John Oliver took quite a bit of delight in watching InfoWars’ host Alex Jones in court this week, as Jones was made to answer for his conspiracy theories surrounding the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2014. According to Oliver, the proceedings were a “master class in what not to do in court.”
As a reminder of the terrible things Jones has said about the tragedy, Oliver pulled up a video clip showing one of the many times that Jones claimed the shooting was “completely fake, with actors.” And while Oliver agreed that Jones’ words have been wrong in many ways, he also pointed out that they aren’t all that shocking.
“Look, obviously those claims are disgusting, but they shouldn’t really be that surprising coming from the guy who literally named his platform after going to war with information,” Oliver said. “Guess what Alex? You f—ed with info, and this time, info f—ing won.”
Turning to last week’s trial, Oliver couldn’t get over Jones’ own actions in the courtroom. The host proceeded to call out the many ways that Jones “provoked” the judge throughout the trial, including how he has continued to host InfoWars, using the show to slander the judge and the jury, and openly defying the court’s rule about having no food or drink inside.
“A lot of this was deliberate schtick on Jones’ part,” Oliver said. “He decided to make this court hearing a circus because he’s in the circus business – which is particularly despicable because the parents of one of the children that was killed in Sandy Hook, who have been harassed constantly by Jones’ fans were in that room.”
Of course, Oliver couldn’t resist poking fun at the “twist” in the case, when it was revealed by the Sandy Hook parents that Jones’ lawyers had sent over a digital copy of his phone, containing every text message he’s sent for the last two years, and that they had purposely waited 12 days to reveal those texts, solely so they could catch Jones lying under oath.
“Oh s—! First, credit to that lawyer for having the superhuman patience to sit on those text messages for 12 whole days,” Oliver exclaimed. “Just imagine receiving those records with texts that probably said things like, ‘I know Sandy Hook really happened. I’m just a ghoul who wants to make the world suffer and make money doing it,’ followed immediately by one saying, ‘Can you make the frogs look gayer in the graphics?’ and saying to yourself, ‘Wait, wait, your time will come.’”
