This is certainly complicated. The controllers have a basic tactic of finding figure heads who people 'follow' and then trying to control them. This means that they only need to control 1 person and the net result is control of millions. People such as AJ are prime targets for such control and so it is entirely possible that he has been heavily manipulated using any number of a variety of methods. On the other hand, it is possible that his own psychology simply isn't mature and balanced enough to handle being in the position that he is.
Either way though, yes, when the actual message cannot be entirely silenced because it contains key truths - the next step is to attack the messenger - just as in so many whistleblower cases.
I stopped listening to him for similar reasons to what you have listed here.. He goes on for too long and often just rambles. If he just stuck to data points instead of waffle, he would probably be doing a lot better.