special report. a nation torn bather lies. >> i say it's treason. >> one man has been preaching disinformation for decades, alex jones. >> we will never give up. we will never surrender. >> spreading extremism. >> joe biden, burn in hell. >> convincing millions of followers -- >> alex! alex! alex! >> damaging lives. >> alex jones lied about sandy hook, a tragedy that i lost my

son in. >> tonight, the disturbing history, from the fringe -- >> he could turn his thumb black as if he were possessed. >> to making a fortune. >> truth doesn't matter, it's like a far-right qvc. >> threatening democracy. >> 1776! >> i'm donald trump now. >> interviews with former employees. >> we made up the stories. we lied. >> alex will not stop. >> his victims -- >> every day i get a death threat. >> and those trying to stop him. >> how would you describe him to people who don't know him? >> how do you explain to folks whoever never seen something this crazy? >> if they want to fight, they better believe they got a fight. >> "megaphone for conspiracy: alex jones." this is alex jones infowars studio in austin, texas.

>> are you guys ready? >> it it looks like a professional news set, but the similarities end there. >> i'll drink your blood, you understand that? i will -- i will hang your ass up and cut you into cut lets. >> the globalist age of corruption. >> the official story of sandy hook has more holes in it than swiss cheese. >> a founding father of disinformation, jones is infamous for his most vile lie, that the sandy hook shooting was a hoax. >> the whole thing was fake. >> jones and his followers launched a years-long vendetta against the families of the children who were murdered. >> he was fueling this conspiracy theory that the children didn't die, they were actors. real people were murdered, along with my son. >> it made it impossible for these parents to have closure. all of my clients have received numerous death threats. their lives have been in genuine

peril. >> why pay attention to jones? >> there were so many people who said, if you just ignore it it will go away. in order to grow, you didn't need any of the main street culture's attention, as long as he had that bubble that was allowed to grow and fester uninterrupted, that's what made i am a cultural force. ignoring him did nothing for us. >> that bubble started nearly 30 years ago with a show that would become inf"infowars". >> the government said they were going to put poisons and toxins and bioweapons in the vaccines. >> more than a decade before covid-19, jones was spreading dangerous conspiracy theories that now sound eerily recycled. >> the world health organization and cdc have been caught adding sterilizers and poisons. >> infowars has grown from a fledgling media show into a multimedia empire that has reached tens of millions. >> the formula is you find a

story that people are upset about and you play it up as much as you possibly can, as extreme as possible, in the most dramatic way. >> cnn spoke in-depth to those who have followed jones' rise and those who have worked with him. filmmaker kay linen robinson appeared repeatedly on jones' show, made a documentary with him, before realizing it was all a sham. >> i felt like i was doing the right thing. like i felt like i was on the side of truth. >> robert jacobson worked at infowars for 13 years and then finally had enough. >> he will just lie, straight up lie like nothing's going on, like it's real. and the issue with that is a lot of people believe him. >> josh owens spent four years editing and producing at infowars. >> people always ask me, does jones believe the things that he says? i don't know if it matters if he believes what he says because the people who listen to him believe what he says. >> the elites are killing kids,

drinking blood, torturing people. >> every one of his thought patterns, the 3%ers, the canyon group, the anti-vaxxers all originate from alex. he's the foundation of this stuff. >> hillary clinton is a god damn demon. excuse me, it's not taking it in vain. she is a demon damned to hell. excuse me. >> his whole shtick is that there is a war for your mind. >> new world order is run by absolutely ruthless individuals hell bent on dehumanizing the entire human community. >> it's the idea that the shadowy first guys in the new world order are really controlling things. >> the fruits of the new world order are hell and death and destruction. >> once written off as unhinged, fringe, and crazy -- >> alex jones! >> alex jones has become an alt-right influencer and his theories have become main strstreet mainstream, delivered to a wider

audience. >> i want to break your jaw off and grab it with my hands and rip the mandible off your head. i want to bash your brains out. i want to bring you low. >> a lot of his content is deeply dangerous. the nature of his deliver and its violence and its words is effective, i think, in drumming up anger and really playing on people's sense of fear and anxiety. >> they want a fight, they better believe they got one! [ cheers ] >> some who listen to jones have committed acts of violence, one killed police officers. another fired shots at the white house. another opened fire in a d.c. pizza restaurant. and on january 6th, 2021 -- alex jones and his influence were on full display at the u.s. capitol. >> stop the steal! stop the steal! >> long before they became infamous on january 6th, leaders

of the proud boys, the oath keepers, the stop the steal movement all were deeply connected to alex jones. >> once you start looking at all the different places he appears in our culture, you understand that he has had an outsized level of influence for somebody like him and part of that is because he was able to fly under the radar for so long. >> jones grew up in a small suburb of dallas where even as a young man he would act out and spin tall tales. bo durham was a friend from the neighborhood. >> there was a lot of strange things going on, a lot of things i witnessed that were -- people didn't do. >> friends claimed he memorized the bible, talk about satan and at times seemed possessed. >> he would talk in tongues and get into trances. >> jones craved attention. >> i don't believe in any witchcraft, low cuss poe cuss or

anything like that, but he could turn his tongue black and his mouth black. he would stick his tongue out and shake his head as if he was possessed. >> he could turn his tongue black. i saw him do that on a couple occasions. >> tur second person who's told me this. i don't get it. >> i don't either. he would have to be spun up and in that -- kind of in that state where he was really upset. he would stick that you mentioned the -- tongue out and it would literally go black. >> and he was violent. >> once i hit puberty, i became a hellion, a lot of fighting. >> including one fight that would change his life. for years, jones told viewers a story of why he and his family had to leave suburban dallas, and why he was obsessed with government corruption. >> they had cops up there that i knew were drug dealers.

i was at a pool party and he was selling cocaine and ecstasy last week. they ran my head in the wall and told me we're going to tell you. they said you're going to move out of this town right up. >> that's the furthest thing from the truth. i can unequivocally deny that that ever happened. >> randy tally and others remember it differently, alex jones attacking another student named jared. >> i saw jared's feet go up in the air, and then i saw alex drop down, which you know, they call it a pile driver. and he, you know, piled derived him. >> jones slammed morrow head first into the floor. morrow says he suffered a concussion and nine skull fractures that will not heal. >> officers fights go, that was the most brutal that i had seen. >> after alex's fighting

troubles, the jones family would quietly move to austin. >> hello, austin, texas, i'm alex jones. >> in the mid-1990s, jones would eventually find the attention he craved, spreading lies, conspiracy theories, on public access cable tv. >> trying to get the information out to you folks. >> aid camera a foot away from my face and i was controlling the systems myself. and i went live. and i talked for an hour. >> so sick of wimps and scum, filthy scum everywhere, weak ones that never got if a fistfight. >> there was no social media, right so what this was was basically a local youtube. anybody could have a show. >> alex inspired a lot of folks. there was 20 alexs on the air at that time. he stood out. >> black helicopters are being used for surveillance of the public. >> so it's a little bit more risky -- >> kelly jones, jones' ex-wife

met and worked for him at the public access station. they would later fall out in a bitter divorce. >> if you ever spent any amount of time with him, he's not like you or me. he's abnormal. like, he's really strange and weird. >> i'm a weird son of a gun. of course i'm weird. >> that weirdness, mixed with his charisma would make him a star. >> when he was younger, he was very articulate, very dynamic. he looks great on camera. >> he would pull stunts demanding attention on austin street corners. >> this is how george bush dresses. >> he got a radio show, tv shows. >> we'll continue to keep you posted on what's going on in oklahoma city. >> he would spin major news events no matter how tragic into darker conspiracy theories. >> the government had prior knowledge and was instrumental in engineering the attacks on the alford p. murrow building in oklahoma city.

>> today's attack at columbine high school could be the worst mass shooting in united states history. >> columbine we know was a false flag. >> he took advantage of a new forum, streaming on the internet at a time when of that country didn't yet have access to the web. >> don't believe me. go to infowars.com. >> by september 2001, jones built a following willing to believe anything. then on a clear tuesday morning, september 11th, alex jones, who had spent a lifetime trying to get attention, would see a tragedy as his biggest opportunity yet. >> we have been predicting this nightmarish development for years. verizon. t-mobile has more 5g bars in more places than anyone. another reason t-mobile is the leader in 5g. every once in a while, my heart can feel a little off.

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in the aftermath of the attack on new york, the search for missing loved ones and a nation seeking a way forward, alex jones would spread lie that his own government was to blame. >> i'm telling you right now, 90% chance it came from the u.s. government or from the eu. >> the critical moment over the arc of alex jones' life is the 9/11 truther movement, which should be called the 9/11 hoax movement, that 9/11 was an inside job. >> america today is on bended knee. >> the outrageous lie, that the government of george w. bush had plotted, planned, and aided the attack, believers would come to be known as truthers. >> my friends, the government just didn't have prior knowledge of september 11th al qaeda attacks. they actually funded, trained, protected, coddled, shepherded al qaeda into this country. >> even for alex jones, this time he went too far.

a majority of the stations carrying his radio show canceled it. >> everything that was supposed to destroy him did have a negative impact, but also catapulted him to a higher level. >> as jones would explain in an interview years later obtained by cnn, his 9/11 lies made him a conspiracy superstar. >> that launched this whole cult deal, the whole world. i didn't realize how big it was. i was the leader of the truther movement. >> 9/11 smoking guns. >> he starts putting out avoid add. >> yes, sir to his radio show and starts to build a cult-like following around these lies. >> stop making excuses for what they're doing to us! >> when alex goes on camera and he gets himself riled up and starts shouting and starts getting historical, it's what his audience feel like inside, and he played the character that they wanted to hear for them, the angry, furious person that wanted to take back america.

>> 2008 brought barack obama, a new slew of conspiracy theories, and more success for infowars. >> ladies and gentlemen, barack obama is not my king, he is not my master, he is not my lord. he is nothing but a mask of the globalist. >> infowars.com, we're standing front of the islamic center of america -- >> he would stir of you fears of muslims taking over the united states for years and sent jo biggs, who would later become a leader of the proud boys on so-called reporting trips across the country. former infowars employee josh owens was part of the production team. >> they wanted us to go to these majo majorit majority-muslim communities and report on them. there was nothing to it. no sharia law overruling the united states government? >> no, but that's what jones wanted. he made up the stories because there was nothing to report on. in essence, we lied.

>> and with the growing popularity of social media, jones finally had the outlet that would be a perfect amplifier for his. >> how large a lot of his clips would go viral. alex jones used platforms like facebook, like twitter, like youtube to draw people in. >> they would promote and amplify the kind of content that gets people most engaged. >> he knew that if he made videos that were more extreme, more outrageous, or shouty, youtube would give it to people that were looking for him. around 80% of their views were from youtube recommendations, were from people not looking for his content. a huge amount of the success was the algorithms. >> court documents show infowars's audience doubled in four years. >> he wants to give people what they came there to get. >> true or not? >> true or not. when there was a mass shooting, there was a definite get

everything you can to try to prove it was a false event. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> connecticut state police have responded to reports of a shooting at sandy hook elementary school. >> the bodies of those children are still in the school. >> 20 children, six adults, and the shooter. 27 total. >> don't ever think the globalists that have hijacked this country didn't do this. >> the day of the sandy hook shooting proved nothing was off limits, even the slaughter of children. >> i said they are launching attacks, they are going to come after our guns. look for mass shootings. and then magically it happens. >> jones claimed it was a government plot a false flag. the grieving parents, crisis actors. >> you got parents laughing, ha ha ha, and they walk over to the camera and go. [ sobbing ] >> what alex and the crew was doing was accusing parents of an unspeakable tragedy of being liars as well.

it was the grossest level of insult i can imagine. >> the whole thing is a giant hoax. >> people tend to think alex jones maybe got on the show a couple times and said sandy hook was fake, and the reality was it was an obsession he couldn't let go off. >> jones' audience ate it up. one recall the claiming no one was killed at sandy hook was viewed more than 3 million times. >> there had been sandy hook if a gnattics who would show up at houses and start banging on their door harassing the parents. >> i don't think you can find a lower person in somebody like alex jones. >> neil he is lan lost his 6-year-old son, jaerks in that shooting. >> alex jones puts a lot of lives in danger, a lot of families' lives in danger and at risk. >> he and others have sued jones over his lies. mark bankston is the attorney

representing some of the families. >> at infowars there's a bottom little war of hatred and cruelty. they don't care about the typical things you would expect a reasonable, rational person to care about. >> this is -- >> jones would hire pro wrestler dan ba dondi to cover sandy hook, and he harassesed city employees. >> the sandy hook truth is coming out and you people are going to jail. >> looks like you were just trying to drum up conspiracies, kind of make a spectacularly of yourself. >> it's not a spectacle. >> it's complete conspiracy theories. >> because most of the american public was thinking the same thing. >> most of the american public was not thinking it was fake. >> nobody was saying it was fake. >> crisis actors? >> i didn't say that. i know they're not crisis actors. i went to the grave sites, the memorial and everything, it was sad and heartbreaking to see -- >> you were all part of it, dan. >> i was joust doing my job. >> you were part of that whole conspiracy theory and part of

that pain. >> it's still the first amendment. >> alex jones never responded to multiple cnn requests to be interviewed for this program, but talked about sandy hook in a deposition. >> so you do not believe that you've done an outrageous wrong to these parents? >> no, i've not done an outrageous wrong to these parents. i have not no, i have not done an ourng wrong. so i think as a pundit and someone giving opinion, that my opinions have been wrong, but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people. >> to say jesse never existed, he never died, you're defaming this little boy. it's a 6-year-old boy. just awful. there's no words for it. >> donald, thank you joining us. >> this was this alex jones that in 2015 was singled out, sought after by a presidential candidate named donald trump.

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it's time to stand up and the . >> this is what all elites end up doing, raping and killing children dressed up like a werewolf. you want to fight? get ready have you're going to

get it. >> he established himself is the king of conspiracy theories. >> they put cancer viruses on record in the vaccines. >> and learned early on his lies could make him cash. >> by the books, the films, the pro-gun t-shirts. you also need to plant a garden. >> i was in my late 20s, i was making as much money as an nfl quarterback. >> one of the best videos i've produced -- >> at first, jones was selling dvds and survival gear. >> the globalists are filling our water with ice taupes. >> if you look at the infowars store, it is a mall of things to buy if you think the world is ending. >> silver bullet from infowars live.com. >> in 2013, jones would discover he could make a fortune selling health products like vitamins and supplements under the infowars brand. >> i take products that block the estrogen that basically

femininenizes men. >> the vitamins came at the time of the wars and became astronomically rich. >> how rich? jones has guarded details of his business but court documents show a massive inflow of money, often hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, adding up to more than $165 million in revenue over a three-year period. much of that money, from stoking fears. >> i know three or four people that have family or themselves have brain tumors suddenly, kids from fungus. >> when jones pushed a new product and hype concerns about bacteria and fungus, he raked it $800,000 in two days. >> when i went to austin and spoke to alex about how much he made, he was on another planet. >> a staggering amount? >> totally staggering. >> he had inside access. >> he'll say buy these products, and at the end the first thing he'll say in the briefing room after a show is what were the

sales during the show? how many people signed up live while it was broadcast. not was it a good show? truth doesn't really matter at all. >> basically a three-hour a day infomercial to sell pills? >> yeah it's like a far-right qvc. >> i edited the first ad for the first private label product he put out, which was a iodine supplement called survival shield. >> it blows sky high. >> they were marketed at protecting from nuclear fallout. jones sent a team to california to find radiation from japan's fukushima disaster. >> none of us really knew how to use a guyger counter. we just posted videos saying we weren't finding elevated levels. >> how was that received? >> they had never seen him so angry because we were posting what we were finding. i started to get the idea, maybe our job isn't to report the truth.

maybe our job is to report what jones thinks the truth is. >> and to sell pills? >> absolutely. >> another infowars contributor, anthony gulch yar day, said in a 2014 court document obtained by cnn he would write about topics to promote the brand and sell products. one example, ebola. >> they said ebola is a real threat, that outbreaks are actually happening in the united states. they're going unreported. >> viewers weren't told group of yar did i was also getting a cut of the supplement business. >> i think it's important for people to understand that they're paying money to and aligning themselves with an outlet that is entirely deceptive and that just wants their money. >> sounds like a grift, really. >> yes, i think that's what it is, it's a con. >> you got the great brain pill. >> he would joke about people that would buy the products. when i first met him, i said i

bought his brain force, and he was surprised, like why? the people that buy his stuff are silly. >> we're closer to world war iii. >> jones put some back into the business, making sure his show looked like a real newscast. >> this is the third studio we've built. >> everyone is rushing around him with scripts and show plans, and it's like a military operation to make it technically perfect and totally perfect. yet he's going on air saying completely outlandish, insane, ridiculous, over-the-top things. it was a strange contrast. >> how does he decide what goes on that show? >> it all comes from jones' brain. >> try calling this crap zim you can tell a lot of it is off the cuff. a lot of it is coming from an emotional place, a reactionary place. >> his behavior off the air, i have heard, could be even violent. >> yeah.

there was physical violence. jones used to play these punching games. he punched an employee so hard that his arm split open. i mean, there was blood on his shirt. >> america is back! >> jones' emotional place was alpha male and always on the attack. >> it's time for good people who have life to stand up against this filth. >> and in 2015, that would play right into the hands of a presidential candidate sharing the same message. >> donald, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, alex. great to be with you. >> alex jones would explain how it was roger stone, trump's longtime ally, who initiated the strategy of putting donald trump side by side with infowars. >> he contacted me and said i'm about to publish books about the biggest enemies of trump, and i believe that if we can take them out with how corrupt they are, this will pave the way to get

trump in. he's one of us. he's a nationalist. >> i want to finish by saying your reputation is amazing. i will not let you down. >> that moment encapsule the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and hate many u.s. politics. >> after that, it became frighteningly trump in alex's office. it was like, wait, this place is extremely polarized towards one candidate, and it's never been this way before. sort of a momentum change. >> hillary's in like creepy, weird sick stuff, man. >> hillary for president! >> jones went all in as only he could. hillary clinton, trump's opponent, would be labeled satanic. >> i talked to people with details who said, listen, she's a frooekds demon and she stinks and so does obama. like what? sulfur. they smell like hell. >> during the 2016 campaign, jones began targeting democrats with one of his most unhinged

conspiracy theories. >> pizza gate is real. >> pizza gate is a conspiracy theory that hillary clinton and leading democrats were engaged in a spas is a tannic pedestrian fillic cabal in washington, d.c.,. >> you have to go investigate it for yourself. >> one of jones' followers, edgar welch, did just that. >> he kicked in the kitchen doors and then proceeded to shoot at a locked door. the bullets pierced through here. >> behind that locked door, just a closet. the owner of the restaurant says there is no doubt who is to blame. >> this is this gunman had been directly motivated by a video made by alex jones. every day i get a death threat. it's been 5 1/2, 6 years since this happened, and it really fundamentally changed my life. >> on the verge of the 2016 election, polls showed hillary

clinton leading. alex jones and roger stone pushed a new conspiracy to try to explain why trump may lose. it was the birth of stop the steal. >> you're having your republic stolen in front of you. >> then trump won. >> right now, a historic moment. we can now project donald trump wins the presidency. >> infowars would rake in $850,000 in sales in its most lucrative day in three years. a president who pushed lies, conspiracy theories, and disinformation was heading to the white house. with jones' help, the info war against a democracy was put in motion. t-mobile has more 5g bars in more places than anyone. another reason t-mobile is the leader in 5g.

>> then trump won. with jones' help, the info war

with trump in office, jones and infowars were riding high. >> i talked to the president and i talked to people who talk to the president every day. >> jones took credit for trump's win, told followers and those around him he had trump's ear. >> jones said it all the time. just got off the phone with trump. trump just called. i just had an interesting conversation with trump. >> believe it? >> i don't know. >> he showed me text messages he had shared with trump while trump was in the white house. that shocked me. i thought as soon as trump took office he would not speak to any of those people. but they had, like, a relationship going on. >> was it a conversation? >> more so from alex's side. but there was a two-way conversation going on. i assume it was trying to convince him to come on

infowars, which alex really wanted to come again. >> trump never came back on infowars, but it didn't matter. money was rolling in. jones appeared invincible. >> the truth is, my average video was getting 3 million or 4 million views. >> but behind the scenes something changed. >> i wish i never would have met trump. >> social media companies took tougher stances on hate speech. >> they decided to deplatform by plonz and millions of views, and millions of followers off everything from i tunes to google to youtube to spotify. >> he would blame it on his alignment with trump. kay linen robinson captured these moments while filming a documentary with jones. >> i'm so sick of donald trump, man. god i'm [ muted ] sick of him. i'm not doing this because i'm kissing his [ muted ] ass.

>> jones struggled with his words and asked for a retake. >> this is the real quote. what i said earlier was inaccurate, so please use this quote. i'm glad i backed trump for president, but that said, being sucked into that whole vortex as -- wasn't quite instructional. i'm sorry, going to get it straight this time. i'm just trying to get this exactly right and exactly truthful. >> he tried again. >> so trump came to get my populous audience and then he did that. the democrats saw it as a threat, attacked it and said i was on trump. it made trump stronger and it made him win the election. and so they understand that donald trump is infowars. and that i'm donald trump now. and it's like a ring of doom. we've been merged together into this -- into this thing, and they're obsessed with it.

and it's some bizarre form of alchemy i don't understand. >> despite his feelings, when trump announced he would run for re-election, alex jones was right back on board. >> what the democrats and globalists are doing is insurrection against the country. >> he would attack the bidens and lie about a rigged election. >> dark forces trying to steal the election. >> voters are in the final hours of making a monumental decision. >> as ballots were being counted across america, it was becoming clear trump was about to lose. >> they're trying to steal an election. they're trying to rig an election and we can't let that happen. >> there is no doubt it is donald trump who is most responsible for millions of people believing the lie that he won and the election was stolen. but it is undeniable it is alex jones who spent months telling his followers to revolt.

>> they will be hiding. they will pay. they will be destroyed because america is righteous! if they want a fight, they better believe they got one! [ cheers ] >> immediately after the election, jones would appear at rallies across the country with his bullhorn. >> joe biden, burn in hell! >> and an armored vehicle -- >> 1776! >> resurrecting the slogan that roger stone had coined in 2016 -- stop the steal. >> stop the steal! stop the steal! >> raising money, firing up crowds, running sales on infowars, and calling his followers to action. >> everybody needs to be around that white house supporting us. they need to see patriots in the streets of d.c. >> alex! alex! >> the fight has just begun! >> each speech aggressive and

fore zbloegd we will never give up. we will never surrender. we will never back down to the satanic pedophile, globalist new world order. >> even other organizers planning stop the steal rallies like dustin stockton say jones was going too far. >> we could sense that, like, this was a really volatile situation. we also were trying to keep it from crossing that line into violence. they're fire brands and when you are doing that, it's kind of an exponential growth is like how outrageous you have to be. >> on december 19th, 2020, donald trump tells his followers big protest in d.c. on january 6th. be there. we'll be wild. alex jones never looked back. >> we need people to go to d.c. now. don't wait. go to d.c., go to the white house. just go to the white house. go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

>> january 6th, fight for trump. >> his show became a commercial for trump's rally, and on new year's eve, infowars guest host matt bracken said this. >> we're going to only be saved by millions of americans moving to washington, occupying the entire area, if necessary, storming right into the capitol. >> jones told his audience he was intimately involved in the planning of the january 6th rally. >> i put the money down because this is all private, folks. it was hundreds of thousands of dollars. and then a big donor came through and took care of that for us. it's not about me bragging, it's just people know the history. >> as crowds gathered in washington, d.c., on the night before the big rally, jones would warn of a coming battle. >> this will be their waterloo. this will be their destruction! >> the next day, jones was front and center for trump's speech. >> we're going to walk down to

the capitol. >> but megaphone in hand, jones then led a crowd to the capitol. >> let's go take our country back! let's start marching to the capitol! [ cheers ] >> when he arrived, it was chaos. trump supporters were in hand-to-hand combat with police. >> let's march around to the other side and let's not fight the police and give the system what they want. we are peaceful. >> the west side was anything but peaceful as jones was leading a crowd to the other side, the capitol was breached. jones arrived on the capitol's east side, climbed steps packed with rioters and called for peace but also revolution. >> 1776! 1776! >> jones sees it all and takes off.

>> fight for trump! fight for trump! >> just minutes after jones left, a mob trying to force the east capitol doors would push their way through. from a perch overlooking the capitol, he would rejoin st infowars podcast. >> we're pretty much sure. >> these were trump supporters, including extremists with deep ties to alex jones. the day-drea. the dribbler's getting hands-on practice with her chase first banking debit card... the drummer's making savings simple with a tap... ...round of applause. and this dreamer, well, she's still learning how to budget, so mom keeps her alerts on full volume. hey! what? it's true! and that's all thanks to chase first banking. freedom for kids. control for parents. one bank with tools for both, >> these were trump supporters, y service fee. chase. make more of what's yours.

usa! usa! >> as federal agents zeroed in on january 6th --

>> alex jones! >> jones' influence was on display. >> you want a fight, you better believe you got one! >> his own employees face criminal charges from an infowars editor who streamed the riot -- >> it feels good to be in the capitol, baby. >> to infowars host owen shroier. >> 1776! >> at least 20 of those arrested either worked under joealex jon appeared on his show or followed his content. her son believes everything alex jones has to say. another rioter alleged tase add police officer and told agents alex jones inspired his journey. >> how did you start to go into these rallies? >> infowars. >> two men linked to jones faced the most serious charges filed in the january 6th riot,

seditious conspiracy. stewart roadster rhodes, whose phone contained an encrypted chat, rhodes pleaded not guilty. and former infowars reporter and proud boys leader joe biggs, who pushed his way through the police lines into the capitol, he also pleaded not guilty. >> biggs, what you got to say? >> jones has not been charged. but cnn has learned the january 6th select committee investigators want to know about jones' involvement in the funding for trump's rally. the planning for his march to the capitol, and jones ties to extremists now charged with conspireing against the government. >> i said this, my lawyer told me almost 100 times today during the interrogation, on advice of counsel, i am asserting my fifth amendment right to remain silent.

>> jones says he refused to answer the committee's questions about january 6th, but told his infowars audience he knew nothing about a plot. >> and they already know i didn't do anything, i wasn't planning any violence. i was even talking about everybody should be peaceful. >> he would say he was talking about a peaceful type of fight, but that's not how it's actually translated to the people that follow alex jones. >> alex! alex! alex! >> his former employees are now convinced jones and infowars are a sham. >> i think i was facing a personal reckoning. it took me a lot longer to get the courage to lee. >> almost sounds like you're breaking away from a cult. >> oh, yeah, absolutely. i think there are many aspects of being in jones' world, being a listener, subscribing to those ideas that are cult like. >> it took kay lynn robinson six months to break away. >> what do you say to the people who are wrapped up in this world of infowars and believe these

conspiracies? >> oh, i would just tell them directly that alex doesn't care about them and they're just being used for money. >> and his business model, making money from supplements, not ads, means his empire is virtually untouchable. >> alex jones operates a media organization unlike any other. you can't put pressure on him by going after his advertisers. as long as he has that core of people buying those products, he'll do whatever he wants. the only thing that can hold him accountable is a lawsuit. >> jones is feeling pressure from the lawsuits filed by the families of sandy hook victims. he was found liable and it could cost him millions. a new lawsuit accuses jones of moving tens of millions of dollars to protect his fortune, which jones denies. he now admits children were murdered, yet in a recent deposition, still holds on to his conspiracy theory. >> the truth is, deep down i

still have real questions about sandy hook and a lot of the anomalies and the weird stuff that's gone on. >> even in the wake of yet another horrific school shooting, this time in uvalde, texas, jones is at it again. >> i would predict a lot of mass shootings right before the election and then like clockwork, it's happening. >> alex will not stop. this is what people have continued to understand about alex. will his behavior stay the same? absolutely. >> while jones continues to spread his message, it's his past lies that lead permanent pain. >> alex jones lied about sandy hook. my loss is the same as the next person that lost a child, but there's no closure to it. i've been fighting every day for something. unless

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