WATERBURY, Conn. — A combative Alex Jones arrived at the courthouse in Waterbury where he is being sued for defamation and attacked the presiding judge, who he said is trying to force him to lie about what he believes and has said about the Sandy Hook school massacre.
“This judge is a tyrant,” Jones said outside the courthouse. “This judge is ordering me to say that I’m guilty and to say that I am a liar. None of that is true.”
“I was not wrong about Sandy Hook on purpose,” he said. “I questioned it. Just like Jussie Smollett. Just like WMDs in Iraq. Just like the Gulf of Tonkin. There are a lot of staged events in history, just like WMDs in Iraq, and I questioned every major event.”
Jones, who reaches a global audience of millions through his Texas-based broadcast and internet platforms, spent years calling the Newtown shooting a hoax perpetrated by gun control advocates before acknowledging he was wrong. He made his comments criticizing the court proceeding Tuesday morning after arriving by car, stepping into a mob of journalists and departing about five minutes later.
He was referring to an unusual default ruling last year by Judge Barbara Bellis settling the question of Jones’ liability in favor of the families whose suits against him claim they were harassed and threatened by Jones’ audience, which subscribed to his assertions that they and their murdered children were actors in the hoax.
Bellis’ ruling was an extraordinary legal sanction or punishment of Jones for abusing court procedure and ignoring her orders to participate in reciprocal exchanges of information with the victims. The ruling found for the victims on a central point of their suit — that Jones’ false broadcasts were the cause of the harassment and mental anguish experienced by the victim families.
Jones and Infowars cannot defend themselves under the default finding, but can try to minimize what they have to pay in compensatory and punitive damages.
“So I am being put in an impossible position inside of this court house where I am being ordered to say ‘I’m guilty,’” Jones said. “Has anyone ever heard of somebody being ordered to say they are guilty? Even in a criminal trial, where they found somebody with dead bodies, if the guilty person wants to get up and say they are innocent, they are allowed to. OK?
“But I’m being told I’m guilty because they already defaulted me and said I’m guilty,” he said. “This is the murder of American justice. This is extremely dangerous. And this is a judicial system on trial. They are using these families for this. They have misrepresented what I have said and done. And they have continued to use my name to fundraise for their gun control organizations. Now they are openly launching an anti-free speech operation.”
As he left the sidewalk outside the courthouse, Jones said he would remain in the area so he will be available if called as a witness.
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