| No Images? Click here   By Samantha Storey and Nick BaumannAn official with the National Rifle Association corresponded with a prominent Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist to call into question the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, emails obtained by HuffPost show.NRA officer Mark Richardson emailed Wolfgang Halbig, a noted harasser of parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims, to float a conspiracy theory about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed last year.The email exchange between Richardson and Halbig emerged as part of a recent discovery process for an ongoing lawsuit between Infowars host Alex Jones and Sandy Hook parent Scarlett Lewis, who is suing Jones for intentional infliction of emotional distress. For years, Jones has falsely called the victims of the tragedy “crisis actors,” emboldening dangerous conspiracy theorists to harass people who lost their children in the tragic shooting.HuffPost reporter Sebastian Murdock broke the story.How’d you come to this story?A lawyer representing several of the families who are suing Jones for spreading false information that the shooting was somehow faked gave me the tip. I'd worked with him before on two other stories I've reported on Jones.Part of this process has been discovery, or the release of thousands of internal Infowars emails, to be used as evidence. It was sifting through those emails that lawyer Mark Bankston and his team saw something particularly shocking: An email between an NRA official and Wolfgang Halbig, a Sandy Hook hoaxer and close friend of Jones.What’s been most challenging to report?The most difficult part of this story -- as it can be with so many stories when you’re holding people in power accountable -- was seeking out verification that the email came from the NRA official Mark Richardson. The name and NRA email address to the Sandy Hook hoaxer was plain as day, but how do we know it wasn’t doctored? How do we know someone else didn’t use the man’s account? These were unlikely questions, but ones that needed to be answered.Those fears were alleviated when Richardson confirmed to me in an email that it was in fact him who questioned the facts surrounding the Parkland, Florida school shooting. He excused himself of blame by saying he was only asking a question.What was most surprising?It’s hard to say what was most surprising about the revelation that an NRA official was in cahoots with a dangerous conspiracy theorist. The NRA has mocked the children of school shootings and continues to weaponize our country for profit. Was it a shock, then, to see that one of their officials would try to sow disinformation about another horrific shooting? Not particularly.
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