Alex Jones met with 1/6 committee and says he pleaded the Fifth ‘almost 100 times’
By Annie Grayer, CNN
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones met virtually on Monday with the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, he announced on his podcast.
A source familiar with the investigation also confirmed the meeting to CNN.
“I just had a very intense experience being interrogated by the January 6 committee,” Jones said on his podcast on Monday. “They were polite, but they were dogged.”
Jones said that, by his lawyer’s count, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment “almost 100 times,” and that he was told to do “on advice of counsel.”
Jones said that while he wanted to answer the questions, he was afraid to do so because he believes that the committee, specifically Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, would twist his words, and Jones said he was afraid of not answering all questions correctly and potentially perjuring himself.
“The questions were overall pretty reasonable,” Jones said. “And I wanted to answer the questions, but at the same time, it’s a good thing I didn’t because I’m the type that tries to answer things correctly even though I don’t know all the answers, and they can kind of claim that that’s perjury because about half the questions I didn’t know the answer to.”
Jones said he was shown “a bunch of emails” that he had not seen before. He also said that the committee has gotten access to his phone because he was shown text messages from his phone, including messages with January 6 rally organizers Cindy Chafian and Caroline Wren, who also have been subpoenaed by the committee.
“They have everything that’s already on my phones and things because I saw my text messages to Caroline Wren and Cindy Chafian and some of the event organizers,” Jones said.
Jones was first subpoenaed by the panel in November.
In its letter to Jones, the committee cites press reports and his own statements to claim that Jones worked with Chafian and Wren in “facilitating a donor, now known to be Julie Fancelli, to provide what (he) characterized as ‘eighty percent’ of the funding” for the rally held on the Ellipse on January 6.
The committee stated that Jones was denied a speaking spot at the January 6 rally but that his previous comments indicate he was designated to “lead a march to the Capitol, where President Trump would meet the group.”
The committee acknowledged specifically that once at the Capitol, Jones told people “not to be violent” and to gather and wait for Trump to speak. Even though Trump never came to the Capitol, the committee said the location where Jones told people to wait “coincided” with the same place that “Stop the Steal” rally organizer Ali Alexander obtained a permit for that day.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
