On Monday, reports that Infowars founder Alex Jones sent child pornography to lawyers representing victims from Sandy Hook Elementary School flooded left-wing websites and social media.
But such a claim is wildly misleading, according to Jones’ lawyer.
It appears, according to a report from The Daily Beast, that Jones was ordered to hand over a trove of data to lawyers involved in the Sandy Hook defamation suit against the controversial media personality. In about a dozen threatening emails sent to Infowars “by one or more anonymous people,” Sandy Hook lawyers found images of child pornography, which, according to Jones attorney Norman Pattis, were never opened. Sandy Hook legal representation sent over the material to the FBI in late May, when they received the messages, sparking an investigation.
“I spoke to federal prosecutors last week. They report that there is no indication anyone at InfoWars knowingly possessed child pornography,” said Pattis, according to the outlet. “The items were embedded in emails sent to folks at InfoWars without ever having been opened.”
“There were 9.6 million emails that were searched; we turned over about 57,000 of them. In 12 of them, there were embedded images of child pornography,” Pattis elaborated, appearing on Infowars alongside Jones. “As it turns out, those emails were never opened, the images were never opened. There’s no evidence that anybody here, or anybody affiliated with you, or you, ever searched them. So clearly they were placed in there as malware.”
“I’ve spoken to federal prosecutors, they regard you as a victim. They do not regard you in any way as a suspect,” he added.
The FBI has not yet confirmed any investigation nor has the agency commented on the matter publicly.
Sandy Hook attorneys claimed in a court filing that “minimal due diligence” from Jones would have alerted him to the illegal material.
“It is worth noting that if the Jones defendants had engaged in even minimal due diligence and actually reviewed the materials before production, they would have found the images themselves,” the filing said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “Because the Jones defendants did not do that, they transmitted images to the plaintiffs that if they were knowingly possessed is a serious federal crime.”
Speaking about the matter on Infowars (in a video which has now been removed from YouTube), Jones claimed the FBI told him his media company was the “victim” in the child porn scandal. “I’m not saying the Sandy Hook lawyers did this,” he noted.
Days prior, Jones suggested that the illicit material was planted on his server and issued a $1 million reward for information uncovering the apparent set-up.
“You’re trying to set me up with child porn, I’m going to get your a**,” he said on video, according to The Daily Beast. “One million dollars, one million dollars you little gang member. One million dollars to put your head on a pike. One million dollars, b****. You’re not going to ever defeat Texas, you sacks of s***.”
“I don’t have a lot of money, but I’ll sell my house,” he continued.
“I’m not into kids like your Democratic party, you c**ks**kers,” Jones added. “I don’t like having sex with children, I would never have sex with children.”