Far-right radio host Alex Jones said he asserted his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent “almost 100 times” during his deposition before the House Jan. 6 committee.
Mr. Jones took to the airwaves Monday to unpack the details of his interview with committee investigators, less than an hour after ending his virtual deposition.
“The questions were overall pretty reasonable,” he 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 always know all the answers, and they can kind of claim that that’s perjury.”
He said he worried that the Democrat-led committee would take his answers out of context or twist his words to pursue charges down the road.
“And the media tells you that’s because you’re guilty, or because you’re going to incriminate yourself but it’s also just because it can be used to try to incriminate you and twist something against you,” Mr. Jones said of invoking the Fifth Amendment.
Nonetheless, Mr. Jones went into detail about several questions posed by the committee, which is investigating the origins of the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob hoping to stop Congress certifying President Biden’s election win.
Mr. Jones said on Monday that the events on Jan. 6, 2021, were taken to the extreme and that he in no way supported the storming of the Capitol.
“By then we learned that there were a bunch of people inside the Capitol and that was so stupid and so dumb and we do not support that, I didn’t support it that day. I don’t support it now,” he said.
Mr. Jones spoke out against lawlessness and fomenting anger more broadly.
“I don’t want a civil war in this country and that’s a terrible idea,” he said. “And I don’t want lawlessness by anybody. And I don’t want anybody attacking anybody, OK?”
A key issue raised by the committee in the letter accompanying Mr. Jones’ subpoena were comments made in late December 2020 by Matt Bracken who was standing in for Mr. Jones on his show, “Infowars.” Mr. Bracken alluded to “millions of Americans” occupying Washington and “if necessary storming right into the Capitol.”
Mr. Jones said during his show that he had not viewed the show and was unaware of Mr. Bracken’s comments until he received the committee’s subpoena in November.
“I’m not going to read into whether he’s a bad guy, whether he’s a provocateur, or whether he just got hyped up in the emotion at the time,” he said of Mr. Bracken. “But to answer the committee’s question, hell no I don’t support that, and that’s not what we stand for.”
He said the committee displayed several emails during the deposition, and that the panel had obtained his text messages with Cindy Chafian and Caroline Wren, who also were subpoenaed by the committee for their involvement with organizing the rally that preceded the attack.
“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,” he said.
The committee asked Mr. Jones about his security and whether he had employed members of the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys for Protection.
Mr. Jones said that he had employed 12 to 14 “security people,” some of whom he said were off-duty police and others he had hired through a “well-known private security company.”
Mr. Jones said the committee asked about a rally Mr. Jones attended with “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander at the Georgia State Capitol, and about whether he had heard of any plans for violence leading up to the riot at the Capitol.
• Joseph Clark can be reached at jclark@washingtontimes.com.
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