Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is still struggling to come to terms with Donald Trump’s dismissal of the ongoing furore over the Jeffrey Epstein files, reacting with dismay to the president calling it “total bulls***” earlier this week.
The InfoWars host posted a clip of Trump in the Oval Office taking questions from the press corps on Wednesday and saying of the scandal: “Look, the whole thing is a hoax.
“It’s put out by the Democrats because we’ve had the most successful six months in the history of our country. That’s just a way of trying to divert attention to something that’s total bulls***.”
Jones commented on the exchange: “Trump’s disastrous handling of the Epstein firestorm last month was starting to die down and now he has let the corporate media bait him into re-launching a new Streisand effect.”
His latter reference is to the phenomenon through which a public figure’s attempt to suppress information only succeeds in drawing more attention to it.
Jones subsequently posted a video of his own in which he said that he had been left facing a personal “conundrum” by the whole affair.
“This is just crazy,” he said, observing that “Trump is not stupid” but suggesting he had been “caught off guard with a new issue” and had underestimated the strength of feeling about Epstein among his supporters.
“I don’t know what to say at this point. I am actually in a conundrum. I’m gobsmacked.”
The uproar over Epstein began after the Justice Department and FBI ruled last month that the deceased sex trafficker left behind no “client list” and died by suicide in his New York jail cell in August 2019.
The verdict incensed many of Trump’s followers, who have long suspected foul play and have continually demanded the release of all federal files on the investigation into the financier’s crimes, which stretches back for more than two decades.
Trump himself has not been accused of any wrongdoing over his past association with Epstein and is currently suing The Wall Street Journal for reporting that he once sent the sex offender a “bawdy” doodle for his birthday, but remains under pressure to publish the files.
Among the most extreme reactions to the Justice Department’s initial announcement came from Jones, who filmed a video behind the wheel of his car in which he almost burst into tears of frustration as he accused Trump officials like Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and his deputy Dan Bongino of being involved in a cover-up.
Before that, Jones had responded to Elon Musk, alleging during his war of words with Trump in early June that the president was withholding the files because he was mentioned in them by writing simply: “God Help Us ALL….”
The bear-like and emotional Texan has been at the forefront of America’s conspiracy theory movement for more than two decades, entertaining such unlikely paranoid myths as Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl half-time show serving as a front for a Satanic ritual, Michelle Obama living as a man in disguise and the Pentagon inadvertently turning frogs gay after its experimental love bomb leaked chemicals into the water supply.
More disturbingly, he has spread misinformation about the 9/11 terror attack and claimed that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of December 2012 was “completely faked with actors,” a hoax sponsored by the Obama administration to provide a pretext for introducing stiffer firearms restrictions.
He was sued for defamation by the grieving families caught up in that tragedy for pushing that falsehood and was ultimately forced to pay $1.5bn in damages in 2022, forcing both him and Infowars to declare bankruptcy.
