Infowars host Alex Jones says the Department of Justice asked him to disclose the value of his family cat amid bankruptcy meetings.
A Connecticut Jury ordered Jones to Pay $965 million to the family of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Shootings. The amount was nearly double the $550 million originally requested by prosecutors. Additionally, Jones had been ordered by a Texas court to pay about $50 million to the family of one of the victims. In total, Jones has been ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion.
Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the ruling was announced. According to court documents, Jones listed his assets as falling between $1 million and $10 million and his debts, which were reported to be mostly business-related, between $1 billion and $10 billion. Jones also said he has between 50 and 99 creditors. Free Speech Systems, Jones’s main business, had filed for bankruptcy in July, per The Texas Tribune.
In a video message posted to Twitter on Feb. 23, Jones said DOJ officials had questioned him about his cat during a three-hour meeting.
“OK, so this is not a joke, this is real and it really happened,” Jones said while cradling the cat. “I am in a bankruptcy hearing – personal and corporate for Infowars – and the Justice Department is involved … and they spent probably five minutes of the meeting, which was over three hours long, on my cat.”
“They wanted to know if assets were hidden in the cat,” he continued. “They were very serious about the cat and its value and they may want the cat for the Sandy Hook families.”
“The deal’s broke, you aren’t getting the cat. This is next level,” said Jones. “You guys aren’t getting my cat.”
Jones said his lawyers had never heard of such a request being made before.
“What? Do you want my children next?” Jones said.
“This is the reality that we live in, here in America in 2023,” he said. “Justice Department hearings – with people laughing in the background – when they say ‘We want your cat.’”
Jones speculated that the DOJ is “mad” because he does not have “these billion of dollars that they claimed I did.”
“The line in the sand is that you cannot have the cat. I’m sorry,” said Jones. “But hey – you can have my First Amendment and my guns and I support world government. No, actually, you can’t have that either.”
The cat, named Mushu by Jones’s five-year-old daughter, is a Ragdoll that cost $2,000.
The families of the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting sued Jones for calling the attack a hoax. The plaintiffs claimed he had inflicted “additional emotional stress” and they were “harassed and threatened by supporters and believers of the conspiracy theory” as a result of Jones’s actions and statement, per The Hill.