Ray Epps, the former Arizona Oath Keepers leader who was famously captured on camera a day before the Jan. 6, 2021, protests urging people to go into the U.S. Capitol, allegedly directed a group of individuals who removed “siege weapons,” including a long piece of 2-by-4-inch lumber, from a utility hatch on Capitol grounds after telling a witness they needed to slow the crowd so it didn’t “[expletive] up the plan,” a Kentucky man claims.
Eric Clark, 45, says he encountered Epps on the west side of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, although he didn’t realize who he was until he saw news reports about Epps earlier this year. He said that behavior and statements he witnessed took on new meaning after he read news reports about Epps’s possible role as a provocateur at the Capitol.