Last week we did a story on Alex Jones and how the Sandy Hook Parents won a court case for libel and slander whereby he was ordered to pay the parents the unreasonable sum of $1.5 billion dollars. Jones made a good faith offer to pay them $50 million as he and his InfoWars company were not worth anywhere near the $1.5 billion amount. They refused and demanded instead his InfoWars company and studio be liquidated at auction.
“Alex Jones InfoWars Ends, But Jones Goes On”
Alex Jones is a very popular streaming podcast influencer of alternative conservative news viewpoints. He was the host of a showed called InfoWars. The left labels him a “conspiracy theorist” to diminish and dismiss his alternative viewpoints.
Years ago he streamed or broadcast some shows that alleged that the Sandy Hook School shooting was a hoax. That shooting occurred in the Sandy Hook School in Newton, Connecticut in 2012. Jones was sued in 2022 by the parents of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
So last week the show was to discontinue and the InfoWars was to go on the auction block as Jones carried on under a new name, The Alex Jones Network from a new studio.
So the online secret bidding was to be conducted by ThreeSixty Asset Advisors LLC here. But then the strangest things happened.
First, it was announced that the liberal news source, The Onion out of Madison, Wisconsin, bought InfoWars which was a joyous slap in the face to Alex Jones and his fans all over the country by the liberal left. But then it also came out that some backroom shenanigans took place during the “auction” such that the highest bid was not accepted but a lower bid by The Onion was.
“Possible Criminal Investigation Into Infowars Sale? Will Elon Musk And Donald Trump Save Infowars?” – PINGPR1P
Thereafter the judge immediately held up the sale of InfoWars pending further review. The story goes that a higher bid by Roger Stone was ignored and a lower bid from The Onion was accepted. That bid was said to be around $3.5 million which left many scratching their heads since Jones had previously offered the Sandy Hook families $50 million as a settlement previously.
Bloomberg Law reported a frustrated bankruptcy judge, Judge Christopher M. Lopez, said he had concerns over the auction process whereby the satirical news left-wing website, The Onion, won an auction of right-wing Alex Jones’ InfoWars website. Due to concerns over lack of transparency and the bidding process, Judge Lopez said Thursday he would hold a hearing in the next week to hear concerns and decide further actions. The auction was held last Wednesday.
“I personally don’t care who wins the auction,” Lopez said during a status hearing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. “I care about process and transparency.”
Lopez said the upcoming hearing will determine whether advisers running the InfoWars auction ran “a full and fair process.”
Bidders were required to submit their highest bid for InfoWars, but those bids were not shared with rival bidders. Judge Lopez said that meant potential buyers didn’t know how their bids ranked when the auction was over. The emergency hearing was held after The Onion, along with families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, announced Thursday that they had won the right to buy Jones’ InfoWars website.
The designated backup bidder for the assets, First United American Companies LLC, asked the court for the status conference to address what it called “apparent defects in the sale process.” First United operates the website for online supplement store ShopAlexJones.com.
First United attorney Walter Cicack of Hawash Cicack & Gaston LLP told Judge Lopez that there was a change in the format of the sale procedures Monday, and that he was concerned about the lack of details of the final bid.
“Nobody should feel comfortable with the results of the auction,” Judge Lopez said.
The InfoWars assets up for auction included production rights and materials, more than 400 domain names, social media accounts, podcast sites, newsletter subscribers, archival library, the e-commerce nutritional supplement business, product trademarks, and production equipment of the studio.
If The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron LLC, successfully acquired InfoWars, the Sandy Hook families that backed the deal have agreed to waive their potential recovery and give it to all other unsecured creditors, said Trustee Christopher Murray .
“I’ve never seen this before in any other case, and we did a lot of research, and we’ve never found it,” Murray said. “But I’ve always thought my goal was to maximize the recovery for unsecured creditors, and under one bid, they’re clearly better than they were under the other.”
The dispute holds that The Onion was not the highest bid in the auction and those who bid higher want to know why and under what legal grounds a lower bid could be accepted.
The Onion had plans to start its transition of the website immediately and wanted to launch their new version of the platform in January 2025, according to CEO, Ben Collins. Trustee Murray said he went to the Austin-based studio Thursday morning to secure the assets for the winning bidder. Thus far none of InfoWars roughly 30 employees have been laid off. Murray confirmed the plan has always been to shut the show down after auction.
CONCLUSION:
If everything we are hearing about this case and the related auction that was to conclude this case turns out to be true, it appears the progressive liberals were more about censoring and destroying the free speech of Alex Jones rather than gaining financial payments for damages due to mental anguish of pain and suffering.
There was a back story that The Onion was awarded the bid because the Sandy Hook parents wanted them to get it. Should that turn out to be true, this entire auction could be ruled null and void.
As our youth say these days, “The Sh!t is About to Get Real!”
More and more people are becoming aware of Alex Jones and his battle over InfoWars as a potential 1A free speech violation and another example of the progressive liberals engaging in lawfare.
“Infowars Employee: Judge Blocked Sale To The Onion; ‘Trump Is Involved,’ ‘Elon Musk’s Lawyers Were At The Hearing’” – Real Clear Politics
Copyright © 2024 by Mark S. Schwendau
