Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has ordered a senior U.S. Justice Department official to drop an inquiry into a retired FBI agent’s involvement in a defamation lawsuit involving Alex Jones’ conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Ed Martin Jr., who leads the Justice Department’s “weaponization working group,” sent a letter dated Sept. 15 to the Sandy Hook families’ lawyer asking for information about former FBI agent William Aldenberg. The request “caused frustrations” within the department, and Blanche directed Martin to withdraw the letter, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency matters.
The Sandy Hook families’ lawyer, Christopher Mattei, said he received a new letter from Martin on Wednesday, saying there was no investigation of Aldenberg and “I hereby withdraw my request for information.”
“Less than 18 hours after calling out Alex Jones and Ed Martin for their corrupt use of the Department of Justice to harass Sandy Hook families and the heroic FBI agent who ran into that school to save any children he could, I am happy to learn that this so-called inquiry has now been withdrawn, if it ever existed at all,” Mattei said in a statement.
Martin had asked in the letter whether Aldenberg received any financial benefits from helping to organize the lawsuit, in which he was a plaintiff along with victims’ family members. The lawsuit filed in Connecticut led to a $1.4 billion judgment against Jones for defamation and inflicting emotional distress.
Aldenberg, like the parents and other relatives of the 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, has been the subject of false conspiracy theories spread by Jones on his “Infowars” broadcasts.
Aldenberg was among the law enforcement officers who responded to the school and found the dead children. That then led to years of abuse from people who believed the shooting was a hoax, he has said. His share of the judgment totaled around $120 million.
