John Oliver Rips Into 'Clown Show' Alex Jones Trial

Alex Jones was the subject of Last Week Tonight on Sunday night, as John Oliver dug into the conspiracy theorist following his defamation trial for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook massacre was a "hoax."

The jury in the trial awarded Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of murdered 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, $45.2 million in punitive damages and $4.1 million in compensatory damages, and Jones faces more defamation suits in Connecticut and Texas.

Oliver opened his monologue by calling Jones "a man who boldly answers the question: What if Grimace were a Proud Boy," before running down the almost comical court proceedings of the last week.

Showing a clip from court, Oliver noted that the judge was so "exasperated" with Jones' lying throughout the trial, that she stopped the proceedings to say, "It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth while you testify, but here I am: You must tell the truth while you testify … this is not your show."

"But that's not the only way Jones provoked the judge," said Oliver. "Because he's also continued to appear on Infowars, which has, among other things, baselessly linked her to pedophilia."

At another point, the judge noticed that Jones was chewing on something and told him that gum and food weren't allowed in the courtroom, at which point Jones tried to explain that he had a tooth pulled, and he was "massaging" the hole in his mouth. He then offered to show the judge the inside of his mouth.

"Holy sh*t! If you heard just her side of that interaction, from 'spit it out,' to 'I don't want to see the inside of your mouth,' you'd assume she was talking to A. a small child, or B. a dog," said Oliver.

Oliver noted that later on, you could "clearly see him turning away from the judge and putting something in his mouth."

The real kicker came later, though, as Oliver showed a clip of the lawyer representing the parents of the slain Sandy Hook child presenting a text message in court that proved that Jones had lied on the stand when he claimed there were no texts on his phone of him discussing Sandy Hook.

When Jones answered that he didn't know how the lawyer obtained the texts, the lawyer explained, "Did you know [that] 12 days ago your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone, with every text message you've sent for the past two years? And when informed, [they] did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way? And as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession, and that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn't have text messages about Sandy Hook."

“Oh sh*t!" said Oliver. "First, credit to that lawyer for having the superhuman patience to sit on those text messages for 12 whole days … but the content of Jones' phone could become a problem for him. Not only has the Jan. 6 committee already requested those phone records, but they also show that Jones, who's tried to plead poverty in this case, was earning revenue of as much as $800,000 per day in recent years from sales."

Oliver added, "Look, clearly none of this is going to stop him. There are two more trials coming up, and he's probably going to find ways to turn those into a clown show as well and fundraise off them too. But at the very least, this phone thing could make his life much more difficult ... And that is something that we should all be allowed to enjoy, because to wake up one morning and find out that Alex Jones' lawyers mistakenly shared his cellphone records is a true blessing. We don't deserve this, but one thing's for sure: He definitely does."

Last Week Tonight airs Sundays at at 11:00 PM ET on HBO. The late night show is also available to stream on HBO Max.

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Deena ElGenaidi's writing has been featured in Nylon, MTV News, Insider, The AV Club, and more. You can follow her on Twitter @deenaelg.