The FRONTLINE Interviews
Elizabeth Williamson
Author, Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth
Elizabeth Williamson is a feature writer for The New York Times. She previously reported on politics for both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Williamson is the author of the forthcoming book Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth.
Following are excerpts of an interview conducted by FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk on March 10, 2020. They have been edited for clarity.
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Elizabeth Williamson
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Who Is Alex Jones?
So, when you tell people about Alex Jones, how do you describe him?
I describe him a little bit like, if you’ve ever watched Alex Jones, then you’ve seen Alex Jones, even off camera.It’s hard to get him to break character.But when I visited his headquarters, and we were walking around and meeting people, and he was showing me the various studios, and you know, this renovation project that he was working on, that was when you got to see a little bit more of his day-to-day interaction, just with his own employees.And that was more, you know, “How is your mother?”“Well, she’s losing her memory.Got to take the fish oil.”That kind of thing.So, he’s always pushing his supplements.
But, of course, because I was with him, he was still on, you know.So, when I met with him, he talked for about three hours, and it was almost constantly like what you’d see on the show.You know, bouncing around the room, speaking in a whisper, kind of stage whisper, then dramatically raising his voice.You know, acting kind of menacing, making insinuations about who sent me?And where was I actually from?
And then, once in a while, you’d get him to break character.I kept asking him things like, “Is this how dinner at the Jones household is?”You know, because it was really odd.
What's his life story?
He grew up in Rockwall, Texas, which is a well-to-do kind of suburb [of Dallas].He was the son of a dentist and a homemaker.There is some suggestion that he was a little bit bullied in school, and that some of this bombastic personality that he has was kind of, you know, honed during that time, when—when he was having to kind of create something for himself, you know, the way that high school kids do.You know, they create a persona in order to get attention, or find a peer group or something like that.
Political?
You know, insofar as he was political —and this is kind of true even earlier in his career, in his radio career—he tended to be libertarian.He had Ron Paul on his show a couple of times.And a lot of people in his operation are still libertarian.
When people think about him—you described that bombastic, wild man approach to stuff, and they remember him from ’99, 2000, 2001—they just remember sort of an entertainer, almost.
Yeah, yeah, a character, a guy with a bullhorn, you know, someone standing out in front of a meeting at the Bilderberg Group, you know, shouting: “Global power!Globalists!”Or, you know, he, I think, actually believed a lot of that stuff.But he also had a flair for the dramatic.So, in the early 2000s, even if something was kind of what it was, he found a way to make it something bigger than it was, and something conspiratorial and theatrical.
What’s his reward system in those days?
I think, in those days, it was—it was attention.I mean, it was a really interesting model that he had in the beginning.You know, he would make these videos, you know, kind of putting his conspiracy theories out there, and they would distribute them.He and Kelly, his wife, would distribute them for free.And so, people would just write in.They would mail them.And, you know—and they would pass them around.And they encouraged people, you know: “Make copies.Pass these around.”He wanted to get that information out there.He likes being talked about.
Jones’ Distrust of the Government
Is this a guy who literally feels, in lots of ways, that he got Donald Trump elected, and Trump likes him, and they have a really close connection, in lots of ways?
Well, he’s traveled quite a trajectory in those days.I mean, I think back in those days, when he was still broadcasting his radio show out of an extra nursery room in his house, famously with the choo-choo train wallpaper, you know, just sitting at a desk.And he and Kelly were traveling on a shoestring and kind of still building.And he was very much a fringe character.I mean, people didn’t really—except for his listeners, I mean, he had no mainstream notoriety.
But it was really the 2016 presidential campaign that propelled him into people’s, you know, consciousness, outside of his listenership.
Two thousand one, the truther moment, when 9/11 happened, and the towers went down.What does he say?And what happened to him for saying it?
Well, that was when he lost his gig on Public Access Cable in Austin for insisting that that was an inside job.They probably could have imagined what was coming, because he had already portrayed the Oklahoma City bombing as an inside job.But 9/11 was a bit much.And so, he ended up losing his job, going off on his own.He will insist, to this day, that he predicted a lot of what happened on 9/11, and that a lot of his theories have been borne out.
It is kind of amazing how he struck a chord in people’s imaginations.I mean, in Washington, I was talking with a woman who lives on my street.And she was saying, “What are you working on?”And I mentioned Alex Jones.And she said: “Oh, he has really gone off the deep end with these Sandy Hook families.But I’ll tell you, you know, I worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, and I was off that day.And there is no way those buildings could have fallen into their own footprints.”And I just couldn’t believe it.
But there is something about the way he puts some of these theories over—and not all of them, of course—but that make people who are searching for an answer, maybe, want to believe them.Or the constant exposure to them.You know, people who are involved in these legal cases and are watching hundreds of hours of Alex Jones, start to wonder sometimes: What if he’s right?
Is that right?
Which is amazing.
Is there a philosophy by then that Alex Jones is articulating?As you think about what's at the core of his argument about things, when he sees an event, what does he bring to that event?
He often will say that it’s a distrust of the government and, you know, any of our official organs of power.So, it’s usually the federal government is at the core of what's happened.So, the false flag, you know: There is an event that is either staged or taken advantage of.It might be a real event, but it’s taken advantage of by the government, in order to press an agenda.So, in the case of 9/11, of course, it’s global control, and you know, world domination and the necessary trading of civil liberties in exchange for greater security.
It means that you're letting the government control your life in a way that, to him, and to the people who believe in him and listen to him every day, is unacceptable.
And to have somebody like Alex Jones land, when there's this technological moment that happens at the exact same time that we’re all kind of reeling about some of the things that investigative reporting has revealed are actually true about the deep state in the government.
Well, you know, history tells us that the government doesn’t always tell us the truth.The government does lie to Americans sometimes.And while we would like to think that the lie wouldn’t be as grand as, you know, some of the things that Alex Jones puts over the plate, you can point to instances in which the government has not told the American people the truth.And so, you take someone who has a conspiratorial mindset like he has, that's really all they need.
A person who’s a conspiracy theorist can point to six, 10, 12, 20 examples in American history where we haven't been told the entire truth.And there might be a reason for that, that Americans could, at least in their minds, justify.There are reasons for keeping state secrets.There are reasons that CIA’s operations are not known to all of us in every detail.But to people who are conspiratorial by nature, that's not acceptable.Or the degree to which we do this is not acceptable to them.And then they start to see conspiracies everywhere.
Jones’ Online Empire
He starts to build an empire after the crash, in the post-9/11 period.He goes on the web.He broadens out.He is one of the first to get there and realizes that he can broadcast radio without radio stations.People can hear him on their computer.And he’s wildly successful.How successful?
Well, if you think about his history, and the way that he was able to get his message out there, it must have been—when you think about he and Kelly stuffing, you know, video cassettes into padded envelopes, the internet was a miracle for someone like him, and for all conspiracy theorists, because all of a sudden—I mean we all know of conspiracy theorists from the days before Twitter or Facebook.You know, that was the person maybe at your family reunion, or—or on the bus, who would pass out, you know, mimeographed sheets, telling you, you know, that the government’s plotting to take over the world.And the black helicopters and, you know, all of that.
And those people were sort of isolated and shunned.And everybody felt like they had their number.But with social media and the internet, they find each other.And they can find each other in seconds.And they can push that mimeographed message to millions of people.And they also have no control over who finds it, picks it up and acts on it.
Did he ever talk to you about the eureka moment that he must have had when he opened up his computer and, quote-unquote, broadcast to the world—what that must have felt like?
I think the real eureka moment, for him, was when he realized that not only could he sell his theories, he could sell stuff.He could sell survivalist gear.He could sell vitamin supplements.He could sell all of the merch that you would need to survive the end of times through his show.
One-stop shop.You get the gospel, the doom and gloom, and the stuff to buy.
I mean, doomsday prepping is a thing now.And he was one of the people who really identified that.And had the built-in audience, you know.His target audience are people who really feel that that is necessary for them.
Jones and Sandy Hook
So, tell me what you know about Jones’ movements around Newtown and his assertions about it.
One of the things that is important to remember about him is that his cooking up of theories came secondary to spreading content that was created by others, theories that were imagined by others.So, one of his big partners in this is a guy named Wolfgang Halbig, a Florida retiree, who had been, amazingly, a school safety administrator at one point in his life, who wanted to look into the Sandy Hook shooting.It says he initially believed that it happened and then came up, you know, pulling at all of these little threads that came from so-called anomalies in the coverage, that showed that this didn’t happen the way it was being publicly stated or put out there.
Alex Jones gave Halbig a camera crew.He gave him airtime.He made him a celebrity in the conspiracy world and empowered him to go on, you know, onto his show, to raise money.So, he raised tens of thousands of dollars to fund trips to Newtown, where he submitted hundreds of FOIAs.He used the Freedom of Information Act to try and get things like dash cam footage from the police who responded.He wanted a transcript from a state helicopter that was hovering overhead.
And then he started asking for really terrible things, like: I want to see the contract for who cleaned up the school after the massacre.I want autopsy records.I want the names of children from Sandy Hook who sang—part of the choir who sang at the Super Bowl, after the event.Because how could they have gone?And who were they?And he thought that some of the dead children were actually in the choir that sang at the Super Bowl.
So, he was filing all of these requests, going into a town that was traumatized.So, hundreds of requests for all kinds of, you know, materials and—and records.And then, when he didn’t get them, he was, by law, allowed to have a hearing.So, he would come to the hearing.And he had an Infowars camera crew with him.He turned up at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown, where the funerals of eight children were held.And they were filming children going in and out of the parish school, in the parking lot, because he was convinced that one child who had died was actually alive and still attending the school.
So, they were focusing on little girls of a particular description.He went into the rectory and distracted the pastor in order to get more footage, so that no one would stop his crew.I mean this was the kind of thing that was going on.And these people were broadcasting what they were gathering on Infowars.
And then Alex would take this kind of footage—also footage of the parents, people like Robbie Parker speaking about his daughter, you know, the day after the shooting.And [Parker] is about to step to the camera, and he’s nervously laughing because he sees a sea of media in front of him.And this is a man who’s never spoken to a single reporter in his life.And all of a sudden, he’s confronted with this.And he gives a kind of nervous laugh.So, they went over and over and over that footage, and showed this—they used this laughter as an example of, he has to be an actor.He can't actually be a grieving father in shock.
So, these were the types of things they were using to exploit a shooting that, I think, in the very beginning, there were—there were some well-meaning people that just couldn’t grasp something so terrible, you know: 20 first graders and six women who died, trying to protect them.Who can get their mind around that?So, in the beginning, there were people who just quite honestly couldn’t imagine such a thing happening in our country.And then those people quickly fell away, became convinced.And then you were left with this corps of people who just wouldn’t leave it alone.
It seems to me that’s the first time I've heard the phrase “crisis actors.”Is that that moment?
Yeah.So, it was a watershed moment, in the way I just described.It was a watershed moment for the push for gun-safety legislation.It was also a watershed moment for those individuals who then came to see every mass shooting in America as some kind of a plot.And the victims, and the victims’ families, as actors in that plot.And that also had to do with gun-safety legislation.
What about Jones?What did he do?What did he say?
So, a couple of things stand out.I mentioned earlier: He looked at footage of Robbie Parker speaking about his daughter.You know, coming to the microphone, laughing a little bit when he saw this sea of media before him.And [Parker] was going to have to, you know, make a statement.[Jones] exploited that.He showed that over and over again, to the point where, walking down a street in Seattle, years later, someone recognized Robbie and began, you know, following him down the street, shouting at him: “You liar!How could you have said that?You liar!”And, you know, calling him names and following him for blocks.
When you talked to Alex about it, what does he say?
Right.He blamed me, as someone from the mainstream media, that we talked about it.If he just put it out there years ago and then didn’t talk about it again, you know, it’s on us.We’re still talking about it.The parents are still talking about it.The parents are suing him.They're bringing it up.He’s been able to sort of flip the script and say: “Well, it’s all of you still talking about it.I haven't spoken about Sandy Hook in years, except when you force me to speak about it.”So, it’s a conspiracy inside of a conspiracy about a conspiracy.It’s very meta.
Jones’ Political Influence
So, help me connect up, just from your own perspective: Our character Alex moves towards politics.Intentionally?Inevitably?With enthusiasm?
Yeah.I think he was, again, moving in step with changes in our culture and in the way that we distribute information and in our politics.And so, I don’t think he could have predicted any more than any of the rest of us did.And by that, I mean in the media, that Donald Trump would be our president.So, Donald Trump knew that there was a subset of people in America who believed in some of these theories.A colleague once described this as, you know, when people would go out on the trail, there would be, in the back of every gathering—and sometimes in the front—John McCain faced down one of these kind of birther types, right.You just wouldn’t call on those people.You know, you would just ignore them.It was the person at the party, you know, the person at your family reunion, the person with the mimeograph sheets on the bus.
But then suddenly, we had this moment where you had someone who was willing to engage.And then the platform became that much bigger.So, not only was it the internet, it was—it jumped into mainstream politics.It was no longer fringe, you know, conspiracy world internet.It became this legit candidate for president is going on Alex Jones’ show and praising him for saying, “Your reputation is amazing.”And Alex is saying: “Well, I know that you're going to get grief for coming on here.But thank you,” you know.And all of a sudden, there he was in the middle.I mean, he was no longer on the fringe.He was in the center of the room.And that, for him, was, you know—for Americans it was shocking, because these are not the people you engage.But at the same time, for him, it was the jump to the mainstream.
It seems inconceivable, when you first hear it.And then you find somebody talking about it, and you say, “Are you—what?”
Are you reading the newspaper?You're not just hearing it on just radio anymore, you know.You're reading it in the newspaper.And the president is producing his birth certificate, because so many people are talking about it.You know, that’s—that’s the difference.I went to—before the Republican convention, I went to a rally.And it was the alt-right rally.So, Milo Yiannopoulos, that was when he was still a thing.He was there.He was speaking.I don’t think Alex Jones was actually there, at that moment.
So, I went up to this lady who was sitting on the sidelines.She’s a very nice, you know, smiling lady.We’re in Cleveland.She said, “You know, I live in this town just outside of Cleveland.”She had her son by her side.Her son lived with her.He was in a wheelchair.He was disabled.I started chatting with them.We were having a very nice conversation: the weather, what a beautiful day, this, that.And I said, “Where do you get your news?”And she said, “Louder With Crowder, Infowars.I listen to Ben Shapiro.”And I'm thinking, Who are these people?
And she said, “If you're not listening to them, you're only getting half the story.”And I thought, Oh, wow.You know.And that was another moment where you realized: This whole landscape has changed.And these individuals that could so easily be dismissed have become a force to be reckoned with.
In the sense that this whole landscape has changed, where does Alex Jones fall?
Alex Jones, I think, saw himself—he was at that convention.He and Roger Stone were there.I talked to one of his colleagues who traveled with him during that time.[Jones] dogged after Roger Stone.He was very keen to be a “playa.”You know, he really wanted to be part of things.So—so, he kind of, you know, muscled his way through crowds.He certainly had plenty of people who knew who he was.He was a minor celebrity there.
This was not—normally, you would expect Alex Jones to be outside the barricades with a bullhorn.But all of a sudden, there he was, making his way through.He was a part of things, because this was an administration that not only embraces people like him, and like Roger Stone, and people who were kind of, you know, practicing the sort of conspiratorial dark arts.Conspiratorial thinking is a feature of this president.So, it’s a kind of hand-in-glove situation.And we’ve seen that ever since.
It’s usually the people outside, “We have no power,” shaking their fist at the government.Now you’ve got the president of the United States stamping conspiracy labels on a tremendous number of things.
Yeah.A person sitting at the top of the government, accusing the government of conspiring against him.That was Donald Trump.
And when Alex runs promos and says: “I say words, and Trump says them back.And we have a call-and-response relationship.”True?
Probably not: “Let’s call each other and decide what we’re going to wear tomorrow.”It’s not that.It’s that the mindsets are similar.You know, a conspiratorial mindset.They tend to go to the same or similar places.
So, we’ve never, in our lifetimes, heard a president rail about the deep state.That's Alex Jones’ territory.But now they're sharing the same turf.
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