'It's performance art': Lawyer for Alex Jones says InfoWars founder is 'playing a character'
That's more or less what attorney Randall Wilhite told Texas District Judge Orlinda Naranjo, the Austin American-Statesman reported on Sunday.
Wilhite told Naranjo Jones' public personality should not be considered as material in evaluating the InfoWars founder's ability to be a father. Wilhite said doing so would be comparable to judging famed actor Jack Nicholson in such a custody battle based on his performance as the Joker in "Batman."
"He's playing a character," Wilhite said of Jones. "He is a performance artist."
But Kelly Jones, the InfoWars host's ex-wife who is seeking sole or joint custody of the couple's three children in the case, testified that Jones' InfoWars personality is absolutely the real Jones.
"He's not a stable person," she said, according to the newspaper, before mentioning recent rants Jones went on while on air. "He says he wants to break Alec Baldwin's neck. He wants J-Lo to get raped."
"I'm concerned that he is engaged in felonious behavior, threatening a member of Congress," she said, referring to comments the host made earlier this month about Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California. "He broadcasts from home. The children are there, watching him broadcast."
The couple's three children, ages 14, 12, and 9, live with the InfoWars host since the pair divorced in 2015.
Jury selection begins in the case on Monday.
Jones, with millions of followers, rose to new prominence during the 2016 election cycle after then-Republican frontrunner Donald Trump appeared on his broadcast in late-2015. He was called out by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in an August speech she delivered targeting Trump's support from the so-called "alt-right." Jones' radio program and website frequently traffics in conspiracy theory. He has claimed in the past that the Sandy Hook shooting was a "false-flag," September 11 was an "inside job" done by the government, and he has previously promoted the "Pizzagate" conspiracy with vigor, recently having to apologize on air for some of his actions related to it.
An unabashed supporter of Trump, Jones recently criticized the candidate for ordering a missile strike on a Syrian government airfield, claiming that the chemical weapons attack launching by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that preceded it was a "false-flag" committed by his opposition.