MTG defends Infowars’s Alex Jones in aftermath of defamation trial
Alex Jones #AlexJones
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) defended Infowars founder Alex Jones on Wednesday, claiming the conspiracy peddler only spoke “words” in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Greene called for the end of “political persecution” after a jury ordered Jones to pay $965 million in damages over his false claims about the school shooting that killed 26 people, saying that he did not “pull the trigger.”
ALEX JONES ORDERED TO PAY UPWARD OF $965 MILLION TO FAMILIES OF SANDY HOOK VICTIMS IN DEFAMATION TRIAL
“No matter what you think of Alex Jones all he did was speak words,” the congresswoman tweeted. “He was not the one who pulled the trigger. Were his words wrong and did he apologize? Yes. That’s what freedom of speech is. Freedom to speak words. Political persecution must end.”
Jones was facing the second of three defamation suits, which claimed that Jones knowingly lied in the aftermath of the Connecticut shooting. Attorneys for the plaintiffs, which included eight families of the deceased shooting victims and an FBI agent, told jurors that Jones lied about the events of the shooting since the day it happened and used the internet to help spread false information about the shooting in the years since.
The eight families also testified to the jury that the graves of their children were desecrated and the families received threats from followers of Jones, according to the Independent.
Wednesday’s post was not the first time Greene has defended Jones. During an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference with MyPillow CEO and founder Mike Lindell, Greene claimed Jones had been right on most of his other reports but was not right when it came to the mass shooting.
“He didn’t build his InfoWars on that [claim]. He built it on a lot of other news. And Alex Jones has been right pretty much most of the time,” Greene said. “Except, of course, on Sandy Hook.”
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Jones was ordered to pay a little over $45 million to two Sandy Hook parents in a similar defamation case in Texas earlier this year. But Jones could pay less than 10% of the amount ordered in the Texas trial because the state’s law caps punitive damages at $750,000 per parent.
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Tags: Marjorie Taylor Greene, News, Alex Jones, Infowars, House of Representatives
Original Author: Misty Severi
Original Location: MTG defends Infowars’s Alex Jones in aftermath of defamation trial