This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 24 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
You may remember Ed Martin as the Donald Trump appointee who fired dozens of career Justice Department prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases. Or maybe you remember him as the official who dropped criminal assault charges against the former leader of the Proud Boys and demoted the prosecutors who had been working on the case.
Or maybe you remember him donning a Columbo-style trench coat and doing a photo shoot outside New York Attorney General Letitia James’ home in Brooklyn, while trying to prosecute her on what appear to be trumped-up charges.
Now, it seems Martin has managed to outdo himself and stoop even lower than all of that.
But first, let me back up for just a moment, because this involves an even more unsavory character: far-right personality Alex Jones. For decades now, Jones has been spewing conspiracy theories on his website, Infowars. He has claimed that the moon landing was fake. He has claimed that 9/11 was an inside job.
But more than anything, Jones has become synonymous with one conspiracy theory: that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which left 26 people dead, 20 of them children between the ages of 6 and 7 years old, is a hoax.
For years, Jones has spread conspiracies about one of the most horrific acts of mass violence our nation has ever seen, claiming that the school had been empty at the time or that the reporters on the scene were actually in studios using green screens. He’s even spewed the outrageous nonsense that the children, parents and law enforcement agents at the scene were actors.
And for years, the families were harassed and threatened by people who believed the conspiracies Jones was pushing. They were targeted with anonymous phone calls, harassment on the street and death threats.
Among the people who were harassed and threatened was former FBI special agent William Aldenberg. He was training near the school when the shooting happened and was one of the first people on the scene. Aldenberg has said he searches for himself on the internet about once a week to see if there are any new threats to himself or his family.
Conspiracy theorists have latched onto how Aldenberg looked vaguely similar to one of the victims’ parents at Sandy Hook, and decided that similarity must mean they are the same person — an actor hired to play both roles as part of a deep state conspiracy.
On his show, Jones fanned those flames. So, back in 2018, Aldenberg, along with a group of Sandy Hook victims’ families, sued Jones. Actually, a lot of the Sandy Hook victims’ families started suing. Some in Texas, where Jones’ company Infowars is based, and some in Connecticut, where they lived and where the shooting took place.
After all of their lawsuits combined, Jones ended up on the hook for damages of around $1.4 billion.
Now, this is where Martin, Trump’s so-called “director of weaponization” at the Justice Department, comes into play. About two weeks ago, Jones posed for photos with Martin. Three days later, on Sept. 15, Martin sent a letter to Aldenberg requesting information about his involvement in litigation against Jones and implied that Aldenberg was being criminally investigated.
The letter specifically requested that Aldenberg and his lawyer keep the information confidential. They appeared to have complied with that request. But on Tuesday, Jones published it himself.
“Breaking! The DOJ’s Task Force On Government Weaponization Against The American People Has Launched An Investigation Into The Democrat Party / FBI Directing Illegal Law-fare Against Alex Jones And Infowars,” Jones posted on X, alongside the letter.
However, just one day after Jones made all that public — and people across the country expressed their outrage — Martin retracted his letter to Aldenberg. Now, that retraction is good, it shows that pushback can work. But the genie is already out of the bottle.
On Wednesday, Jones went on his show and used Martin’s letter as evidence to suggest that all of the lawsuits against him are the real conspiracy.
So, a top Justice Department official, handpicked by the president of the United States, seemingly weaponized the power of the federal government and, in the process, helped Jones attack a first responder to the Sandy Hook shooting.
But that’s not where this ends, at least according to Jones. He says Martin is just getting started.
“Well, if they like this opening investigation, they are really going to like the other stuff,” Jones said on his show Wednesday. “Because I’m not in control of this, and I’m not — I don’t know what Ed Martin’s gonna do. They told me some of the next stuff coming, that they’re working on … The other stuff is unbelievable.”
Actually, this whole thing is unbelievable — just not in the way Jones thinks.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
