Alex Jones Celebrates After Sandy Hook Defamation Trial: ‘Now We Are the Republican Party’
Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones celebrated on Monday, just days after a jury in Texas awarded more than $49 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the parents of a child murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School – a shooting Jones called a hoax.
“I’ve seen a judge tell a jury, I’m already guilty. I’ve seen them order them to get the money I don’t have. But I tell you, it has been actually invigorating and buoying in a way bittersweet,” Jones said.
“Because I’ve seen everybody from Steve Bannon to Charlie Kirk to Jack Posobiec to you name it, thousands of prominent people, hundreds of really big folks, come out and say, hey, this is for all of us. They’re coming after us all now,” Jones argued.
“And I have really seen the Republican Party go from us with an insurrection. Not the one on January 6th, but the peaceful insurrection to take over the Republican Party five, six years ago to now we are the Republican Party and our populist movement is winning,” Jones added in a clip first flagged by journalist David Edwards.
“So, yes, I’m being punished. Yes, I’m being attacked. But I expect that” he concluded.
Jones has received support from elected officials like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Arizona State Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-AZ).
“What we’re tired of is the political persecution,” said Greene at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas on Friday.
“Democrats, the liars in the media, and the people that canceled all of you and me…going to pay us millions of dollars?” she added. Greene has made similar baseless claims about mass shootings, suggesting in 2017 that the Las Vegas shooting was a false flag event.
Rogers wrote on Telegram Monday, saying:
It’s wrong what they did to Alex Jones. He should be able to criticize the official story any time he wants. I hope he appeals the verdicts because the kangaroo courts already made him guilty before the trials started. Americans should help cover his bills. Sick of censorship!
Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of murdered 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, told the Texas court last week how followers of Jones made their lives “hell” after his false claims that the shooting was fake.
“What was said about me and Sandy Hook itself resonates around the world,” Heslin said. “As time went on, I truly realized how dangerous it was. … My life has been threatened. I fear for my life, I fear for my safety.”
