WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Department investigators have sought to interview law enforcement officials related to the FBI search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate as part of a Florida-based inquiry aiming to establish a conspiracy against the Republican president, multiple people familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The requests for interviews, made in recent weeks, suggest that a conspiracy investigation that had mostly appeared focused on the decade-old question of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is also examining a more contemporary event — the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago that resulted in the FBI seizing top secret documents from the president's Palm Beach, Florida, estate.
The requests were for voluntary interviews and not made through subpoenas, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation with The Associated Press.
It is not clear when or if prosecutors might seek to bring charges, or for what, but investigating conduct that occurred in Florida might give the Justice Department the legal hook it needs to try to anchor a prosecution in the state.
Joe diGenova, the prosecutor brought back to the Justice Department in April to oversee the investigation, declined to comment when contacted by AP on Thursday. The Justice Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump was indicted in 2023 on charges of unlawfully retaining classified documents and of obstructing FBI efforts to get them back. But the case was dismissed the following year after a Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, ruled that the prosecutor who brought the indictment, Jack Smith, had been illegally appointed.
Trump has long maintained that law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against him over the last decade, drawing a straight line between an investigation into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign and the more recent investigations related to his retention of classified documents and his efforts to undo the 2020 election.
The Justice Department has for months conducted an investigation in Florida in hopes of proving wrongdoing by the officials involved in scrutinizing Trump.
Much of the questioning known to have occurred so far has centered on the government response to Russian interference in the 2016 election and the creation of an intelligence community assessment that documented the extent of the meddling.
It was not immediately clear why investigators want to question FBI officials in connection with the Mar-a-Lago search, but the act has long infuriated Trump, who decried it as an invasion of privacy.
In addition, congressional Republicans have long seized on accounts of tension between FBI officials and senior Justice Department leaders before the search to raise questions about whether there was an adequate justification for it, though the law enforcement dispute centered not on whether investigators had gathered sufficient evidence for a search but rather on whether there was a less dramatic and intrusive way to recover the records.
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with technology leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
FILE - An aerial view of President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate is pictured, Aug. 10, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, and partially redacted by source, shows boxes of records being stored on the stage in the White and Gold Ballroom at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. (Justice Department via AP)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas court on Friday slashed a $50 million judgment that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre over his false claims that one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history was a hoax.
The Infowars founder can only be forced to pay about $6 million, the Texas Third Court of Appeals ruled in a unanimous opinion, citing state laws that limit lawsuit damages.
The ruling does not affect a separate $1.25 billion judgment against Jones in Connecticut, where he was also found liable for defaming and causing emotional distress to relatives of the 20 first-graders and six educators killed in the Newtown shooting.
The punishing financial verdicts against Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, in recent years have forced him into bankruptcy, led to some of his personal property being put up for auction and led to him leaving his Infowars platform. For decades, he used the platform to push conspiracy theories about the United Nations, the federal government, gun control and more.
Sandy Hook families have yet to collect any money from Jones, who has waged lengthy appeals in state and bankruptcy courts as his company faces liquidation. He remains on air after moving onto new websites and streaming platforms.
Friday's ruling did not throw out the trial court's finding of defamation against Jones. Still, he called it "a gigantic victory for the First Amendment,” and said he will continue to appeal the case to the state Supreme Court to get the remaining damages thrown out.
“I got lawyers who are good constitutional lawyers and they are not backing down,” Jones said.
Jones has already tried to appeal the Connecticut judgment to the U.S. Supreme Court but was denied last year.
The decision by the Texas Third Court of Appeals left intact more than $4.1 million in compensatory damages awarded by a jury to Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis for defamation and emotional distress. But it slashed more than $45 million in additional punitive damages down to $1.5 million to comply with the state's $750,000 cap for each plaintiff.
The court found Heslin and Lewis did not show evidence that the harassment following Jones’ hoax claims rose to a level that would allow them to exceed the cap. It also said the trial judge improperly allowed the parents to seek higher damages after trial.
Mark Bankston, an attorney for Heslin and Lewis in the Texas lawsuit, shrugged off the appeals court ruling as “irrelevant” given that Jones still faces massive financial judgments in Connecticut.
“The families care not at all about this irrelevant ruling which affects only two of the 19 claims they all share. Jones still faces over a billion dollars of liability, so this changes absolutely nothing. All it does is highlight the absurdity of Texas law,” Bankston said.
Heslin and Lewis’s 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among those killed in the Sandy Hook attack. Their lawsuit against Jones and the 2022 verdict marked the first time he was held financially liable for peddling lies about the massacre, claiming it was faked by the government to tighten gun laws.
Jones portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, but conceded during the trial that the shootings were “100% real” and that he was wrong to have lied about them.
At the Texas and Connecticut trials, victims’ relatives testified that Jones’ followers -- believing his claims that the shooting didn’t happen -- subjected them to death and rape threats, in-person harassment and abusive comments on social media. Jones argued there was no proof that linked him to those actions.
Heslin and Lewis told jurors that an apology wouldn’t suffice and initially called on them to make Jones pay more than $150 million for the years of suffering he has put them and other Sandy Hook families through.
Almost immediately after the punitive damages in Texas were announced, Jones' trial attorney predicted the award would be reduced to $1.5 million on appeal.
Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut lawsuit, said Friday’s ruling has no bearing on the ongoing lower court proceedings in Texas involving the liquidation of Infowars’ parent company.
Jones and his company have filed for bankruptcy, and those legal proceedings continue. The satirical website The Onion also moved to take over Jones' Infowars platforms and turn his bullhorn of conspiracy theories into parody sites.
Jones gave up the Infowars brand in April and moved to a new location, switching his shows to new websites and posting them on his personal X account. The Onion, meanwhile, has set up its own Infowars webpage on its website, running videos of shows parodying Jones.
A proposed licensing deal that would give The Onion temporary authority to use Infowars’ trademarks, copyrights and intellectual property has been put on hold because the liquidation proceedings have been stayed during Jones’ appeals.
In November 2024, the Chicago-based satirical outlet was named the winner of a bankruptcy court auction of the assets of Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, aimed at helping pay some of the defamation judgments. A federal judge overturned the auction results, citing problems with the process and The Onion’s bid.
FILE - Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones speaks to the media after arriving at the federal courthouse for a hearing in front of a bankruptcy judge in Houston, June 14, 2024. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
