Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and Infowars host, has accused the house select committee investigating the January 6 attack of being "worse" than McCarthyism after he was issued a subpoena.
Jones was subpoenaed on Monday along with five other Donald Trump allies, including Roger Stone, as part of the inquiry into the storming of the Capitol.
The committee accused Jones of helping to organize the protests which took place prior to the mob of Trump supporters attacking the Capitol as well as "implying he had knowledge" about the former president's plans on January 6.
In a statement posted on his InfoWars website, Jones described the committee of being a worse "witch hunt" than the campaign led by Republican senator Joseph McCarthy, who falsely claimed hundreds of Communists had infiltrated a number of areas within the U.S. government in 1950.
The term "McCarthyism" has since become a byword to describe people who have been subjected to unfair and untrue investigations or allegations.
"The January 6 committee, created by law of the Democrats, as a witch hunt has lied about myself and lied about so many other people I know and claimed that we wanted to attack the Capitol on January 6," Jones said.
"This is a criminal subpoena. This is something that Joseph McCarthy did to a lot of people in America, and it turned out some of the people he was targeting are actually guilty.
"We talk about January 6, this is even worse than what Joseph McCarthy did. And I believe he went too far," Jones added.
"This is the absolute declaration of war against the American people and against free speech. They don't even care in this committee that I was there at the Capitol trying to stop what happened?
"No, they want to basically put me on trial in the corporate media, showing selective information so that when people hear the name Alex Jones, they think we're talking about an insurrectionist criminal when I am the opposite."
It is unclear if Jones intends on complying with the subpoena issued against him. Steve Bannon was criminally charged with contempt of congress after he failed to turn over any documents when requested by the committee while citing Trump's "executive privilege" argument.
In a statement announcing the subpoena, committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson said Jones reportedly helped organize the rally at the Ellipse on January 6 that immediately preceded the attack on the Capitol and also helped raise around eighty percent of its funding.
A letter from the Select committee to Jones noted that the conspiracy theorist was recorded urging people not to be violent on January 6.
Jones did not end up speaking at the January 6 rally, but claimed that White House officials told him that he was to lead a march from the rally at the Ellipse to the Capitol, where Trump would speak.
While Trump never came to the Capitol, the committee said the location where Jones told people to wait for him coincided with where Ali Alexander obtained a permit to hold a "Stop the Steal" rally that day.
"Mr. Jones has repeatedly promoted unsupported allegations of election fraud, including encouraging individuals to attend the Ellipse rally on January 6th and implying he had knowledge about the plans of the former President with respect to the rally," Thompson said.
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About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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