Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said he'll likely plead the fifth instead of testifying before the House select co...
Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said he'll likely plead the fifth instead of testifying before the House select committee on January 6.
'I'm probably going to declare the fifth, not because I've done anything wrong, but because these people are political criminals that have an ax to grind and have been bragging everywhere they want to put me in prison,' Jones said in a video posted Tuesday.
He and Trump ally Roger Stone were subpoenad Monday by the committee.
Jones addressed crowd members outside the Capitol on January 6 and helped arrange the rally on the Ellipse that preceded the Capitol attack.
Jones called himself a 'family man' who at age 47 didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison. 'I don't want to testify before them because they will lie and say I lied,' Jones said, adding that the FBI and Department of Justice would then indict him for lying to Congress.
On Tuesday, the House select committee also subpoenaed the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the 1st Amendment Praetorian, as well as some of the group's leaders, including head Proud Boy Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio, requesting documents and testimony.
Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said Tuesday that he probably wouldn't testify before the January 6 committee. . 'I don't want to testify before them because they will lie and say I lied,' he said
Enrique Tarrio was subpoenaed by the January 6 select committee on Tuesday. Tarrio missed the January 6 Capitol attack because he was arrested on unrelated charges two days before, however committee members believe he may have been involved in the planning
The committee subpoened the Proud Boys, who were on hand en masse during the January 6 Capitol attack
Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones addresses members of the crowd on January 6
'The Select Committee is seeking information from individuals and organizations reportedly involved with planning the attack, with the violent mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6th, or with efforts to overturn the results of the election,' Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the panel, said in a statement.
The subpoenas are the latest in a wide net the House panel has cast in an effort to investigate the riot, when supporters of former President Donald Trump, fueled by his false claims of a stolen election, brutally assaulted police and smashed their way into the Capitol to interrupt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory.
The committee has already interviewed more than 150 people across government, social media and law enforcement, including some former Trump aides who have been cooperative.
The panel has subpoenaed more than 20 witnesses, and most of them, including several who helped plan the 'Stop the Steal' rally the morning of Jan. 6, have signaled they will cooperate.
Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys, hasn't been charged in the riot as he wasn't there on Jan. 6.
He'd been arrested in an unrelated vandalism case as he arrived in Washington two days earlier and was ordered out of the area by a judge.
Law enforcement later said Tarrio was picked up in part to help quell potential violence.
But despite him not being physically present, the committee believes he may have been involved in the Proud Boys' preparation for the events at the Capitol.
More than 30 Proud Boys leaders, members or associates are among those who have been charged in connection with the attack.
The group of self-described 'Western chauvinists' emerged from far-right fringes during the Trump administration to join mainstream GOP circles, with allies like longtime Trump backer Roger Stone.
Supporters of then President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol in Washington during the January 6 insurrection
The group claims it has more than 30,000 members nationwide.
The committee on Tuesday also subpoenaed the Oath Keepers - a militia group founded in 2009 that recruits current and former military, police and first responders - and its founder and leader Elmer Stewart Rhodes.
The panel says Rhodes may have suggested members should engage in violence to ensure their preferred election outcome and that he was in contact with several of the more than a dozen indicted Oath Keepers members before, during and after the Capitol attack, including meeting some of them outside the Capitol.
Rhodes has said there were as many as 40,000 Oath Keepers at its peak, but one extremism expert estimates the group´s membership stands around 3,000 nationally.
The last organization on the committee's list Tuesday was the 1st Amendment Praetorian, founded by a QAnon believer, that claims to provide free security for 'patriotic and religious events across the country.'
Its chairman, Robert Patrick Lewis, is wanted by the committee after being listed as a speaker on the permit for a Jan. 5 rally on Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington.
On the day of the attack, Lewis tweeted: 'Today is the day that true battles begin.'
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