If Mr. Epps moves forward, the case would be another legal complication and reputational stain for the conservative network, which faces a growing list of lawsuits related to its airing of false claims about the 2020 election and its aftermath. They include a $2.7 billion suit from a second voting technology company, Smartmatic, and two separate claims by Fox Corporation shareholders. Another lawsuit from a former producer for Mr. Carlson, which Fox settled on June 30 for $12 million, alleged that he condoned and encouraged a toxic workplace.
A defamation suit by Mr. Epps would be further evidence of how Mr. Carlson continues to pose a headache for Fox well after the network relieved him of his anchoring duties. Fox executives took him off the air after his text messages, which became public as part of the Dominion suit, revealed he had expressed hateful and racist sentiments.
On the air, his behavior had begun to grate on senior Fox executives like Lachlan Murdoch, chief executive of Fox Corporation, who disliked Mr. Carlson’s continued promotion of conspiracy theories about Jan. 6, which had drawn rebukes from Republicans including Senator Mitch McConnell. On the day he was informed his show was canceled, Mr. Carlson had been planning to run another segment on Mr. Epps, according to a tweet from an authorized biographer of the host, Chadwick Moore.
By design, defamation law tilts heavily in the news media’s favor, making it difficult to be found liable for defaming public figures — who are often targets of media reporting — unless there is proof that the defendants either knew what they said was false or acted with a reckless disregard for the truth. Mr. Epps would be able to argue that Mr. Carlson repeatedly uttered statements about him from October 2021 to March 2023 that were baseless, or easily explained or contradicted by the facts reported in numerous news reports.
“His challenge is to get a judge, if he files the suit, to say this was so inherently, bizarrely improbable that only a reckless person would put it into circulation,” said Rodney Smolla, the president of Vermont Law School and a defamation expert who consulted for Dominion during its case against Fox News.
“No case is easy,” Mr. Smolla added, “but this one is certainly, in my view, viable.”
The attacks against Mr. Epps began circulating online after a video taken on the night before the Capitol attack. It shows Mr. Epps at a pro-Trump demonstration on a Washington street shouting that he planned to march to the Capitol and enter. After pausing for a few seconds, he adds, “Peacefully.” Some in the crowd begin chanting “Fed! Fed! Fed!” at him, implying he was a government agent trying to goad Trump supporters into committing a crime.
