Disarray....

Chaos at Infowars: Alex Jones in legal, personal disarray to end 2021

Katie Dowd

After 25 years of spreading vitriol on Infowars, Alex Jones’ media empire has rarely been more volatile — and disastrous — than it is right now. The far-right media personality faces a slew of personal and professional catastrophes, from a relentless parade of self-inflicted legal trouble to a laughable partnership with an internet hypnotist. 

For much of his career, Jones has been able to evade financial consequences for spreading lies on his network. Up until now, the most severe penalty has been two public humiliations in 2017. That year, he was forced to apologize for and retract statements about James Alefantis, the owner of the pizzeria at the center of the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, and — believe it or not — the Chobani yogurt company. Jones claimed on-air that Chobani was linked to a sexual assault case involving children.

But consequences, potentially of a dire financial nature, are finally coming home to roost at Infowars. In late September, a Texas judge ruled that by failing to produce court-ordered evidence, Jones had by default lost a lawsuit filed by family members of Sandy Hook victims. The rare default judgment means the trial now skips straight to the penalty phase. Jones must pay damages in multiple lawsuits that allege he defamed victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting; Jones repeatedly claimed children didn’t die — 26 people, including 20 children, were killed at the school — and even baselessly speculated the school had been closed for years prior to the shooting as evidence the tragedy was staged. Since the lawsuits were filed, however, Jones has tried to minimize his earlier statements and now says he acknowledges people died at Sandy Hook. 

In November, a judge in Connecticut, where a separate defamation suit was filed, handed down another default judgment against Jones. Although Jones has ranted on-air that these default judgments are depriving him of his right to due process, he was given years to produce documents related to the cases and failed to do so. The Texas judge said his actions showed "flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilities of discovery under the rules."

Jones doesn’t yet know how much he’ll be ordered to pay in each suit — juries will hear evidence and determine damages in the upcoming penalty phase — but the sum could threaten his livelihood. No one outside the company knows Infowars’ yearly earnings, but it’s clear Jones’ reach has waned significantly since he was banned from most major social media platforms in 2018. In what appears to be a flagrant attempt to raise funds for his legal woes, Jones recently launched “Reset Wars,” which he’s billed as the culmination of his decades of work. 

A look at the Reset Wars website shows a long, rambling letter from Jones that mixes New Age self-help and Jones’ usual brand of angry paranoia. 

“Right now, there’s an all-out war that the elites are taking part in to gain control over the entire world,” the site reads. “First, it will start with creating a global government in order to create a society that has zero choice but to listen to the power in charge. Then, it will move into an all-out assault on our minds, controlling what we think, say, and do. And finally, it will end with a war on our soul, to keep us separated from the power we can find within god.”

In exchange for the information to fight this imaginary war — which Jones writes he’s “risking my life … to share with you” — customers must pay $222. The content was created in partnership with Jake Ducey, an internet hypnotist who charges hundreds of dollars for programs that claim to “attract better health, abundant wealth, more love and everlasting gratitude” through “manifesting” of positive thoughts. 

“WARNING,” Ducey’s site reads, “Advertisers, schools, and many religious institutions don't want you to know these secrets because you'll no longer need their products or beliefs that continue to keep you feeling in lack.”

The partnership is particularly odd — and perhaps indicative of Jones’ desperation for any financial windfall — given Jones’ religious beliefs. Although he made his career as an anti-establishment political agitator, Jones’ diatribes are now more consistent with fundamentalist Christian extremism than any particular political ideology. On a recent episode of his show, Jones ranted about how vaccinating children allows the Christian devil to gain influence in the world. “When we societally allow the mass murder and maiming of our children, now happening, God will curse us and remove even more of God’s protection,” Jones said.

Jones regularly refers to battling the devil — and not in a metaphorical sense. He calls his perceived enemies “demons” and after news broke about the Sandy Hook default judgments, he told his listeners he was “high as a kite fighting Satan.” 

Among his current roster of foes is the House select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 riots. On Dec. 20, Jones filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the committee from subpoenaing him. The suit, in part, is attempting to stop phone records from being sent to the committee, but AT&T informed Jones they were sending those records on Dec. 16, four days before his lawsuit was filed. A similar filing from Michael Flynn was recently thrown out by a judge. 

Despite all the turmoil, the Infowars misinformation machine rolls on: On Tuesday, the website touted stories about an alien invasion meant to usher in the final phase of “the COVID scam” and Jeffrey Epstein running “baby blood farms.”