Alex Jones says he'll talk to prosecutors about Jan. 6. What are the chances he'd tell the truth?
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Alex Jones wants to talk to the Justice Department about Jan. 6, his lawyer says, but he’s seeking immunity in exchange. There are a lot of reasons to doubt his sincerity here.
On Jan. 6, Jones led a crowd to the U.S. Capitol, chanting things like, “We’ve only begun to fight,” and saying, “We’re not surrendering.” Owen Shroyer, a host on Infowars, the conspiracy theorist website owned by Jones, marched along with Jones and climbed up on stacks of chairs at the Capitol along with Jones to make speeches. Shroyer has been charged with four misdemeanors. Earlier this year when he appeared before the select committee investigating Jan. 6, Jones told his viewers he invoked the Fifth Amendment “almost 100 times.” If he now wants to cooperate, that’s quite a turnaround.
RELATED STORY: Alex Jones’ Infowars files for bankruptcy
Marcy Wheeler points to Shroyer’s case in cautioning against taking Jones’ sudden desire to talk to the police too seriously, noting that the Justice Department has already debunked Shroyer’s claims about his own actions that day, claims echoed by Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander. “If Jones were to proffer a DIFFERENT story, then Alexander would be on the hook for a not-true story he told Jan6, and Shroyer would be on the hook for the not-true claims that a judge already ruled against,” Wheeler tweeted. Additionally, Jones and Shroyer have the same lawyer, she noted, so “Jones’ ability to proffer with Pattis would be limited by Pattis’ representation with Shroyer, unless their interests coincided.”
So if Jones cooperated in good faith, he’d either be selling out his buddies or he would be joined by at least one of them. But mostly, “good faith” and “Alex Jones” do not go together.
Texts recently revealed in the seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers related to Jan. 6 show that Jones was among the right-wing leaders the Oath Keepers and the First Amendment Praetorian, a militia, discussed providing security for.
Three of Jones’ companies, including Infowars, just filed for bankruptcy—but it looks less like a sign of legitimate financial distress than an attempt to evade paying damages in three lawsuits brought by families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, families he called “crisis actors” after their children were murdered, families in some cases harassed by his followers. The bankruptcy filings also came after Jones was held in contempt of court and fined until he sat for a deposition. And they were despite his popular dietary supplement business that charges jacked-up prices for particularly low doses of common vitamins and other supplements.
In addition to his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol and his vile harassment of the families of murdered children, Jones has claimed that the government uses both “weather weapons” and chemicals that turn people (and frogs) gay. He promoted the pizzagate conspiracy theory and called Robert Mueller a “demon.” He stopped a group of mothers and children being driven to a charity and screamed at them in the name of stopping child trafficking. Infowars shares a hosting service—and through it, technical staff—with sites owned by the white supremacist leader Nick Fuentes.
Granted, federal prosecutors sometimes have to work with terrible people to get evidence against even worse people. But Jones is a very special piece of work—and unless he can provide a lot of documentation, there’s never any reason to believe a word he says. If the Justice Department can use Jones to move up the Jan. 6 chain to get closer to people like Roger Stone and Donald Trump, that would be great. It’s just hard to believe that Jones is in earnest.
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