Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has confirmed that among his potential vice-presidential prospects is New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who in private conversations shared deranged conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting not being real.
CNN knows of two people with whom Rodgers has enthusiastically shared these stories, including with Pamela Brown, one of the journalists writing this piece.
Brown was covering the Kentucky Derby for CNN in 2013 when she was introduced to Rodgers, then with the Green Bay Packers, at a post-Derby party. Hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rodgers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories. Rodgers brought up the tragic killing of 20 children and 6 adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it.
When Brown questioned him on the evidence to show this very real shooting was staged, Rodgers began sharing various theories that have been disproven numerous times. Such conspiracy theories were also later at the center of lawsuits brought by victims’ families when they sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on the matter.
Jones baselessly repeating lies that the 2012 mass shooting was staged, and that the families and first responders were “crisis actors,” spawned multiple lawsuits and a trial was held in 2022 over lawsuits that were filed in Connecticut.
Family members throughout that trial described in poignant terms how the lies had prompted unrelenting harassment against them and compounded the emotional agony of losing their loved ones.
Brown recalls Rodgers asking her if she thought it was off that there were men in black in the woods by the…
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