Conspiracy theory evangelist and Infowars host Alex Jones has filed a lawsuit against the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, saying that he will plead the fifth because the panel could use his testimony for a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, CNN reports.
Jones’ lawsuit seeks to block the subpoenas and claims Jones should be protected under the First Amendment. He says that he will also decline to answer questions so as not to incriminate himself.
In his lawsuit, Jones is also trying to block subpoenas against him and AT&T for his phone records and seeking a “declaratory judgment” saying that the House panel is “not a lawfully constituted committee” and that its “actions to date have been wholly without legal authority,” noted The Independent.
The committee has sought phone records from more than 100 people, including Jones, and sent subpoenas directly to at least 50 people.
The committee has called Jones to testify on January 10, according to the lawsuit. A deposition scheduled for last Saturday had been postponed, according to CNN.
The pro-Trump propagandist also questions whether GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who serve on the Democrat-led committee are still members of the GOP.
“A question exists as to whether Defendant Cheney is still a member of the Republican Party,” the lawsuit states. “The Wyoming Republican Party has expelled her as a member, and Chairman Thompson’s act of appointing her to the position of Vice Chair confirms under House Rules that she is a member of the Democrat party because House Rule XI(2)(d) states that vice chairs are to be members of the majority party,” the lawsuit claims.
Calling himself a “controversial journalist,” Jones says in his lawsuit that he will raise First Amendment objections as appropriate, “asserting that he engaged in constitutionally protected political and journalistic activity under the First Amendment.”
He went on to say that the committee members “consider themselves and most of the other members of Congress victims of domestic terrorism” and that “they also consider a small minority of Congressmen and Senators as well as Donald Trump to be domestic terrorists”.
