The psychosis made him do it. Firebrand conspiracy theorist Alex Jones pointed the finger at what he described as “a form of psychosis” for spreading the theory that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was all staged. The Infowars host made the claim in a deposition as part of a lawsuit filed against him by the family of one of the 20 children who were killed in the shooting that left 27 people dead. The deposition was posted online by a Texas law firm that is representing some of the Sandy Hook families. Huffpost has posted a transcript of the deposition online.

During the deposition, Jones, who had previously suggested the shooting was a “hoax,” acknowledged it was real but fell sort of really taking responsibility for amplifying claims that the parents of dead children were lying. “I, myself, have almost had like a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged, even though I’m now learning a lot of times things aren’t staged,” Jones said. “So I think, as a pundit, someone giving an opinion, that, you know, my opinions have been wrong; but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people.”

The lawyer representing Sandy Hook parents went back on that point and asked Jones about his psychosis claim. “Well, I’m just saying that the trauma of the media and the corporations lying so much, then everything begins―you don’t trust anything anymore, kind of like a child whose parents lie to them over and over again, well, pretty soon they don’t know what reality is,” Jones said. The radio host added that “in the past” he thought “everything was a conspiracy” but now he knows better and sees “that it’s more in the middle.”

Jones faces eight lawsuits over his comments about the Sandy Hook massacre that are seeking millions in damages for his claims. And even though he seemed contrite in the deposition, only days after he blamed “psychosis” for his conspiracy theories he was back on the air making outlandish allegations about Sandy Hook parents. Huffpost notes that in a March 25 broadcast, Jones claimed that the father of one of the kids who was killed in Sandy Hook who had been found dead of an apparent suicide was actually murdered to distract from the release of the summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.