Alex Jones: Texas state police told us that Gov. Abbott supports our protests against public health orders

Written by Timothy Johnson

Published

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claimed that Texas state police officers told Infowars that Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott supported an April 18 rally organized by Infowars host Owen Shroyer at the Texas Capitol.

During the rally, protesters gathered to flout an executive order issued by Abbott that required Texans to stay at home except when doing essential activities. Shroyer and Jones stood in close quarters with a few hundred people and led the crowd in chants, which included one calling for the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key leader in the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. As Jones left the protest, he shook hands with supporters. Infowars is hosting a follow-up rally this weekend that will again ask people to gather despite social distancing rules. 

During his April 21 broadcast, Jones claimed that Texas state police and Abbott were actually supportive of the protest:

From the April 21, 2020, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

ALEX JONES (HOST): You know what happened when Owen Shroyer showed up at about 12 noon on Saturday at the state capitol? And normally you have to have a permit to be up in front of the capitol so he did it down on the street. They had a couple of provocateur antifa dressed up in American flag outfits, and we know who they are, tried to start a fight with cops. The state police saw right through it, didn’t even arrest them, just shoved them to the side and said, “Owen, we can’t control this down here. We appreciate what you’re doing, so does the governor.” This is off record, but on record. They just didn’t want to say their names. “Please come up in front of the capitol and we’ll protect you from these people.” That’s the fight club stuff that’s going on here in America.

Abbott has tried to spin his executive order to placate his conservative base, bristling at his directive being termed a stay-at-home order even though it explicitly tells people to stay at home. He has begun to issue executive orders to lessen some restrictions, though social distancing guidelines remain. For example, while state parks have reopened, park visitors are not supposed to gather in groups of more than five. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick claimed during an April 20 appearance on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight that “there are more important things than living. And that's saving this country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us.” During a March appearance on Fox News, Patrick suggested that he and other senior citizens were prepared to die if that meant the economy could be reopened.

On March 11, Texas businessman and major Abbott donor Gary Heavin joined The Alex Jones Show and claimed that he had just met with Abbott to advise him on coronavirus. During his appearance, Heavin expressed his belief that the novel coronavirus is a man-made bioweapon that was “was designed to kill primarily Asian people” but said that “the problem is it’s going to kill a lot of Europeans and non-Asian people because it’s still lethal.” Heavin also said he shared research with Abbott from far-right conspiracy theorist Mike Adams, who believes that the novel coronavirus was engineered and released by “globalists.”