NRA official corresponded with Sandy Hook doubter about Parkland shooting

A National Rifle Association official corresponded with a Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist over “questions” about the Parkland, Fla., school shooting last year.

According to emails obtained by HuffPost, NRA training instructor and program coordinator Mark Richardson wrote to Wolfgang Halbig to discuss theories about the Florida shooting, including the possibility that the gunman “was not alone.” 

Richardson reportedly thanked Halbig for sending him “a lot of information” since Sandy Hook, and raised a number of questions about the Parkland shooter’s ability to access the school.

Halbig, a contributor to Alex Jones’s InfoWars, has authored numerous posts targeting parents of children who died in the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Conn., according to HuffPost. InfoWars is facing a number of lawsuits related to the spread of conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook.

{mosads}“Just like [Sandy Hook], there is so much more to this story,” Richardson wrote in his email to Halbig, sent the day after the Parkland shooting, according to HuffPost’s review.

“He was not alone. Just a few questions that have surfaced in the past 24 hours,” he reportedly wrote. “Thank you for all the information And for what you do.”

Richardson confirmed to HuffPost that he sent the emails, which came from his official NRA email address, and said that he was asking a “legitimate question.”

“Since an individual who was prohibited from the school was [allowed] to pass through the front doors with a backpack containing a long gun, it is a legitimate question to ask if he had assistance concerning access to the school,” Richardson told the outlet.

“No one else seems to be interested enough to even ask the question?”

A spokesperson for the NRA told The Hill in a statement late Wednesday, “This personnel related matter is under review.”

NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker clarified to The Hill in a statement Thursday that the NRA does not support conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook shooting, calling suggestions that the shooting was a hoax “insane.”

“Sandy Hook was a horrific tragedy and any suggestion that the unspeakable atrocities committed by an evil lunatic were faked as part of an elaborate hoax are insane,” Baker said. “The men and women of the National Rifle Association grieve for the innocent people who were killed, the families ripped apart, and the entire Sandy Hook community.”

The emails, along with others sent by Halbig, were uncovered in the discovery process for a lawsuit against InfoWars’s Jones from a Sandy Hook parent.

The New York Times reported last month that Halbig contributed to “years of harassment” against Sandy Hook families by bombarding Newtown officials with open records requests referencing conspiracy theories about the massacre.

Among Halbig’s frequent topics on Infowars, according to HuffPost, was the conspiracy theory that 6-year-old Avielle Richman was not killed in the shooting. Richman’s father was found dead earlier this week in an apparent suicide.

Updated March 28, 12:29 p.m.