Alex Jones has announced plans to sue the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), following allegations that the intelligence agencies had previously targeted him.
Earlier this week, Sound Investigations shared what was represented as secretly-shot video footage of various conversations with a man called Gavin O'Blennis, who described himself as a contracting officer for the CIA.
In the conversations, which were timestamped as having taken place March 15-28, O'Blennis claimed that it was common practice for intelligence agencies to go after figures by allegedly goading them into engaging in incriminating activities.
"You can kinda put anyone in jail if you know what to do," O'Blennis is seen telling an undercover reporter in the clip. "You set 'em up." O'Blennis went on to say that "you create the situation where they have no choice but to act on their impulse, and once they act on that impulse, some would call that entrapment."
When asked if "entrapment is regularly practiced by the agency, O'Blennis said: "We get really close. We call it a 'nudge.'"
"You put a post out there or you have some fake profile say something that triggers, that we know is going to trigger them, right?" O'Blennis said. "Like we already know your history. If we're at that point we already know everything about you. So we're like, 'Oh, this will p*** him off.' Sometimes you light the fuse and just wait for it to follow."
When Infowars' Jones was brought up by name, O'Blennis said of the conspiracy theorist: "We were after him. Hardcore."
O'Blennis went on to state that Jones is no longer being targeted "because he's broke. He got found guilty and had to pay like $100 million."
Newsweek has been unable to independently verify whether O'Blennis ever worked for the CIA. Newsweek has contacted the CIA and FBI via email for comment.
In October 2022, Jones was ordered by a Connecticut jury to pay the family members of eight Sandy Hook mass shooting victims and an FBI agent who responded to the 2012 school shooting $965 million for describing the massacre as a hoax.
Jones was found liable for defamation after spending years describing the shooting, in which 20 first-graders and six school administrators were killed, as a hoax and accusing the victims involved of being actors complicit in staging the deadly tragedy. Prosecutors were asking for $550 million.
This was the second multi-million-dollar verdict against Jones, who was ordered in August 2022 to pay $4 million in compensatory damages and $45.2 million in punitive damages to another set of parents whose child was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.
In an interview with conservative commentator and YouTuber Benny Johnson this week, Jones shared plans to take action in light of Sound Investigations' video.
"[O'Blennis] needs to be subpoenaed by Congress," he said. "I am planning to launch a lawsuit against the CIA and the FBI. We have to bring all this out and right as my bankruptcy comes to a close and right as all this stuff is being finalized. It's really God working here that this came out at this time."
Jones added he's been having speculative discussions with a number lawyers ahead of filing any possible lawsuits.
"I've got to get the wheels on this thing rolling and...we've got a lot of options," Jones said. "But again, it's not for me. It's...to put it out in court and show the evidence and then drag them out in the light with discovery and show what they've really done. And it's about congressional hearings and it's about stopping these rogue agencies that have become domestic KGB operations."
Elsewhere in the Sound Investigations clip, O'Blennis clarified that Jones' Sandy Hook verdict was a civil matter. When asked if the goal was to bankrupt Jones, O'Blennis responded: "Pretty much. And we let the families do it."
"We don't encourage people [to sue]," he added. "We just say, 'There's no federal statute being broken. But you do have the option for a civil case. It's a pretty good case, in our opinion."
"Took his money away," O'Blennis was later shown saying of the purported goal achieved against Jones. "We shut him up for a while. You're never going to shut him up permanently."
"He didn't do anything to go to prison," O'Blennis added of Jones. "Being ignorant is not a crime, though it should be."
Jones filed for bankruptcy protection in December of 2023. His media company, Free Speech Systems, also filed for bankruptcy protection in July of the same year.
About the writer
Ryan Smith is a Newsweek Senior Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more