Alex Jones blames ‘form of psychosis’ for Sandy Hook ‘hoax’ claims
Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says a “form of psychosis” caused him to believe that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged. Nathan Rousseau Smith has the story.
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Alex Jones, the firebrand Infowars host and conspiracy peddler says in a sworn deposition that his false statements after the Sandy Hook killings were caused by a “psychosis.”
Jones made the claim in response to a defamation lawsuit brought by family members of the victims of the 2012 massacre.
He faces eight lawsuits over his comments about the tragedy, including conspiracy theories that the shooting, that left 27 people dead, including 20 children, was a staged event and that parents of the victims lied about the deaths.
The three-hour deposition was posted online Friday by a Texas law firm, Kaster Lynch Farrar & Ball, LLP. Huffpost, which first reported on the deposition, has posted a full transcript online.
On the InfoWars channel that he founded, Jones has repeatedly suggested the Sandy Hook massacre was a “total hoax” carried out by crisis actors on behalf of opponents of the Second Amendment.
The lawsuit charges that Jones and InfoWars have “shocked the world with malicious statements about national tragedies, including the school shootings at Sandy Hook.”
Two of the lawsuits “seek to hold Mr. Jones accountable for his vile assertions that the Sandy Hook parents were lying about what happened to their children, as well as his claims that these parents conspired with the media to fake news coverage,” the law firm says.
In the disposition, Jones says “the public doesn’t believe what they’re told anymore” because of corruption by government and the “mainstream media.”
“And I, myself, have almost had like a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged, even though I’m now learning a lot of times things aren’t staged,” Jones says.
Jones also noted that the “trauma” of the media “lying so much” has caused him to distrust everything.
At one point, he said that as the story “matured he has had a chance to believe that children died” at Sandy Hook, but add there are “still real anomalies in the attempt to basically keep it blacked out that generally, when you see that in government, something is being covered up.
Jones also tried to explain his bent toward conspiracies by saying he grew up in a small town in Texas where he would “watch the police deal drugs and then conduct anti-drug programs in the school.”
“I was very anti-police until I grew up and learned more things, and now i’m pretty much pro police,” he said. “So it’s been a process.”
“So long before these lawsuits I said that in the past I thought everything was a conspiracy and I would kind of get into that mass group-think of the communities that were out there saying that,” Jones said. “And so now I see that it’s more in the middle. All right? So that’s where I stand.”
It was not the first time that the Austin-based Jones had to explain his online persona in a legal setting.
In a court battle with his ex-wife in 2017, in which he lost custody of his children, Jones’s lawyer explained his online ranting was not real.
“He’s playing a character,” attorney Randall Wilhite said during a pretrial hearing. “He is a performance artist.”
In an odd twist, though, even during the 10-day trial, in which he lost custody of his children, Jones would tell his online audience, “I am completely real and everybody knows it.”
His wife, Kelly Jones, however, has described him as out of control, according to the Austin American-Statesman. “He’s not a stable person,” she has said, according to the Statesman. “He broadcasts from home. The children are there, watching him broadcast.”
Among other claims, Jones has suggested that Hillary Clinton was running a pedophile ring out of a Washington D.C., pizza restaurant and has argued that a yogurt company, in hiring refugees, has brought “migrant rapists” and tuberculosis to areas near the factories.
In 2015, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump appeared on the InfoWars show to praise Jones, saying, “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”
In December, former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone, who has hosted a show on InfoWars, settled a $100 million lawsuit accusing him of publishing lies on the program.
The Wall Street Journal has reported exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui sued Stone in March, saying Stone accused him of being a ‘‘turncoat criminal’’ who violated U.S. election law. Stone now says his conduct was ‘‘irresponsible.’’
The settlement allowed Stone to avoid paying any damages if he publishes national newspaper ads apologizing for the statements and retracts the statements online, the Associated Press reported.
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