There were already reams upon reams of information related to a hoax at Sandy Hook before AJ even touched upon the subject. It was an avalanche with or without him. But they used him to discredit everything and to justify purging the internet. Just like Q appeared after pizza gate theories were exploding everywhere, then proceeded to commandeer it. Neither provided anything that hadn’t already been researched by others on message boards and elsewhere.

This is difficult to confirm because most of it has been subsequently purged from the internet.

If you have individuals from all over contributing to analysis of a subject, resulting in a sort of crowd journalism, it is easier to take them down if they are unified under a central figure. Of course they would have to give some good arguments and info in order to unify all these individuals with no association other than a shared interest. This is how controlled opposition works.