Alex Jones has claimed he is being “treated worse than somebody on death row” in a video rant as he faces calls to be arrested for twice dodging a deposition in a lawsuit over his false claims about the Sandy Hook massacre.
The far-right conspiracy theorist posted a pre-recorded video on his Infowars website on Thursday complaining about the criticism he has received for missing his court-ordered appearances this week.
“Somebody on death row is allowed to go get their medical treatment and hearings and things are postponed but I’m treated worse than somebody on death row,” he said.
Mr Jones was scheduled to testify under oath on Wednesday and Thursday as part of settlement proceedings in lawsuits he lost against the families of victims killed in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
The right-wing extremist was found guilty of defamation in multiple cases last year after he falsely said the massacre that claimed 26 innocent lives was “a giant hoax” and that the six and seven-year-old children murdered were “actors”.
Mr Jones failed to show up for the depositions both days, after his attorneys filed multiple motions asking for a delay, claiming that he was too sick to leave the house.
The judge turned down the requests, in part because the conspiracy theorist was seemingly well enough to continue broadcasting his hours-long show - leaving his home on at least one occasion to travel to his studio to film it.
It later emerged that the doctor who advised him that he was too unwell to attend the deposition was the same doctor who appeared on his show on Monday to attack the Covid-19 vaccines as “poison” and call the US’s top doctor Dr Anthony Fauci “the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world”.
After he missed the deposition for a second time, the attorneys representing the victims’ families urged the judge to find Mr Jones in contempt of court and have him arrested.
On Thursday - the same day he said he was too unwell to attend the second date of the deposition - Mr Jones filmed a video message hitting out at the media and the attorneys for the victims’ families for “attacking me” and calling for him to be “arrested and put in jail”.
Titled “Sandy Hook mafia calls for Alex Jones’ arrest: Legendary talk show host responds”, he claimed he was the victim of “show trials” with people trying to show that he is a “horrible person”.
“When I talked to these doctors they said ‘you’re crazy, you need to go home, you need to get these tests today and tomorrow and you need to stay away from the microphone,’” he said.
“Well here I am even though I shouldn’t be on here because I need to response to the hundreds of articles… that are attacking me and saying that I’m a horrible person.”
Mr Jones said that he “might just release my medical records to make you all look like fools”, saying he had undergone scans and had been “under a lot of stress”.
The anti-vaxxer, who said Donald Trump is either “ignorant” or “evil” for encouraging people to take the vaccine, said that he had been sick since he contracted Covid-19 last year.
“I started getting sick after I got Covid last year,” he said, adding that it was “a really bad Delta variant”.
“Like everybody else it attacked my cardiovascular system.”
During Monday’s show, Dr Marble “saw some signs of certain things and checked me out with a stethoscope and blood pressure machine and said I should go get myself checked out by a doctor”, he said.
Mr Jones claimed that he didn’t think it “would be a big deal” to move the deposition because he had sat for three already and had “given them over 300 pages of documents” and financial records to the victims’ families.
“When they say I give them nothing it’s all a lie. These are show trials,” he said.
Mr Jones, whose lies about the Sandy Hook massacre resulted in grieving families being threatened and harassed by conspiracy theorists, claimed he was the victim of people wanting him to “be silenced”.
“They picked a few things I said a few years ago and took it out of context to make me the Sandy Hook man,” he said.
He added: “They want me in jail. They want me to be silenced. They want you to be silenced.”
It is not clear from the video where the recording was made as it is an audio clip played over screengrabs of news articles.
Mr Jones says in the video that he is recording the message from his home before getting “some more medical tests”.
He does not detail the nature of his health issues saying that they are “private”.
At the end of the recording, Infowars promotes his supplements to “boost the immune system”.
Mr Jones’ legal team first filed a motion on Monday to delay the deposition saying he was “remaining at home” due to unspecified “medical conditions”.
The judge turned down this first attempt and cast doubt on the authenticity of the doctor’s note sent to the court, which did not name the physician or Mr Jones’ ailment at that time.
Meanwhile, the Infowars host continued to broadcast his show live on Monday and Tuesday - from a studio that his attorneys later admitted he had left his home to travel to.
The court heard that Mr Jones was even broadcasting Tuesday’s show at the very moment that his lawyers were arguing for a delay due to his mystery health condition.
On Wednesday, he did not appear to be in person on his show but talked over the phone for part of it.
Another motion filed on Wednesday by Mr Jones’ attorneys then identified the previously unnamed doctor telling Mr Jones to stay home as Dr Marble.
According to the filing, “Mr Jones’ nonappearance comes upon the advice of Dr Benjamin Marble who arrived in Austin to visit him on March 20, 2022”.
The following day - the day of the Infowars show - Dr Marble’s “personal observations of Mr Jones so alarmed him that he insisted on conducting a physical examination of Mr Jones”, says the filing.
“He immediately advised Mr. Jones to go to an emergency room or call 911. After Mr Jones refused, the physician advised him to stay home, which Mr Jones did not do.”
The court document says that Dr Marble then arranged for Mr Jones to undergo “a comprehensive medical workup” on Wednesday with a second doctor Dr Amy Offutt.
After evaluating Mr Jones, Dr Offutt told him he should “avoid too much stress until we have the results of the blood tests” and advised him not to attend the deposition.
“I stand by my recommendation that Mr Jones neither attend a deposition nor return to work until the test results are completed and returned,” said Dr Marble in his sworn statement.
He added that he believes “Mr Jones stands at serious risk of harm”.
Dr Marble, a member of right-wing group America’s Frontline Doctors, pushed a conspiracy theory on Monday’s Infowars that Dr Fauci “created” Covid-19.
“We know he created this Frankenstein virus, this man-made virus,” said Dr Marble.
“Every Covid death is a murder by Dr death Fauci which is why I say he is the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world.”
Dr Marble then told Mr Jones that the Covid-19 vaccine is a “poison”.
The Florida-based physician created a free telehealth website for Covid-19, which touts unsubstantiated treatments for the virus including the use of anti-parasite drug ivermectin.
The US FDA advises people not to use ivermectin to treat or prevent Covid-19, saying there is no evidence that it is an effective treatment.
The agency has warned that it has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical attention, including hospitalisation, after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for livestock.
The Independent has reached out to Dr Marble for comment.
Even with the identities of the doctors detailed in Wednesday’s motion to delay proceedings, the judge denied it, pointing out that Mr Jones was continuing to record his shows while claiming to be sick.
The deposition is part of settlement proceedings in lawsuits he lost against the families of victims killed in Sandy Hook.
On 14 December 2012, 20 students aged six and seven years old and six staff members were shot and killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
In the aftermath, Mr Jones made several false claims on his show and through his website that the mass shooting was a “false flag” operation engineered by the government to bring about stricter gun control laws.
The families of Sandy Hook victims were subjected to years of in-person and online harassment over his false claims, all the while Mr Jones financially profited by spreading the conspiracies.
Several defamation lawsuits were brought by the families of some of the victims with Mr Jones being found guilty by default in the final suit in November.
The suits will now head to jury trials to decide how much he has to pay them for damages and legal fees.
