In an extended interview with New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson, author of “Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth,” she discusses covering the latest trial of right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the significance of his text messages being turned over to the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, and how he helped to shape the Republican Party and to lay the groundwork for the GOP’s widespread embrace of Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Williamson interviewed Jones for her book. After Jones spread the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, “it went from there to Pizzagate to QAnon to Charlottesville and the 'Great Replacement' theory … to coronavirus myths, the 'Stop the Steal' lie, and then ultimately the violence at the Capitol on January 6,” Williamson says. “Alex Jones has his fingerprints on pretty much all those theories … that have circulated in the decade since.”