(Headline USA) An attorney representing two parents who sued popular right-wing pundit Alex Jones over his statements about the Sandy Hook massacre said Thursday that House Democrats’ partisan Jan. 6 committee has requested two years’ worth of records from Jones’s phone that he obtained by accident from Jones’s legal defense.
Attorney Mark Bankston said in court that the committee investigating the uprising at the U.S. Capitol has requested the digital records.
The House committee did not immediately return a request for comment.
A day earlier, Bankston revealed in court that Jones’s attorney had mistakenly sent Bankston the last two years’ worth of texts from Jones’s cellphone.
Jones’s attorney, Andino Reynal, sought a mistrial over the mistaken transfer of records and said they should have been returned and any copies destroyed.
He accused the Bankston of trying to perform “for a national audience.”
Reynal said the material included a review copy of text messages over six months from late 2019 into the first quarter of 2020.
Attorneys for the Sandy Hook parents claimed they followed Texas’s civil rules of evidence and that Jones’s attorneys missed their chance to properly request the return of the records.
“Mr Reynal is using a fig leaf [to cover] for his own malpractice,” Bankston said.
Bankston said the records mistakenly sent to him included some medical records of plaintiffs in other lawsuits against Jones.
“Mr. Jones and his intimate messages with Roger Stone are not protected,” Bankston said, referring to former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally.
Far-left magazine Rolling Stone, quoting unnamed sources, reported Wednesday evening that the Jan. 6 committee was preparing to request the data from the parents’ attorneys to assist in its illegitimate investigation of the uprising.
A jury in Austin, Texas, is deciding how much Jones should pay to the parents of a child killed in the 2012 school massacre because of Infowars’s claims that the shooting was a hoax created by advocates for gun control.
Jones, who was denied a jury trial to determine his guilt, is likely to appeal regardless as judge-determined verdict appeared to ignore several of the basic parameters needed in establishing defamation.
Among those requirements are that the plaintiff be able to prove statements were false, were made with malicious intent and caused material harm—more than just psychological distress. Jones never mentioned any of the Sandy Hook victims or familys by name in his speculative theorizing about possible conspiracies during the Obama administration, and several proven facts have borne out in his favor, such as the FBI having visited the killer beforehand.
Meanwhile, the Jan. 6 inquisition continues its effort to advance baseless anti-Trump conspiracies of its own surrounding the mostly peaceful protest during Congress’s joint session to certify the Electoral College vote in the 2020 presidential election.
Last month, the J6 committee showed graphic and violent text messages and played videos of right-wing figures, including Jones, and others vowing that Jan. 6 would be the day they would fight for Trump.
The committee first subpoenaed Jones in November, demanding a deposition and documents related to his efforts to promote skepticism about the 2020 election and the “Save America” rally that preceded the breach of the Capitol.
In the subpoena letter, Rep. Bennie Thompson,D-Miss., said Jones helped organize the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse. He also wrote that Jones urged his listeners to go to Washington for the rally and march from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Thompson also wrote that Jones “made statements implying that you had knowledge about the plans of President Trump with respect to the rally.”
The nine-member panel was especially interested in what Jones said shortly after Trump’s now-infamous Dec. 19, 2020, tweet in which he told his supporters to “be there, will be wild!” on Jan. 6.
“You went on InfoWars that same day and called the tweet ‘One of the most historic events in American history,’” the letter continued.
In January, Jones was deposed by the committee in a hourslong, virtual meeting in which he said he exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination “almost 100 times.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
