In January 6 Deposition, Alex Jones Pleads Fifth, Forgets Own Name, Is Having A Bad Year

You know that thing when you’re super stressed out and you get so worked up you forget how to spell your own name?

No?

Oh, well, take it from Alex Jones, it’s totally normal.

STAFF COUNSEL: Mr. Jones, could you please state your full legal name for the record?

JONES: Alexander Emerick Jones.

STAFF COUNSEL: And I believe your first and last name are spelled in the traditional way. Could you please spell your middle name for the record?

JONES: You guys know what my name is. It’s on the record.

STAFF COUNSEL: I’m just asking for the court reporter.

JONES: E-m — I’m so stressed out, I can’t even spell it for you,

PATTIS: E-m-e-r-i-c. [SIC]

JONES: That’s right, E-m-i-r-c. [SIC

Well, it happens to all men sometimes. It should probably clear up once he doubles his dose of Super Male Vitality pills.

This transcript from Jones’s January 24 interview with the House January 6 Select Committee was released yesterday, along with dozens of others. Jones and his lawyer Norm Pattis forgetting how to spell his own name at the outset set the tone for the entire interview, in which the attorney struggled mightily to get his client to stick to the plan and plead the Fifth in response to every question.

The committee began the proceeding by playing a clip from Jones’s own show in which he quotes his lawyer saying that Jones’s documents and testimony would be “exculpatory” — i.e. not something about which someone could assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

This prompted some noisy throat clearing from Pattis, the very same attorney who gifted Jones $1.5 billion in damages payable to the Sandy Hook families Jones defamed, and who is facing possible sanctions after disseminating the contents of Jones’s phone, including the protected medical records of the Sandy Hook plaintiffs. Because of course you bring your Connecticut tort lawyer to defend you in a Congressional hearing — WHO ELSE?

Less than two minutes into questioning, Jones was already veering off script.

“We’ve offered you all the emails and all the text messages. You didn’t want it,” he spluttered, as Pattis interjected, “Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones.”

And he continued to veer off at regular intervals:

STAFF COUNSEL: Is it my understanding that you intend to assert the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer any of our questions on those topics?

JONES: Because Adam Schiff forges documents.

PATTIS: Objection. Objection. Mr. Jones.

JONES: I don’t trust Congressman Schiff. He’ll forge stuff.

PATTIS: Mr. Jones.

JONES: Go ahead.sorry. It’s just — I

STAFF COUNSEL: I appreciate that, Mr. Jones, that this is a stressful situation, and I’m just trying to be as straight with you as I can be. I want to make sure I understand that to all those questions about organizing and planning and what you expected ahead of time with respect to the business arrangements for January 5th and 6th that you intend to assert the Fifth Amendment to those questions. Is that right?

JONES: Yes.Yes. I want to tell you guys everything, but I don’t trust Congressman Schiff. So, I mean, I —

PATTIS: Alex, may we have a moment, please?

JONES: Yeah, I don’t even know how to control this stuff, Norm. It’s a different system than I have.

Can you object to your own client speaking? In a congressional hearing where the rules of evidence do not pertain?

In the event, Pattis all but yanked Jones out of the office by his collar, before returning to say that his client really would love to talk, but is waiting to “make an application for immunity at some other time to a neutral magistrate.” Which is lawtalk for “my guy can’t open his mouth without incriminating himself, and he ain’t sayin’ shit ’til he gets a promise he won’t be prosecuted for it.”

And, hey, fair enough. But Pattis couldn’t stop the committee from telling him what they already had. And they had a lot.

They had text messages from Ali Alexander, including one from December 20 in which Alexander, one of the organizers of the January 5 and 6 rallies, told Jones that “POTUS is deciding in the next 24 to 48 hours if he wants to go ALL THE WAY.”

They had an agreement negotiated by Jones’s employees for him to be paid $200,000 to speak at the rally — although it’s not clear if that money was to compensate Jones only, or was to be split with Roger Stone.

They had text messages from rally organizer Caroline Wren to Jones’s team requesting that Mike Flynn be in the posse with Jones and Stone to lead the march on the Capitol.

They had video of Jones marching toward the Capitol on January 6 and promising the crowd that Trump would soon be joining them.

And they had convicted Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes promising Jones on air to exercise the “nuclear option” if Biden’s electoral victory were “illegally” certified.

None of which is good when there’s a grand jury empaneled to examine the events in question. And while you can more or less blow off a congressional subpoena, the Justice Department tends to be a bit more persistent.

Luckily Jones is cool as a cucumber, so he’ll be able to handle whatever’s coming.

[Jones Transcript]

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