Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Was Arrested For DWI, Blames County ‘Dragnet’
Prominent media figure and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was arrested on Tuesday morning for driving while intoxicated, per The Daily Beast. According to the Travis County sheriff’s office, he was booked shortly after midnight. Travis County is located in Austin, Texas, which is where Jones is based.
Law enforcement added that Jones was arrested on a class-B misdemeanor DWI charge. He was booked and placed in jail from 12:37 a.m. until he was released on bond at 4:11 a.m, according to Kristen Dark, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office.
Though court records are not currently available to the public, Jones himself disclosed the arrest on his website, InfoWars, using the platform to proclaim his innocence in the incident.
In an article detailing the arrest, Jones claimed that he was originally pulled over for going 45 mph in a 40 mph zone. He then accused Travis County of instituting a “dragnet” after it had been “criticized for its low number of DWI arrests.”
However, Jones did not deny that he had been drinking earlier in the evening.
“The paperwork shows that Jones admitted to drinking a small amount of sake at a Japanese restaurant hours before with his wife,” the article claimed.
The article added that Jones blew below the 0.08 threshold for drunk driving.
“[This] was proven truthful after the breathalyzer test showed a tiny amount of alcohol – well under the legal limit in the Lone Star State,” it added.
In addition to accusing the sheriff’s office of implementing a dragnet, the article also claimed that the officer who arrested Jones could not properly perform the “stand on one leg” sobriety test when trying to demonstrate the maneuver.
However, it should be noted that Media Fact Check has deemed InfoWars to have a “very low” factual reporting rating.
This is not the first time that Jones has been accused of driving with alcohol in his system. A former InfoWars staffer claimed back in 2016 that he saw the radio show host drinking out of a paper cup that smelled “of vodka, like paint thinner” while he was driving.
Jones has gained notoriety for his fringe conspiracy theories such as stating that 9/11 was an inside job and claiming that the horrific Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 children and six adults were killed, was a hoax. He is currently facing a defamation lawsuit from the family of a 6-year-old victim over those claims. Jones has since acknowledged that the mass shootings did, in fact, occur.
