The hugely popular influencer Alex Jones filed for liquidation of his personal assets on Thursday, giving in to the demands of the families of the Sandy Hook victims, whom he owes more than $1.5 billion in damages for his lies about the 2012 school massacre.
Every journalist learns that you cannot broadcast lousy information which you have copied from shady websites on the internet. Citizens like the Sandy Hook parents have the legal right to not be defamed as “crisis acors” working for the “globalists” to undermine the 2nd Amendment. They have the right to sue and in this case there were many victims, ergo the very high verdict.
For Jones, who enjoyed a lifestyle of fast cars, luxurious vacations, servants and expensive wristwatches it would have been relatively cheap to pay for a legal advisor prior to broadcasting certain reports. After all, he advertised to his audience that his company was the “tip of the spear”, the leaders of the resistance fighting tyranny and corruption. Under questioning he painted a different picture: He and his staff are not really reporters, but just random people commenting on stuf they found somewhere on the web.
Own Shroyer infamously read a story on air about a SandyHook father holding the body of his dead child. This cannot be true, the story noted, because the body was held by the morgue. Of course the body was eventually released but Shroyer, who was a sports broadcaster prior, was neither quick nor experienced enough to figure out this was not a major discrepancy, not a sensation. He made around 100.000$ per year at Infowars and received bonuses for viral segments. Would his boos have dressed him down if he had refused to cover the story on air?
Under oath he was asked if he knew what his source really was. He didn’t. A website run by a person in a foreign country who preferred to stay anonymous. Nobody under questioning remembered who was responsible for what report and what fact-checking was done. All the arguments used on air were easily dismantled and could have been prior to broadcasting.
The Infowars store alone made 160 million $ in revenue in just 3 years. Enough to hire professionals. More than 10 years ago Jones had hired a diverse crowd of people, apparently to be more attractive to women, Latinos and african-americans. Later, in the new white power-phase, he hired white guys without any relevant expertise.
Jones could have been sued by many other public figures and corporations. And he didn’t learn from this saga either: A few days ago he accused Anthony Fauci of a grand conspiracy to kill people, calling for Nuremberg style trials.
In court and on his show, he claimed victimhood. He was just “asking questions”, just “commenting on what others were commenting on”. Effectively he has wasted untold millions of dollars und literally billions of hours of the time of his listener. What did you get for your money, besides overpriced supplements? An infomercial for Trump and Putin. He sounded like so many others. That is why he is completely replaceable. Anybody in the audience can immediately find other shows and still vote Republican.
The Republicans were almost forced to improve years ago, because older conservatives died. There was a real opportunity to push out the people from the circles of Neocons and Henry Kissinger. But Alex Jones came to the rescue, starting early in the Obama Administration. In 2016 he pushed his audience to vote and nobody quite knows how many voters he mobilized for the close races. The party could move on like always.
Since the 2022 ruling, the Sandy Hook parents have received virtually no money, while Jones has repeatedly stated on his show that he intends to contest everything for years and go through various courts. Before Thursday, Jones had refused to convert his personal bankruptcy to a Chapter 7 liquidation. But in the face of mounting legal pressure, he changed course and gave in to the demands of the Sandy Hook families. His lawyers stated in a motion that there was “no reasonable prospect of a successful reorganization” and that continuing down this path would only result in additional costs for Jones.
Jones’ property will be sold to Free Speech Systems, a number of opaque companies that claim to be in debt to one another. SandyHook lawyers had already made allegations that Jones had hidden money. Since he has filed for bankruptcy protection, embezzlement would be a federal crime, which would result in prison sentences. Jones cannot simply buy back the shares through front men, such as his family, with the help of hidden accounts and carry on as before.
If a wealthy benefactor comes along who buys the shares so that Jones can continue to broadcast campaign ads for the Republicans (mainly the Trump campaign), SandyHook lawyers could challenge everything. A new owner of Infowars would have the problem that Jones would be open to countless other defamation lawsuits.
If Jones simply moves across the Mexican border, he would not be able to easily broadcast his radio show in the USA if there are lawsuits about his finances. He would also have the option of Russian exile, which was offered to him by the most famous TV presenter there. Again, it is doubtful how Jones would then get his program distributed in the US. If his value to the Russians drops, his only option would be an early retirement.
Jones has technically not controlled Infowars’ business for some time now, as Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy protection. The company’s business was therefore under the supervision of a court-appointed restructuring officer.
