Alex Jones pleaded for financial support as Infowars store made $165m over three years, report finds

Conspiracy theorist lost Sandy Hook lawsuits after false claims inspired years of abuse against families

The online store operated by Infowars, the far-right platform from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, collected $165m from sales between September 2015 and the end of 2018, despite the host’s pleas to his followers for financial support to keep him on the air.

Records obtained by HuffPost from court filings stem from a lawsuit against Mr Jones for lies surrounding the killings of 26 people – including 20 children – at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

By 2016, the store averaged $110,000 a day in sales, according to HuffPost, while its most profitable days followed his Sandy Hook segments.

Mr Jones has lost all Sandy Hook-related cases against him, as judges repeatedly issued rare default rulings that find him liable for damages in lawsuits filed by parents of children killed in the shootings.

For years, on his website and programme, Mr Jones claimed that the killings amounted to a “false flag” operation and a “hoax” engineered by the government in an effort to force stricter gun control laws, and falsely claimed that the event was “completely staged” with “crisis actors” – fuelling in-person and online abuse against the families of victims.

Lawsuits successfully argued that Mr Jones profited from spreading conspiracy theories and defamatory statements.

Juries will convene to determine just how much Mr Jones must pay the families, as well as court costs.

HuffPost obtained more than 30 pages of spreadsheets tucked into more than 500 pages of deposition transcripts that detailed the InfoWars store’s revenue from 18 September, 2015 through 31 December, 2018.

Meanwhile, Mr Jones has repeatedly insisted that “without financial support, Infowars is finished”, according to HuffPost.

After he lost his fourth and final Sandy Hook case in November, Mr Jones told listeners that “it’s going to take a lot of money to fight this and a lot of money for the appeals”.

“I can’t spend the money we have paying our crew and running our independent media outlet that reaches millions of people without your support,” he said on his programme, pointing to a website for donations.

Mr Jones – who called on his listeners to help fund “the second Americans revolution” just days before an attack on the US Capitol on 6 January – also faces a subpoena request from the House select committee investigating the assault.

In a letter accompanying the subpoena requesting his appearance for a deposition, committee chair Bennie Thompson told Mr Jones that the committee has “credible evidence of your involvement in the events” within the scope of the panel’s inquiry.

According to the committee, Mr Jones helped organise the rally at the Ellipse that immediately preceded the attack, including donating “80 per cent” of the funding to pay for it.

“Mr Jones has stated that he was told by the White House that he was to lead a march from the … rally to the Capitol, where President Trump would meet the group and speak,” according to the committee. “Mr Jones has repeatedly promoted unsupported allegations of election fraud, including encouraging individuals to attend the Ellipse rally … and implying he had knowledge about the plans of the former president with respect to the rally.”

He has indicated he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The Independent has requested comment from an attorney representing Mr Jones.