Police said the reporter, Jamie White, 36, died shortly after midnight on March 10 after being shot outside his apartment complex in Austin, Texas.
In a March 11 episode of “The Alex Jones Show” podcast, Jones said White was “brutally murdered,” and speculated about who could be behind it.
Jones initially blamed White’s killing on the policies of Travis County District Attorney José Garza, a Democrat. Then, he shifted to Ukraine.
“Jamie got put on the Ukrainian enemies hit list,” Jones said. “You remember the Ukrainians were openly listing a U.S. senator that better watch out, Jack Posobiec better watch out, and Jamie White better watch out.”
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Jones pointed to a June 12, 2024, X post from White that read, “I’m on the Ukrainian ‘Enemies List’ due to my work at @infowars and with @RealAlexJones on the Ukraine proxy war.” The post included a screenshot of a website that listed White’s name and his affiliation with InfoWars.
After White’s death, Instagram and X users also shared White’s post.
But White is not on a Ukrainian enemies list.
The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)
The Travis County district attorney’s office said in a statement to The New York Times that Jones’ allegations were “shameful, but not surprising,” and accused Jones of “trying to exploit the victim’s death for political gain.”
“However, we will not let Jones distract us from our work in seeking justice for Mr. White and supporting the Austin Police Department in its investigation,” the statement continued.
Austin police said the suspects in White’s killing fled the scene. Officers said they believe the suspects were possibly burglarizing White’s car when White interrupted them. A homicide investigation is ongoing.
In a June 11, 2024, InfoWars article, White wrote that InfoWars and people affiliated with the site, including him and Jones, had been named on a “list of American detractors of the Ukraine war against Russia.”
Texty.org.ua, an independent Ukrainian media outlet, created the list of 386 people and 76 organizations as part of a data journalism project analyzing rhetoric from those opposing support to Ukraine. The project, published June 6, 2024, compared anti-Ukrainian aid arguments to Russian disinformation narratives and explored how those sharing these claims interact with Russian-controlled media and agencies.
Three days after the project’s publication, Texty added a note at the top rebutting social media accusations that the media outlet had created an enemies list. Texty said its table of research subjects is “neither a ‘list of enemies of Ukraine’ nor a ‘kill list.’”
Texty also published an article responding to pressure and threats to its data journalism team. The media outlet reiterated that it didn’t label people Ukrainian enemies. Texty said its work is supported solely by reader donations.
PolitiFact found no evidence of Texty labeling White, or anyone else on its research subject list, as an enemy of Ukraine. The outlet also did not call for White to be harmed or killed.
We rate the claim that White was on a “Ukrainian enemies hit list” False.
