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, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
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, who responded to the 2012 school shooting and was a plaintiff in the lawsuit, along with victims’ relatives, that led to a $1.4 billion judgment against Jones for calling the massacre a hoax.
Martin’s letter suggested that he was looking into whether Aldenberg broke a federal law by receiving financial benefits for helping to organize the lawsuit. Jones, who said he met with Martin last week in Washington, has accused Democrats and Justice Department officials of orchestrating the lawsuit to silence him.
But Martin’s correspondence to Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, and Aldenberg, “caused frustrations” within the Justice Department, and Blanche directed Martin to withdraw the letter, said the person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency matters.
Mattei said he received a new letter from Martin on Wednesday that said 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who ran into that school to save any children he could, I am happy to learn that this so-called inquiry has now been withdrawn, if it ever existed at all,” Mattei said in a statement.
Hellbound and Down 