Before they unleashed the hellscape of lawfare on President Trump, they law-bombed bombastic conservative talk-show host Alex Jones into oblivion. The AP ran a story yesterday headlined, “
Alex Jones could lose his Infowars platform to pay for Sandy Hook conspiracy lawsuit.”
In 2022, Alex filed for bankruptcy protection after being successfully sued by several relatives of victims of the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six teachers.
The trouble started when, right after the shooting, InfoWars initially expressed skepticism and aired contradictions and inconsistencies in the media reporting about the shooting. Some of Jones’ criticisms unfortunately turned out to be unfounded hot takes, even though some details remain unexplained. The relatives testified they were traumatized by Jones’ theories, and their feelings were hurt by peoples’ online speculations that the shooting was a false flag operation.
If not entirely novel, the legal theories used to sue Jones in multiple lawsuits were at minimum
very creative. The infernal strategy of filing multiple cases in multiple jurisdictions multiplies the chance of getting a friendly judge and jury, multiplies the defendant’s costs, wrecks his ability to afford a good defense, and multiplies the collective case’s complexity, making it infinitely harder to defend, all while undermining the defendant’s right to a fair venue.
In 2022, juries awarded the plaintiffs a majestic $1.4 billion judgment in Connecticut and a littler $49 million judgment in Texas. The judgments are against both InfoWars and Jones personally. These jury verdicts instantly made history, although you’ll be forgiven for not knowing that fact.
No one in history has ever been awarded so much for
harmful speech.
Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and tried to propose a plan for reorganization that would have paid the plaintiffs off over time. But the plaintiffs successfully objected to that plan, and now, according to AP, Jones wants to switch to Chapter 7 liquidation, and just give them InfoWars to try to run without him. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs have sued him again in separate, new cases, arguing he’s shifted or hidden money.
It’s tempting to conclude the lawsuits against Jones are more about shutting him up for political reasons than actually compensating the victims’ relatives for their damaged feelings over Jones repeating some widely spread conspiracy theories.
Like President Trump, Jones is a fighter. It’s not over yet.
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