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Even when covering its own news, Infowars can’t help but gin up a conspiracy.
On Sunday, a reporter for the site, Jamie White, was reportedly killed outside his home in Austin, Texas. Alex Jones, the site’s head, immediately looped in George Soros, who he accused of turning the city into a soft-on-crime liberal hellscape.
But pinning White’s death on a left-wing ploy to defund police was not absurd enough. So how about a deep-state-funded hit orchestrated by a Ukrainian assassin?
In the days after White’s death was announced by Jones, conspiracy theorists online started sharing so-called proof White had been on an “enemies hit list” published by a Ukrainian organization secretly propped up by USAID (You know, a CIA front).
“How many Ukraine refugees are soldiers brought here for this sort of activity?” asked one person in a thread on Patriots.win, flagging White’s death as a political assassination. “Hope everybody is concealed carrying and training at the range every so often. No better proof than a cold, dead assassin.”
Unfortunately, though, without a “cold, dead” body, believers in the conspiracy are instead relying on a few (gigantic) leaps in logic.
Jamie White-Ukraine conspiracy
Last year, a Ukrainian outlet published a lengthy piece detailing how pro-Russian propaganda worked its way through the conservative movement and media, a rather anodyne accusation given that conservative media influencers have been paid to prompt and parrot Russian propaganda.
The people on the list were accused of, in one way or another, working to stymie U.S. aid to Ukraine, which, if you have paid any attention to U.S. politics, would know it’s a topic Republicans stridently support.
Infowars made the list, as did actor Steven Seagal, venture capitalist David Sacks, and literally the concept of MAGA.
But the right’s response to it was… not one of measured understanding and acknowledgement that it accurately reflected one of their staunchest policy principles.
Instead, they claimed the publication was funded by the deep state, and the names on it were secretly a target list, with everyone on it suddenly fearing the next person they had coffee with was a CIA recruited Ukrainian freedom fighter intent on poisoning their latte.
An Indiana representative who was on the list for repeatedly voting against Ukraine funding packages immediately demanded the American government stop funding a media outlet that was calling for him to be killed.
“Is shameful for our agencies to be using Hoosiers’ tax dollars to collaborate with foreign groups that attempt to intimidate U.S. citizens and lawmakers,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-Indiana) wrote in a letter insisting the money stop flowing to the site, Texty.
Sure, we can all get onboard with the idea that Americans paying Americans to kill Americans is bad, but one might think there’d be something in the way of proof that that was happening.
Of course there is no proof
No money is or ever was flowing to Texty. Its founder once volunteered at a State Department two-day workshop in 2015 in Ukraine that “helped increase digital and media literacy and gave participants the tools to communicate effectively in the 21st century.”
The founder, Anatoliy Bondarenko, spoke at several sessions, giving presentations online about data mapping.
That was the entirety of the accusation.
But if a bunch of right-wingers really thought Ukraine was actively trying to kill them, you think they might talk about it more than once.
Instead, the site was forgotten until someone found an old post of White’s after his death and decided he was offed by Ukraine, on behalf of the U.S. deep state (or the U.S. deep state, on behalf of Ukraine.)
“I’m on the Ukrainian ‘Enemies List’ due to my work at @infowars and with @RealAlexJones on the Ukraine proxy war,” White’s old post read. “The group who compiled this list is tied to the U.S. State Dept, USAID, CIA and George Soros.”
White is on the list, though his node off of Infowars didn’t even merit a full ID.
In the drop-down, it listed several articles he wrote and a tweet discussing the right-wing belief that the U.S. funded biolabs in Ukraine, which was one of Russia’s stated reasons for invading.
Small justification, it would seem, for murdering someone.
But the revelation sparked righteous indignation on far-right message boards.
“I hope Trump brings this up to that cosplayer Zelinsky during the ‘peace negotiations.’” wrote one. “If this isn’t a fuck you red flag, I don’t know what is.”
“So they attack our internet infrastructure and assassinate journalists?” asked another, referencing Elon Musk’s dubious assertion Ukraine took down X. “I would rather help Russia at this point. Fuck Ukraine.”
Careful, that talk might get you ended. Or not, because is Ukraine really killing people who made the list?
Well, the list has a healthy section of media outlets, like the Daily Wire, Infowars, Breitbart, and Fox News, totalling nearly 100 journalists.
All of whom, you might be wondering, are still alive.
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