Transcription
We recap the top five moments from week one in Alex Jones's Connecticut trial. What a first week it has been in Alex Jones's trial out in Connecticut.
The conspiracy theorist and Infowars host has been sued by a former FBI agent and family members of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for his comments over the years that Sandy Hook was a hoax, that it was staged, that these were crisis actors. They sued him for defamation, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and unfair trade practices. And they've already won this case.
That's right, because the court entered a default judgment against Alex Jones because he basically refused to comply with discovery obligations during the course of this litigation. And when that happens and you don't comply with court orders or discovery obligations, you automatically lose. So this case is all about how much he owes in damages. It's the same kind of thing we saw in Jones's Texas trial. Default judgment. It was only about the damages here, and that's what this is about. A jury of six will determine how much he has to pay out to the plaintiffs.
Now, what the plaintiffs are saying here is that Jones knew the story was false, that these views and engagement were going up from his supporters, that he kept pushing the story, he kept profiting off of it, and that these plaintiffs were targeted, they were harassed, they were threatened by Jones supporters, on top of all of the emotional pain of being told that this was fake. So Jones is already in this kind of losing position. And I should tell you, he hasn't shown up in court this week, but we do think he is going to eventually show up because we believe he's going to be taking the stand. So let's recap the top five moments from week one.
And I think the best place to start is what happened right at the beginning, before a jury even came in, before opening statements, right before all of this. Jones took a huge loss. You see, according to the plaintiffs, and the judge ended up agreeing, Judge Barbara Bellis, Jones refused to hand over a key piece of evidence to the other side. This Google Analytics information about web traffic on Infowars. And that was a big, big problem. And as you're about to see, the court, the judge was not too happy.
"The defendant's Texas attorneys were always report half a year ago, but in this case, the defendants filed pleadings with the court representing that Mr. Roddy had no Google Analytics documents, didn't know what the corporate representative was referring to. And perhaps the most egregious representation in the filings states that the defendant contends and has always contended that neither he nor the various entities with which he is affiliated has such data and that there was nothing more that could be done. The defendants knew of the existence of the Google Analytics documents at a time these representations were made to the court by their counsel. So I'll make the following observation: this stunningly cavalier attitude with respect to their discovery obligations is what led to the default in the first place. The defendants have consistently engaged in dilatory and obstructive discovery practices from the inception of these cases right through to the trial. And finally, I will note that there is no notice in this file to this minute of any supplemental compliance producing the Google Analytics documents, which is required by the practice booklet, was also required by my clear court order of September 30, 2021, which apparently was not followed here. So the motion is denied for these reasons, and the court hereby sanctions the defendants by precluding them from presenting evidence or argument that they did not profit from the Sandy Hook coverage."
"All right, and now you're... is this the... yeah, I think you granted the motion. You said you denied it. I'm sorry, the motion is granted. Thank you. I can't say that's a huge surprise, considering the guy who lost the case for not complying with discovery obligations just got sanctioned for not complying with discovery obligations. And this punishment is really bad for Alex Jones because it would have been very helpful for him to argue that he didn't profit off of Sandy Hook coverage, but now he can't say that."
But the judge's irritation with the defense didn't really end there. Because the defense is limited in what they can argue, particularly since Jones lost the liability portion of the case, as I mentioned. So as you'll see, Norm Pattis, who's Jones' attorney, he was getting a bit colorful in his arguments, and the judge put an end to it.
"Our contention, to be clear, exaggerated because of the idiosyncratic motives of the plaintiffs, transforming their griefs into political weapons. You'll have to decide whether that's true. But here's what you learned: in 2016, Alex Jones became a household name again when a presidential candidate used him to berate her opponent and talked about Sandy Hook. Hillary Clinton. She never got to help. Objection. Your honor. Sustained. Can we stop this, please? Sustained. Move on to Journey Paris, please. How many times did you notice how many times I objected to tell you that is improper and either finish your opening or be seated."
"In 2017, Matt Alex was interviewed by Megan Kelly on NBC. He worried if he has to be a hit piece. He sat for an interview. It wasn't a hit piece. Megan Kelly didn't get sued. Alex. Objections. Attorney Pattis. One more time, and I will ask you to be seated. People wrote these folks hate. You'll read. People stalk them. People threaten them. People appeared in some of their homes. Each slate. Some of them will tell you what it says. Though a scab had been torn from a wound that will never really heal. They blame Alex for all of it. All of them. This issue had was largely dead until Hillary Clinton made a campaign of issue, issue of it in 2016, uh, blaming Jones for Sandy Hook and associates. My attorney. Pass. No, you may not, because I already ruled on the Clinton issue and we've moved on from that. So now you've talked about Megyn Kelly. So let's address Megyn Kelly. It's, it's a similar issue. Well, then stick with the Megyn Kelly, and I don't want to hear Hillary Clinton like you've told me I can't ask about Megyn Kelly. I'm not going. I wouldn't. I'm not. Point. Okay. I understand. Well, you're, of course, you're not. One minute. So I don't. So at that point, did the Hillary Clinton? Now we did the Megyn Kelly. Should we address what's coming next? No. Well, I think it might make sense, judge. There's, I, I'm not. It's, I'm not responsible for giving my adversaries a preview of what's to come anymore. And apparently they were responsible for telling me what witnesses they were going to. I, I, I understand your ruling. This has been a contentious trial. I am not going to get crosshairs with you on the first date or second or 15th day of trial. I understand your ruling. I will move on. I would just say let's move on carefully. Thanks."
Yeah, again, Pattis's argument can't be that this is a political hit job. You can't say that Jones is innocent. He can't say that Jones did nothing wrong. He can't make excuses for what Jones did. That would have all been on the first part of the trial. As I said, Jones lost. So really, the only argument that Pattis can make here is that maybe the damages aren't warranted. Like, a large damages award isn't warranted because maybe the plaintiffs didn't suffer as much as they claim. That's an argument.
But moving on, another significant moment was when one of the plaintiffs took the stand. Former FBI agent William Aldenberg was a first responder that day of the Sandy Hook massacre, and he really brought it back to what this case is about: the horror of that day and what the response was from Jones supporters saying this was fake.
"Because what you saw in that school... fake? No, no, no, sir. Was it synthetic? Oh, sure. See any actors that day? Bill? No. There's children. Real. Tell the jury the types of reports that you received and that you, as the FBI managing the FBI's response, responded to death threats. People calling all kinds of numbers in Newtown saying that this is Adam Lanza, I'm going to come and kill you all. Telling people their children aren't dead, that they're actors, that that's what I'm referring to all the time. Families aren't real. The, the children were real. Death threats and serious stuff from serious, seriously disturbed people. And this went on for 18 months. Oh, it probably went on much longer than 18 months. It only, it went on 18 months for that particular victim specialist because she ended up transferring. It continued on. Continued. Well, it, it's going to continue after today. Like, you know, when I... the direction. Move to strike. Speculate. Non-responsive. It's not speculative. Objections. It continued throughout the entire time. It's been going on for 10 years. And you can understand why he was so upset. And people want to say that Sandy Hook didn't happen. And then they'll want to get rich off of it. But that's the worst part. Like, you know what? You could say whatever you want about me. I don't care. If you just say whatever you want, I'm a freaking big boy. I can take it. Then they wanna, they wanna make profits. They want to make millions and millions of dollars. They want to destroy people's lives. Their children cut slaughtered. I saw it myself."
Now, from there, another notable witness this week was Brittany Paz. She is the corporate representative for Free Speech Systems LLC, basically Infowars. And this is not somebody who worked for the company for 20 years. No, she was hired by Jones' defense. She was paid about around $30,000 to review the business records, the financial documents, interview employees so that she could testify on behalf of the company. And it's interesting that she was chosen to do this as opposed to, you know, Alex Jones or another member of his company. And in fact, her time on the stand was pretty contentious and pretty tense as she was grilled by plaintiff's attorney Chris Maddux about the inner workings of the company and why exactly she was appointed as the representative.
"Now let's pull up Kings of their domains and just pull up the... yeah, okay. That's okay. Um, here he is saying, in terms of web popularity, Infowars.com and PrisonPlanet.com are on top of their class. Right? That's what it says. Yes. Okay. And this is 2013, correct? Uh, I think that's the date that was on the document. Yes. Yes. Okay. And it gives the number of visitors to the websites per month, the number of unique visitors per month, the number of 30 million page views per month, right? Yes. That's what it says. Okay. Mr. Isn't this Free Speech Systems using Google Analytics? I don't know how they got those numbers. Well, we've seen the Google Analytics where these numbers are presented, correct? We've seen Google Analytics. Some, where else would they have? Do you know that they didn't use them? That's what you told the judge. I told the court what information was relayed to me that they did not regularly use the Google Analytics in terms of their marketing. What you told the judge was, because the judge asked you, is that a yes or no? In response to the question, does Free Speech Systems use Google Analytics? She said, is that a yes or no? And you said that's a no. Right. Right. And, and the reason you think it's a no is because that's what Infowars and Alex Jones told you, correct? I can only convey to you what, um, what I discussed with the employees and what I've reviewed. So that's based on my review. Because Infowars doesn't want this jury to know just how closely it was tracking its audience growth as Alex Jones was saying that Sandy Hook was a lie, right? I don't think that's accurate. Let's go down to the next page here. You don't think that's accurate because somebody told you that? Do I think I want the jury not to know? Not you. Not you. Not you. Alex Jones. Whoever, whoever claimed to you they don't use Google Analytics wanted you to say that to them. Speculating contents of another mind. Nice. Do I think that Mr. Roddy didn't want me to know that Free Speech uses Google Analytics? Well, he definitely didn't want you. I don't think that was the reason why he told me that. Now, whatever the case is, when Mr. Roddy told you that they don't use Google Analytics, he knew that that's what you were going to come and tell this jury. Right? Rejection. Judge sustained."
All right. And throughout her testimony, the plaintiffs were able to demonstrate how much Infowars was promoting the Sandy Hook coverage, how they saw this increased online engagement, they were making money, and how Jones, you know, really engaged in this kind of systematic campaign of misinformation for years for profit.
But I will leave you with this. We know that Jones is going to testify. We know this. And we even did a sidebar the other day about Jones literally going on Stephen Crowder's conservative commentator to talk about these trials as this is try, as this trial is really going on, he's talking about it. So just listen to what Brittany Paz was asked about regarding Infowars this week.
"You've been watching the show this week? Have I been watching the show? No. I don't generally watch the show. What Mr. Jones does is he's trying to attract the audience so that he can send them to the store, right? That's the business model we've been talking about. Yes. The way he's been attracting audience this week while we all have been here is by talking about this trial. Correction. In fact, it's not an evidence. She doesn't know. Sustained. Okay. Well, let me show counsel exhibit 479. May approach. I do. Do you see Mr. Jones' logo for Band.video in the corner? I do. Do you see Bill Aldenberg depicted in that picture? I do. Do you see lettering placed in the lower left hand corner of the screen that says Alex Jones Kangaroo Court Watch Day One? Applause. I'd offer it. It's not self-authenticating. Objections. Yes. You recognize this two-inch back fee, a screen grab of footage that Mr. Jones played earlier this week, correct? She said she hadn't seen it yet. I've never seen this and I haven't seen the show and I haven't reviewed it, so I can't say what this is. Okay. Mr. Jones and Free Speech Systems, as far as you know, is the only company that controls the Band.video platform, correct? As far as I'm aware. And you see that logo right on there in the upper right hand corner? Yes, ma'am. I see it. Okay. You're actually not self-authenticating. Move to strike the representations made. You just can't make this stuff up."
And thanks everybody for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time.