American radio host and conspiracy theoristFor other people named Alex Jones, see Alex Jones (disambiguation).

Alexander Emerick Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American far-right radio show host and prominent conspiracy theorist. He hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas, which the Genesis Communications Network syndicates across the United States and online. Jones's website, InfoWars, promotes conspiracy theories and fake news, as do his other websites NewsWars and PrisonPlanet. Jones has provided a platform and support for white nationalists, giving Unite the Right attendee and white supremacist Nick Fuentes a platform on his website Banned.Video, as well as serving as an "entry point" to their ideology.

Jones has promoted conspiracy theories alleging that the United States government either concealed information about or outright falsified the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School m* shooting, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, and the 1969 Moon landing. He has claimed that several governments and big businesses have colluded to create a "New World Order" through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and—above all—inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria".

Mainstream sources have described Jones as far-right and a conspiracy theorist. Jones has described himself as a paleoconservative and a libertarian.

A longtime critic of Republican and Democratic foreign and security policy, Jones supported Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid and continued to support him as a savior from an alleged criminal bipartisan cabal controlling the federal government, despite falling out over several of Trump's policies including airstrikes against the *ad regime. A staunch supporter of Trump's reelection, Jones supported the false claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election and, on January 6, 2021, was a speaker at a rally in Lafayette Square Park supporting Trump, preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

Contents

• 1 Early life and education
  • 1.1 Waco siege and Oklahoma bombing
  • 1.2 Early broadcasting career
• 2 InfoWars
  • 2.1 The Alex Jones Show
  • 2.2 Website, own-brand and endorsed products
  • 2.3 Social media restrictions and bans
• 3 Views and incidents
  • 3.1 Early political activities
  • 3.2 Gun rights
  • 3.3 Other opinions
  • 3.4 Book project
• 4 Connections to Donald Trump
  • 4.1 2016 presidential campaign
  • 4.2 Trump as president
  • 4.3 Events of January 2021
• 5 Litigation
  • 5.1 Pizzagate conspiracy theory
  • 5.2 Chobani yogurt company
  • 5.3 Charlottesville car attack
  • 5.4 Sandy Hook claims and lawsuits
  • 5.5 Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
• 6 Personal life
• 7 Media
  • 7.1 Films
  • 7.2 Television
  • 7.3 Author
  • 7.4 Film subject
• 8 Notes
• 9 References
• 10 External links

Early life and education

Jones was born on February 11, 1974, in Dallas, Texas and was raised in the suburb of Rockwall. His father is a dentist and his mother is a homemaker. He is of Irish, German, Welsh, English, and partially Comanche descent. The family moved to Austin in 1991.

He attended Anderson High School, where he played football and graduated in 1993. After graduating, Jones briefly attended Austin Community College before dropping out. As a teenager, he read None Dare Call It Conspiracy, a book by John Birch Society theorist Gary Allen, which alleged global bankers controlled American politics rather than elected officials. It had a profound influence on him, and Jones has described Allen's work as "the easiest-to-read primer on The New World Order".

Waco siege and Oklahoma bombing

Near the end of Jones senior high school year, at the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas, around 100 miles from Austin, the Waco siege ended in April 1993 with a substantial fire and a significant number of fatalities. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), these events "only confirmed his belief in the inexorable progress of unseen, malevolent forces". It was at this time, he started to host a call-in show on public access television (PACT/ACTV) in Austin.

The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, was intended by perpetuator Timothy McVeigh as a response to the federal involvement in the end of the Waco siege on its second anniversary. Jones began accusing the federal government of having caused it: "I understood there's a kleptocracy working with psychopathic governments—clutches of evil that know the tricks of control". He did not believe it was the responsibility of McVeigh and his *ociate Terry Nichols. In 1998, he released his first film, America Destroyed by Design.

In 1998, Jones organized a successful campaign to build a new Branch Davidian church, as a memorial to those who died during the 1993 fire. He often discussed the project on his public-access television program. He claimed that David Koresh and his followers were peaceful people who were murdered by Attorney General Janet Reno and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms during the siege.

Early broadcasting career

Jones began his career in Austin working on a live, call-in format public-access cable television program. In 1996, Jones switched to radio, hosting a show named The Final Edition on KJFK (98.9 FM). Influenced by radio host William Cooper, who phoned in to Jones' early shows, Jones began to broadcast about the New World Order conspiracy theory at this time.

While running for Congress, Ron Paul was a guest on his show several times. In 1999, Jones tied with Shannon Burke for that year's poll of "Best Austin Talk Radio Host", as voted by readers of The Austin Chronicle. Later that year, he was fired from KJFK-FM for refusing to broaden his topics. The station's operations manager said that Jones's views made it difficult for the station to sell advertising. Jones said:

It was purely political, and it came down from on high: I was told 11 weeks ago to lay off Clinton, to lay off all these politicians, to not talk about rebuilding the church, to stop bashing the Marines, A to Z.

InfoWars

Main article: InfoWars InfoWars logo NewsWars logo

Jones is the publisher and director of the InfoWars fake news website responsible for promoting conspiracy theories. InfoWars was originally founded by Alex and Kelly Jones (his then-wife) in about 1999, initially as a mail-order outlet for the sale of their conspiracy-orientated videos. The InfoWars website around 2016 was receiving approximately 10 million monthly visits, making its reach more extensive than mainstream news websites such as The Economist and Newsweek. Another of Jones' websites is PrisonPlanet.com.

The Alex Jones Show

After his firing from KJFK-FM, Jones began to broadcast his own show by Internet connection from his home. In July 2000, a group of Austin Community Access Center (ACAC) programmers claimed that Jones used legal proceedings and ACAC policy to intimidate them or try to get their broadcasts removed. In 2001, Jones's radio show was syndicated on approximately 100 stations.

On the day of the 9/11 attacks, Jones said on his radio show there was a "98 percent chance this was a government-orchestrated controlled bombing." He began promoting the conspiracy theory that the Bush administration was behind the attack. As a result, several stations dropped Jones program, according to Will Bunch. Jones became a leading figure of the "9/11 truther" cause. In 2010, the show attracted around two million listeners each week. According to Alexander Zaitchik of Rolling Stone magazine, in 2011 Jones had a larger on-line audience than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined. In 2020, The Alex Jones Show was syndicated nationally by the Genesis Communications Network to more than 100 AM and FM radio stations in the United States.

According to journalist Will Bunch, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, the show has a demographic that leans more towards younger listeners than other conservative pundits due to Jones's "highly conspiratorial tone and Web-oriented approach". Bunch also stated Jones "feed on the deepest paranoia".

Jones told The Washington Post in November 2016 his radio show, then syndicated to 129 stations, had a daily audience of 5 million listeners and his video streams had topped 80 million viewers in a single month.

Website, own-brand and endorsed products

Jones with Paul Joseph Watson in 2013

According to a court testimony Jones delivered in 2014, InfoWars then had revenues of over $20 million a year.

A 2017 piece for German magazine Der Spiegel by Veit Medick indicated that two-thirds of Jones's funds derive from sales of his own products. These products are marketed through the InfoWars website and through advertising spots on Jones's show. They include dietary supplements, toothpaste, bulletproof vests and "brain pills," which hold "an appeal for anyone who believes Armageddon is near", according to Medick. From September 2015 to the end of 2018, the InfoWars store made $165 million in sales according to court filings relating to the Sandy Hook lawsuits Jones lost.

In August 2017, Californian medical company Labdoor, Inc reported on tests applied to six of Jones's dietary supplement products. These included a product named Survival Shield, which was found by Labdoor to contain only iodine, and a product named Oxy-Powder, which comprised a compound of magnesium oxide and citric acid—common ingredients in dietary supplements. Labdoor indicated no evidence of prohibited or harmful substances, but cast doubt on Infowars' marketing claims for these products, and *erted that the quan*y of the ingredients in certain products would be "too low to be appropriately effective".

On a 2017 segment of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver stated that Jones spends "nearly a quarter" of his on-air time promoting products sold on his website, many of which are purported solutions to medical and economic problems claimed to be caused by the conspiracy theories described on his show.

Jones continued this behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Jones was issued a cease and desist from the Attorney General of New York, after he claimed, in complete absence of evidence, that products he sold, including colloidal silver toothpaste, were an effective treatment for COVID-19. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also sent him a letter on April 9, 2020, warning that the federal government might proceed to seize the products he was marketing for COVID-19 or fine him if he continued to sell them. A disclaimer appeared on Jones' website saying his products were not intended for treating "the novel coronavirus". On a linked page, Jones was quoted: “They plan on, if they’ve fluoridated you and vaccinated you and stunned you and mesmerized you with the TV and put you in a trance, on killing you." Jones continued to sell the products.

New research commissioned by the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) has determined that two products sold by Jones contain potentially dangerous levels of the heavy metal lead, which is universally known to be harmful to the body.

Social media restrictions and bans

On July 24, 2018, YouTube removed four InfoWars' videos citing "child endangerment and hate speech", issued a "strike" against the channel, and suspended the ability to live stream. On July 27, 2018, Facebook suspended Jones's profile for 30 days, and removed the same videos, saying they violated the website's standards against hate speech and bullying. On August 3, 2018, S*cher Radio removed all of his podcasts citing har*ment.

Later that year, on August 6, 2018, Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify removed all content by Jones and InfoWars for policy violations. YouTube removed channels *ociated with InfoWars, including The Alex Jones Channel. On Facebook, four pages *ociated with InfoWars and Alex Jones were removed over repeated policy violations. Apple removed all podcasts *ociated with Jones from iTunes. On August 13, 2018, Vimeo removed all of Jones's videos because of "prohibitions on discriminatory and hateful content". Facebook cited instances of dehumanizing immigrants, Muslims and transgender people, as well as glorification of violence, as examples of hate speech. After InfoWars was banned from Facebook, Jones used another of his websites, NewsWars, to cir*vent the ban.

Additionally, Jones's accounts were removed from Pinterest, Mailchimp and LinkedIn. As of early August:2018, Jones retained active accounts on Instagram, Google+ and Twitter. Jones tweeted a Periscope video calling on others to get their "battle rifles" ready against antifa, the mainstream media, and Chicom operatives. In the video he says: "Now is time to act on the enemy before they do a false flag." Twitter cited this as the reason to suspend his account for a week in August.

In September, Jones was permanently banned from Twitter and Periscope after berating CNN reporter Oliver Darcy. On September 7, 2018, the InfoWars app was removed from the Apple App Store for "objectionable content". He was banned from using PayPal for business transactions having violated the company's policies by expressing "hate or discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions."

InfoWars remained available on Roku devices, in January 2019 a year after its removal from multiple streaming services. Roku indicated that they do not "curate or censor based on viewpoint," and that it had policies against content that is "unlawful, incited illegal activities, or violates third-party rights," but that InfoWars was not in violation of these policies. Following a social media backlash, they removed InfoWars and stated "After the InfoWars channel became available, we heard from concerned parties and have determined that the channel should be removed from our platform."

In March 2019, YouTube terminated the Resistance News channel due to reuploading live streams from InfoWars. On May 1, 2019, Jones was barred from using both Facebook and Instagram. Jones briefly moved to Dlive, but was suspended in April 2019 for violating community guidelines.

In March 2020, the InfoWars app was removed from the Google Play Store due to Jones disseminating misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. A Google spokesperson stated that "combating misinformation on the Play Store is a top priority for the team" and apps that violate Play policy by "distributing misleading or harmful information" are removed from the store.

Comedian Joe Rogan attracted controversy for hosting Jones on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, in October 2020. The episode was made available on YouTube and Spotify in spite of Jones's ban from both platforms. Though Rogan fact-checked Jones throughout the course of the interview, he nonetheless faced backlash from critics, who accused Rogan of giving Jones a platform to spread misinformation and validate his views. A YouTube spokesman responded that YouTube reviewed the episode and determined it did not violate the site's guidelines, noting that YouTube bans channels rather than individuals.

Views and incidents

Jones during a 9/11 Truth movement event on September 11, 2007, in Manhattan

Jones has described himself as a conservative, paleoconservative and libertarian, terms he uses interchangeably. Others describe him as conservative, right-wing, alt-right, and far-right. Asked about such labels, Jones said he is "proud to be listed as a thought criminal against Big Brother".

Early political activities

Jones at a protest in Dallas in 2013

In 1998, he was removed from a George W. Bush rally at Bayport Industrial District, Texas. Jones interrupted governor Bush's speech, demanding that the Federal Reserve and Council on Foreign Relations be abolished. Journalist David Weigel, reporting on the incident, said Jones "seemed to launch into public events as if flung from another universe."

In early 2000, Jones was one of seven Republican candidates for state representative in Texas House District 48, an open swing district based in Austin, Texas. Jones said that he was running "to be a watchdog on the inside" but withdrew from the race after a couple of weeks.

On July 15, 2000, Jones infiltrated the Bohemian Grove Cremation of Care, a supposed planning event of the New World Order involving child sacrifice, which he called "a ritualistic shedding of conscience and empathy" and an "abuse of power".

On June 8, 2006, while on his way to cover a meeting of the Bilderberg Group in Ottawa, Jones was stopped and detained at the Ottawa airport by Canadian authorities. They confiscated his p*port, camera equipment, and most of his belongings. He was later allowed to enter Canada legally. Jones said about his immigration hold: "I want to say, on the record, it takes two to tango. I could have handled it better."

On September 8, 2007, Jones was arrested while protesting at 6th Avenue and 48th Street in New York City, when his group crashed a live television show featuring Geraldo Rivera. He was charged with operating a megaphone without a permit, and two other persons were also cited for disorderly conduct. One of Jones's fellow protesters was reported as saying, "It was:... guerrilla information warfare."

Gun rights

Jones is a vocal gun rights advocate. MTV labeled him a "staunch Second Amendment supporter", while the London Daily Telegraph called him a "gun-nut".

In January 2013, Jones was invited to speak on Piers Morgan's CNN show after promoting an online pe*ion to deport Morgan because of his support of gun control. In the ensuing debate with Morgan, Jones stated that "1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms". Jones was referring to the American Revolutionary War in relation to theoretical gun control measures taken by the government. Jones said he owned around 50 firearms. Morgan said on CNN's Newsroom the following evening he couldn't conceive of a "better adverti*t for gun control than Alex Jones' interview last night". On his own show, according to The Atlantic, Glenn Beck said Morgan "is trying to make everybody who has guns and who believes in the Second Amendment to be a deterrent to an out of control government look like a madman. So now he immediately books the madman and makes him look like a conservative."

In a New York magazine interview in November 2013, Jones said m* shootings in the United States "were very, very suspicious, but at minimum, the tragic events were used to try to create guilt on the part of the average gun owner. So via the guilt trip, they would accept their individual liberties curtailed."

Other opinions

Jones is a proponent of the New World Order conspiracy theory. In 2009, Jones claimed that a convicted con man's scheme to take over a long-vacant, would-be for-profit prison in Hardin, Montana was part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) plot to detain US citizens in concentration camps, relating to said conspiracy theory. On June 9, 2013, Jones appeared as a guest on the BBC's Sunday Politics, discussing conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg Group, with presenter Andrew Neil and journalist David Aaronovitch. Aaronovitch implied that, since Jones had not been killed for exposing conspiracies, they either do not exist or that Jones is a part of them himself. Jones began shouting and interrupting, and Neil ended the interview, describing Jones as "an idiot" and "the worst person I've ever interviewed". According to Neil on Twitter, Jones was still shouting until he knew that he was off-air.

Jones was in a "media crossfire" in 2011, which included criticism by Rush Limbaugh, when the news spread that Jared Lee Loughner, the perpetrator of the 2011 Tucson shooting, had been "a fan" of the 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change of which Jones had been an executive producer.

Jones has promoted the white genocide conspiracy theory. Media Matters covered his claim that NFL players protesting during the national anthem were "kneeling to white genocide" and violence against whites, which the SPLC featured in their headlines review. On October 2, 2017, Jones claimed that Democrats and communists were plotting imminent "white genocide" attacks. His reporting and public views on the topic have received support and coverage from white nationalist publications and groups, such as the AltRight Corporation and the New Zealand National Front.

Jones has repeatedly made hateful comments towards the LGBT community. In 2010, he claimed: "The reason there's so many gay people now is because it's a chemical warfare operation, and I have the government do*ents where they said they're going to encourage *sexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children". In a 2013 interview on YouTube concerning same-sex marriage he ultimately blamed the "globalists" who "want to encourage the breakdown of the family, because the family is where people owe their allegiance" as a means "to get rid of God" by "taking the rights of an ancient, unified program of marriage and ... are breaking it". He has claimed that the government is putting chemicals in water supplies to make people *sexual. In 2018, Jones threatened to come after drag performers with torches "like the villagers in the night".

Jones believes that global warming is a hoax made up by the World Bank to control the world economy through a carbon tax.

Salon paraphrased Jones as having claimed.President Obama had "access to weather weapons capable of not only creating tornadoes but also moving them around, on demand" His belief in weather warfare has been reported by mainstream media. He has claimed that Hurricane Irma may have been geo-engineered.

Jones is a proponent of the conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama is transgender, with much of his apparent proof being pictures of Obama where it appears she has a bulge in her pants, and a video clip where Barack Obama calls her "Michael". Jones has claimed that the election of Joe Biden is part of a plot by the deep state and the globalists to bring about "the takedown of America".

In April 2017, Jones was criticized for claiming that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack was a hoax and false flag. Jones stated that the attack was potentially carried out by civil defense group White Helmets, which he claimed are an Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist front financed by George Soros.

While Jones initially supported QAnon, Right Wing Watch reported that he had ceased to support QAnon by May 2018, declaring the source "completely compromised". In 2021, after the Capitol attack, Jones denounced believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory on InfoWars.

Jones is known for both his opposition to vaccines, and his views on vaccine controversies. On June 16, 2017, Vox covered his claim that the introduction of the Sesame Street character Julia, an autistic Muppet, was "designed to normalize autism, a disorder caused by vaccines." On November 20, 2017, The New Yorker quoted Jones as claiming InfoWars was "defending people's right to not be forcibly infected with vaccines". Critics argue that he endangers "children by convincing their parents that vaccines are dangerous." Jones has specifically disputed the safety and effectiveness of MMR vaccines.

Book project

On January 23, 2018, Jones announced he would be working with author Neil Strauss on his upcoming book, *led The Secret History of the Modern World & the War for the Future.

Connections to Donald Trump

2016 presidential campaign

On 2 December 2015, Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, appeared on The Alex Jones Show, with Trump stating to Jones at the end: "your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down. You’ll be very, very impressed, I hope." During the broadcast, Jones compared Trump to George Washington and said 90% of his listeners supported his candidacy. Jones and Trump both said the appearance was arranged by Roger Stone, who made multiple appearances on Jones' program during the 2016 presidential campaign. Ron and Rand Paul were the only other significant politicians to appear on Jones show in the preceding few years. Jones indicated his support for Trump during the presidential campaign.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, via his Twitter account, Trump linked to InfoWars articles as sources for his claim "thousands and thousands" of Muslims celebrated 9/11 and the false *ertion California was not suffering from a drought. A few days before one of Trump's August 2016 rallies, InfoWars published a video claiming Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had mental health issues, which Trump recycled in his campaign speech at the rally, according to Mother Jones. Trump's claim the 2016 vote would be rigged, The Independent reported, followed a Jones video making the same claim two days earlier. In one of her own speeches and video ads, Clinton criticized Trump for his ties to Jones.

Jones ran a campaign attacking former President Bill Clinton, as a rapist. He designed a T-shirt, ran another "get on MSM" compe*ion and gate-crashed The Young Turks set at the RNC, whilst displaying the T-shirt, resulting in a physical altercation with Cenk Uygur. Jones said Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were demons because they both smelt of sulfur, a claim supposedly based on *ertions from people in contact with them. In the Fall of 2015, InfoWars began selling T-shirt's with the slogan "Hillary for Prison".

According to Jones, Trump called him on the day after the election to thank him for his help in the campaign.

Trump as president

In April 2018, Jones publicly criticized President Trump during a livestream, after Trump announced a military strike against Syria. During the stream, Jones also stated that Trump had not called him during the prior six months. A leaked interview of Jones in January 2019 expressing displeasure over his relationship with Trump was released by the Southern Poverty Law Center in March 2021, with Jones stating "I wish I never would have * met Trump:... I'm so sick of * Donald Trump, man. God, I'm * sick of him."

Nevertheless, he backed the president during his re-election campaign in 2020 and called on demonstrations to be held on the premise the election had been "rigged" against Trump.

After Donald Trump recommended at an August 2021 rally that people choose to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Jones said that Trump was either lying or "not that bright" and "a dumb*".

Events of January 2021

For broader coverage of this topic, see 2021 United States Capitol attack.

Jones partially funded and raised other funds to finance the January 6, 2021 Trump rally in Washington preceding the 2021 United States Capitol attack. The New York Times reported he *isted in raising at least $650,000 from Julie Fancelli, a Publix grocery chain heiress who is a follower of InfoWars, to finance Trump's rally on the Ellipse, including $200,000 of the total amount deposited in one of Jones' bank accounts.

Jones attended the January 5 and 6 rallies at the capitol. On January 5, he was a scheduled speaker at the March to Save America and said, "We have only begun to resist the globalists. We have only begun our fight against their tyranny. They have tried to steal this election in front of everyone." And "I don't know how this is all going to end, but if they want to fight, they better believe they've got one," Jones said that night, according to the same video. Jones called Joe Biden a "slave of Satan" and said, "Whatever happens to President Trump in 15 days, he is still the elected president of this republic. And we do not recognize the Communist Chinese agent Joe Biden, or his controllers."

The next day, Wednesday, January 6, at a gathering in Lafayette Park north of the Capitol, he addressed the crowd with a bullhorn, and stated that he had seen "over a hundred" members of antifa in the crowd, a baseless *ertion other Trump supporters had also made, although the FBI said there was no evidence of antifa involvement. The same day, a video of Jones was posted on InfoWars, in which he is recorded saying "We declare 1776 against the new world order.... We need to understand we're under attack, and we need to understand this is 21st-century warfare and get on a war-footing". In the same video, before setting off toward the Capitol building, Jones told the crowd: "We're here to take our rightful country back peacefully, because we're not globalist, antifa criminals. So let's start marching, and I salute you all." When rioters attacked the Capitol, Jones called on them to stop. "Let's not fight the police and give the system what they want," he said.

In February 2021, The Washington Post reported that the FBI was investigating any role Jones might have played in influencing the participation of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in the incursion. Jones had previously hosted leaders of the two groups on his programs. Some members of the groups had been indicted for conspiracy in the incident.

On November 22, 2021, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack subpoenaed Jones for testimony and do*ents by December 18 and December 6, respectively. He had a virtual meeting with the committee by video link on January 24. By the estimate of his legal team, Jones said, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 100 times and had been instructed to do so by his counsel.

Litigation

Pizzagate conspiracy theory

In February 2017, James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, sent Jones a letter demanding an apology and retraction of his advocacy for the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Jones was given one month to comply or be subject to a libel suit. In March 2017, Jones apologized to Alefantis and retracted his allegations.

Chobani yogurt company

In April 2017, the Chobani yogurt company filed suit against Jones for his claims that their factory in Idaho employing refugees, was connected to a 2016 child sexual *ault and a rise in tuberculosis. As a result, Jones issued an apology and retraction of his allegations in May 2017.

Charlottesville car attack

In March 2018, Brennan Gilmore, who shared a video he captured of a car hitting counter protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally, filed a lawsuit against Jones and six others. According to the lawsuit, Jones said that Gilmore was acting as part of a false flag operation conducted by disgruntled government "deep state" employees promoting a coup against Trump. Gilmore alleged he received death threats from Jones's audience.

Sandy Hook claims and lawsuits

Jones speaking in Washington, D.C. in 2018

Jones spread conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting being false flag operations by gun control advocates. He stated "no one died" in Sandy Hook and Stoneman Douglas survivor David Hogg was a crisis actor. These claims have been proven false.

In March 2018, six families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, and an FBI agent who responded to the attack, filed a defamation suit against Jones for spreading false claims, resulting in the har*ment, stalking and threatening of survivors. By February 2019, ten families joined suits and won a series of court rulings requiring Jones to testify under oath. Jones was later ordered to undergo a sworn deposition, along with three other defendants related to the operation of Infowars. He was also ordered to turn over internal business do*ents related to Infowars. In this deposition, Jones acknowledged the deaths were real, stating he had "almost like a form of psychosis", where he "basically thought everything was staged."

Leonard Pozner, father of a victim in the Sandy Hook shooting, who has been forced to move several times to avoid har*ment and death threats, was accused by Jones of being a crisis actor. Pozner filed a defamation suit against Jones in Texas. Jones was found to be in contempt of court even before the trial started, failing to produce witnesses and materials relevant to the procedures. Consequently, Jones and Infowars were fined a total of $126,000 in October and December 2019.

On January 22, 2021, the Texas Supreme Court threw out an appeal by Jones that four lawsuits from the families of the Sandy Hook shootings for defamation and distress be dismissed. The court allowed the judgments of two lower courts to stand without comment, allowing the lawsuits to continue. On April 5, 2021, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal against a Connecticut court sanction in the defamation lawsuit.

On September 27, 2021, a district judge in Texas issued three default judgments against Jones, requiring him to pay all damages in two lawsuits that had been filed against him in 2018 by the families of two children killed at Sandy Hook. These rulings came after Jones repeatedly failed to hand over do*ents and evidence as ordered by the court, which the judge characterized as "flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilities of discovery under the rules." On November 15, 2021, a superior court judge in Connecticut issued another default judgment in the fourth defamation lawsuit against Jones, and the amount he must pay the families will be determined at trial. As part of the legal settlement made against him, Jones claimed *ets of $6.2 million in January 2022.

On 6 April 2022, according to the *ociated Press and The Daily Beast, a lawsuit was filed in Austin, Texas by some of the Sandy Hook families accusing Jones of hiding *ets worth millions of dollars after he began being sued for defamation by the families of Sandy Hook victims. The suit claims Jones "conspired to divert his *ets to shell companies owned by insiders like his parents, his children, and himself". The lawsuit alleges Jones drew $18 million from the Infowars company beginning in 2018 and accuses Jones of claiming a "dubious" $54 million debt at about the same time to another company alleged by the lawsuit to be also owned by Jones. Norm Pattis, an attorney for Jones, said the lawsuit was "ridiculous" and denied that there had been any attempt to conceal *ets.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

In March 2022, after his settlement offer of $120,000 to each of the 13 people involved in the lawsuits was rejected, the three companies owned by Jones had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in April 2022, suspending further civil litigation claims. The three companies affected are the company responsible for the Infowars website, Prison Planet TV, and IWHealth (or Infowars Health). The court filings of April 17 estimated InfoWars *ets at between $0–$50,000, but its liabilities (including from the damages awarded against Jones in defamation suits) were stated as being between $1 million to $10 million. “Alex Jones is just delaying the inevitable: a public trial in which he will be held accountable for his profit-driven campaign of lies against the Sandy Hook families who have brought this lawsuit,” said a representation of the families involved in a Connecticut lawsuit against Jones.

Personal life

Jones has three children with ex-wife Kelly Jones. The couple divorced in March 2015. In 2017, Kelly sought sole or joint custody of their children due to her ex-husband's behavior. She claimed "he's not a stable person" and "I'm concerned that he is engaged in felonious behavior, threatening a member of Congress" (Adam Schiff). His attorney responded by claiming that "he's playing a character" and describing him as a "performance artist". On his show, Jones denied playing a character and he called his show "the most bona fide, hard-core, real McCoy thing there is, and everybody knows it"; whereas in court, Jones clarified that he generally agreed with his attorney's statement, but that he disagreed with the media's interpretation of the term "performance artist". Kelly was awarded the right to decide where their children live while he maintains visitation rights. In April 2020, a state district judge denied an emergency motion by Kelly to secure custody of their daughters for the next two weeks after Jones led a rally at the Capitol, where he was mobbed by unmasked supporters and called COVID-19 a hoax.

His son, Rex Jones, has worked for InfoWars, receiving media attention for a video which was critical of gun control and BuzzFeed News.

Jones married Erika Wulff Jones in 2017 and has another child with her.

Media

Films

Jones and filmgoers at the première of A Scanner Darkly in which Jones has a cameo

Television

Author

• Jones, Alex (2002). 9-11: Descent Into Tyranny. Austin, Texas: Progressive Press. ISBN:978-1-57558-113-2. OCLC:52400701.
• Jones, Alex (2009). The Answer to 1984 Is 1776. London: The Disinformation Company. ISBN:978-1-934708-15-6. OCLC:421814975.

Film subject

Notes

References

1. Nuzzi, Olivia (July 29, 2014). "Dear Moon Landing Deniers: Sorry I Called You Moon Landing Deniers". The Daily Beast. New York: IAC. Archived from the original on May 3, 2017. Retrieved August 27, 2014.
2. Zaitchik, Alexander (March 2, 2011). "Meet Alex Jones, the Talk Radio Host Behind Charlie Sheen's Crazy Rants". Rolling Stone. New York: Wenner Media LLC. Archived from the original on March 29, 2011. Retrieved March 24, 2011.
3. May, Albert L. (2010). "Who tube? How YouTube's news and politics space is going mainstream". The International Journal of Press/Politics. 15 (4): 506. CiteSeerX:10.1.1.1027.3801. doi:10.1177/1940161210382861. S2CID:146791861.
4. "Alex Jones' pro-gun tirade at Piers Morgan on British presenter's own show". The Guardian. London, England. January 8, 2013. Archived from the original on August 22, 2013. Retrieved January 10, 2013.

External links

• Alex Jones at IMDb

Events

• Timeline
• Law enforcement response
  • Killing of Ashli Babbitt
• Death of Brian Sicknick

Participants

• Jake Angeli
• Joe Biggs
• Derrick Evans
• Tim "Baked Alaska" Gionet
• Simone Gold
• Klete Keller
• Ethan Nordean
• Dana Rohrabacher
• Rick Saccone
• Jon Schaffer
• John Earle Sullivan‎‎

Aftermath

• 2021 U.S. inauguration week protests
• Companies that halted political contributions
• Reactions
  • domestic
  • international
• Second impeachment of Donald Trump
  • trial
• Suicides
  • Howard Liebengood
  • Jeffrey L. Smith
• Proceedings
  • January 6 commission
  • House Select Committee
  • criminal charges
• Justice for J6 rally

Related

• Alex Jones
• Ali Alexander
• Donald Trump
• Jericho March
• Nick Fuentes
• Oath Keepers
• Proud Boys
• QAnon
• Rudy Giuliani
• Sedition Caucus
• Social media use by Donald Trump
• Trumpism
• Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol (2021)

Online
cultureGroups

• AltRight Corporation
• American Freedom Party
• Anti-Communist Action
• Antipodean Resistance
• Arktos Media
• Asatru Folk *embly
• Atomwaffen Division
• The Base
• Deplorable Pride
• GRECE
• Groypers
• Gruppe S
• Hundred-Handers
• Iden*y Evropa (defunct)
• Iden*arian Movement of Austria
• Imperium Europa
• Lads Society
• League of the South
• Les Iden*aires
• London Forum
• National Policy Ins*ute
• Nationalist Front
• New Century Foundation
• Nordic Resistance Movement
• Patriot Front
• Patriot Prayer
• Proud Boys
• Rise Above Movement
• Three Percenters
• Thule-Seminar
• Traditionalist Worker Party (defunct)
• True Blue Crew
• Vanguard America
• Washington Summit Publishers
• Wolves of Vinland
• Wotansvolk

EventsPeople

• Virginia Abernethy
• James Allsup
• Jake Angeli
• Andrew Anglin
• Andrew "weev" Auernheimer
• Steve Bannon
• Theodore "Vox Day" Beale
• Carl "Sargon of Akkad" Benjamin
• Owen Benjamin
• Joe Biggs
• Don Black
• Peter Brimelow
• Tor "CatboyKami" Gustafsson Brookes
• Christopher Cantwell
• Mike Cernovich
• Mark Collett
• Alain de Benoist
• John Derbyshire
• Jack Donovan
• David Duke
• Mike Enoch
• Haakon Forwald
• Daniel Friberg
• Robert "Rob Darken" Fudali
• Nick Fuentes
• Jean-François Gariépy
• Ben Garrison
• Austin "Augustus Sol Invictus" Gillespie
• Tim "Baked Alaska" Gionet
• Faith Goldy
• Paul Gottfried
• Yevhen "Knjaz Varggoth" Hapon
• Christopher Paul H*on
• Matthew Heimbach
• Michael Hill
• Michael A. Hoffman II
• Sam Hyde
• Charles C. Johnson
• Greg Johnson
• William Daniel Johnson
• Alex Jones
• Arthur J. Jones
• Jason Jorjani
• Tom Kawcyznski
• Jason Kessler
• Steve King
• Elliot Kline
• Nick Land
• Alex Linder
• Lana Lokteff
• Laura Loomer
• Norman Lowell
• Klas Lund
• Kevin MacDonald
• James Mason
• Stephen McNallen
• Merlin Miller
• Stephen Miller
• Hendrik Mobus
• Stefan Molyneux
• Paul Nehlen
• Paul "GypsyCrusader" Nicholas Miller
• Ethan Nordean
• Jack Posobiec
• Ethan Ralph
• Paul Ray Ramsey
• William Regnery II
• Jack Renshaw
• Thomas Robb
• Colin "Millennial Woes" Robertson
• Steve Sailer
• Jeff Schoep
• Martin Sellner
• Simon Sheppard
• Lauren Southern
• Richard B. Spencer
• Brett Stevens
• Jared Taylor
• Tila Tequila
• Hal Turner
• Daryush "Roosh V" Valizadeh
• Ludovic "Famine" Van Alst
• Varg Vikernes
• Paul Joseph Watson
• Rick Wiles
• Lucian Wintrich
• Curtis Yarvin
• Milo Yiannopoulos

Opposition
and
criticism