If there’s justice in the world, Alex Jones, the infamous conspiracy theorist on trial for the unconscionable, disgusting lies he spread that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax and that the children and teachers who lost their lives that day weren’t actually killed, will have to pay the full $150 million the families suing him for defamation have asked for. Further justice would be for him to never again have a platform from which to spew these outrageous, indefensible lies; total justice in my opinion would be for him to be completely shunned by society and for a witch to take his voice away so no one ever has to hear from him again. We’ll have to wait and see if that justice comes to pass, but on Wednesday, August 3, the universe gave Jones a teeny-tiny bit of what he deserves, when not only did his lies blow up in his face, but they did so thanks to his own legal team.
Questioning Jones, Mark Bankston, the lawyer for the parents, argued that Jones hadn’t complied with court orders to turn over text messages and emails. Jones has previously claimed that he simply couldn’t find any. Unfortunately, he clearly wasn’t anticipating what happened next.
“Mr. Jones, did you know that 12 days ago your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you’ve sent for the past two years and when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protect it in anyway, and as of two days ago it fell free and clear into my possession and that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text message about Sandy Hook? Did you know that?” Bankston asked.
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Jones continued to deny wrongdoing, responding: “If I was mistaken, I was mistaken.” To which Bankston shot back: “You know what perjury is, right?” (Meanwhile, the January 6 Committee is reportedly interested in obtaining Jones’s newly discovered texts.)
Through the course of the trial, which has included the parents suing Jones testifying about the harassment and death threats they have received from Jones’s rabid followers, the judge has had to reprimand the Infowars host for his inability to tell the truth. On Tuesday, August 2, that judge, Maya Guerra Gamble, took Jones to task for lying under oath, telling him, “This is not your show.”
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While Jones admitted Wednesday that the Sandy Hook massacre happened—“It’s 100% real,” he said—the host has refused to take responsibility for the impact of his lies, blaming them on “a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged.”
On Wednesday, despite the revelation that Infowars once made $800,000 in a single day, Jones claimed that any financial penalty over $2 million would destroy his company. Which, true or not, would seem to be a fully appropriate punishment.
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This post was originally published on Vanity Fair.
