfringe conspiracy theory\u201d about a man named Ray Epps, were not members of the high IQ society, Mensa International.<\/p>\n<p>Tapper said, \u201cThis is a fringe conspiracy theory, but I have to ask you because it\u2019s showing up at congressional hearings raised by House and Senate Republicans. An Arizona man, Ray Epps, has become a target of what appears to be a completely baseless right-wing conspiracy theory that he was an undercover FBI agent or informant or operative at the Capitol on January 6 last year. That he was planted by the government, this is the conspiracy theory. Planted by the government to encourage the insurrection. From his public profile and from reports about Epps, it appears he\u2019s a Trump supporter and a former member of the Arizona branch of the far right-wing group the Oath Keepers. Has the January 6th Committee looked into this accusation at all to see if there\u2019s any truth to it?\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Correspondent Ryan Nobles said, \u201cYes, they have Jake. The committee put out a statement yesterday saying that they have interviewed and talked with Ray Epps about his conduct around the Capitol on January 6 and that they specifically asked Epps if he\u2019s ever been employed by any federal government agency, specifically the FBI, to which he told them no. They also specifically asked him if he was an informant. He also said that he has never at any point in his life been an FBI informant.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>He continued, \u201cPart of this conspiracy \u2014 there\u2019s no evidence of which to back up \u2014 is at one point Epps was on a list of individuals that the FBI was looking for, as it relates to activity related to the Capitol insurrection, and he was eventually taken off that list. The conspiracy theorists have run wild with that, many of them members of Congress, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tommy Massie, even Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Of course, none of that has to do with his status as FBI informant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tapper said, \u201cWait a second, they thought the FBI put an image of one of their undercover operatives online and said \u2018wanted\u2019 and then took it off? That makes no sense at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nobles said, \u201cThat\u2019s the most specific piece of quote-unquote \u2018evidence\u2019 they\u2019ve offered when it comes to this conspiracy theory, Jake. There\u2019s just nothing else that would lend you to believe there\u2019s any facts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tapper said, \u201cNot exactly a Mensa group there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Pam Key on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pamkeyNEN\">@pamkeyNEN<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Wednesday on his show \u201cThe Lead\u201d that members of Congress forwarding a \u201cfringe conspiracy theory\u201d about a man named Ray Epps, were not members of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1214183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1214183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1214183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1214183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1214183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}