Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones sat with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Monday and discussed his experience on his podcast later in the evening.
“I just had a very intense experience being interrogated by the January 6 committee,” Jones said. “They were polite, but they were dogged.”
He added, according to his lawyer’s count, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment “almost 100 times” as was “advice of counsel.”
“The questions were overall pretty reasonable,” Jones remarked. “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 that the committee had already established links between him and Trump officials, having obtained text messages between
He said he denied employing any members of the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers as security in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and claimed that he tried to discourage people from entering the Capitol on that day.
He described trying to stop the pro-Trump crowd as “mission impossible” and deplored the people who committed violence.
“We learned there were a bunch of people inside the Capitol,” Jones said. “And that was so stupid and so dumb. I didn’t support it that day and I don’t support it now.”
“We got the hell out of there once we couldn’t stop it,” Jones added, saying the events of Jan. 6 were a “horrible historic fiasco.”
“Let’s get something clear for the committee and my audience and everybody else: I don’t want a civil war in this country and that’s a terrible idea,” Jones explained. “And I don’t want lawlessness by anybody. And I don’t want anybody attacking anybody, OK?”
“InfoWar means we fight with information,” Jones concluded, striking a rare tone of moderation, adding that it is a “non-violent war” and that he only “fights with words.”