State District Judge Lora Livingston on Wednesday ordered conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones to undergo drug and alcohol testing by noon Thursday and to appear in court for a March 23 hearing on whether two of his children should be placed in the care of his ex wife.

Jones’ attorney David Minton said that his client, who was not present for the late afternoon hearing, had important meetings Thursday morning and asked if he could have until 5 p.m. to get the testing done.

"I’m guessing there is nothing more important than his kids," Livingston said, insisting that the 10 panel hair follicle test for a broad array of drugs and an EtG Test for alcohol be done by the noon deadline.

Livingston issued the orders at a hearing on an emergency motion filed by Kelly Jones, Alex Jones’ ex wife and the mother of their three children. She seeks to have their two daughters, ages 12 and 15, removed from what she alleges is an unsafe situation in the home of her ex-husband and his second wife, Erika Wulff Jones, whom he married in 2017 and with whom he has another child.

"I want (Alex Jones and his wife) here in front of me on Monday morning, the 23rd," said Livingston in her mostly empty third-floor courtroom in the Herman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse.

Alex Jones is best known as the impresario of the InfoWars conspiracy theory show, on which he appears daily.

He is also the defendant in four lawsuits — for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress — filed in Austin by the parents of some of the children killed in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012. Jones and InfoWars repeatedly depicted the massacre as a hoax.

Those cases, which have drawn national and international attention, may come to trial in the same courthouse in downtown Austin later this year.

Kelly Jones’ motion followed her ex-huband’s arrest late Monday by a Travis County sheriff’s deputy for driving while intoxicated, but also Wulff Jones’ arrest in August by an Austin police officer on the same charge.

In both cases, the arrests resulted from one spouse talking to police about the other.

Alex Jones’ arrest came after Wulff Jones called authorities. She said they had an argument at home that at one point got physical and that he might be driving intoxicated.

Wulff Jones’ arrest in August came after a private investigator working for her husband called police to say that he was worried about her mental state. The InfoWars host confirmed to police that concern and said she might be driving drunk.

In her order, Livingston required that Alex Jones not drink when he has custody of the girls, or for 12 hours before a visit. She also ordered Alex Jones to make sure Wulff Jones doesn’t drink while the girls are with the couple and that she doesn’t drive them anywhere in any case.

Even though Kelly Jones is seeking to remove the girls from her ex husband’s home as soon as possible, Livingston decided that she was not going rule on the request before the March 23 hearing because the girls were already scheduled to be with their mother as of Friday for a spring break trip to Florida that goes through March 22. Livingston said the girls could be with their mother beginning Thursday if they chose to.

Wednesday’s hearing was only the latest legal skirmishing between Alex Jones and his ex wife over custody of their children since their divorce in 2015.

They were awarded joint custody after a jury trial in 2017 and, for the first time since their divorce, Kelly Jones gained the right to have the two girls and their 17-year-old brother primarily live with her.

That never happened. The former couple were due back in court for a two-week jury trial to begin on March 23 over the terms of their custody arrangement. That trial has now been indefinitely postponed.

After his arrest Monday, Alex Jones was charged with driving while intoxicated even though his blood alcohol content, in two breathalyzer tests, was just below the legal limit of 0.08. It’s not uncommon for people in Texas to be charged with DWI even when their alcohol level is below the legal limit as the law allows prosecutors to use other elements to prove their case, such as a driver’s performance on a field sobriety test and the presence of alcohol odor.

According to an arrest affidavit for Alex Jones, a sheriff’s deputy responded at 10:10 p.m. Monday to a disturbance report from their western Travis County residence.

Wulff Jones had told the dispatcher that she and her husband were in a verbal fight that had been physical earlier in the day and that he had left their home in a black Dodge Charger and that he may have been drinking.

While en route to the residence, the deputy saw a dark Dodge leaving the neighborhood, traveling 45 mph in a 40 mph zone.

The deputy pulled the vehicle over and interviewed Alex Jones, who the officer reported had a strong odor of alcohol.

According to the affidavit, Alex Jones told the deputy he and his wife had had dinner at Izumi Sushi and that he had consumed a bottle of sake around 8 p.m. He said they got into an argument at dinner and he ended up walking three miles back to his home. When he arrived, he said, they resumed arguing. He got into his car to drive to another residence he owns downtown to "get away from his wife," the affidavit stated.

But on his show on InfoWars Tuesday, Jones offered a somewhat different version of events, describing his return home after dinner and before departing as a relaxing interlude.

"I’ve been in a hot tub, I’ve been doing other things too, you know, with the old lady," he said. "I was relaxed. I was tired. I went out to get Blue Bell ice cream."

Travis County Attorney David Escamilla has yet to decide whether to prosecute Jones.

According to the police affidavit in Wulff Jones’ arrest, late on the evening of Aug. 21, a private investigator working for Alex Jones was tailing her when he called police and said he was worried about her mental state. Police then called Alex Jones, who said he feared his wife was intoxicated.

When Austin police pulled her over to check on her condition, she appeared to be inebriated, according to the affidavit. At first she denied having consumed any alcohol but then said she had had a glass of wine. Her preliminary breath test came in at 0.185, far exceeding the legal limit.

Wulff Jones is due in court for a pretrial hearing on her case on April 7.

Livingston said she was eager to get to the "root causes" of the conflict between the Joneses with regard to their children at the March 23 hearing.

"We need to get to the bottom of this," Livingston said.