It may be the end of the road for Infowars, the extreme-right media platform helmed by the well-known Alex Jones.
The developments come in the wake of the raft of defamation litigation that Jones faced over the spread of conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. The central idea was that the shooting did not actually happen as reported and was instead staged to help advance ambitions of gun control. No real-world evidence has ever boosted the idea that the widely documented tragedy didn’t actually happen and was instead faked. But in connection to those ideas, victims’ loved ones faced at times extensive harassment, sometimes extending to in-person contexts.
Jones ended up with some $1.5 billion in financial penalties from the conclusions of multiple defamation lawsuits, which moved ahead to the penalties stage after he failed to comply with discovery obligations ahead of trial. Discovery refers to the routine process of sharing and collecting details and materials relevant to the case with an eye towards allowing for effective trial prep.
Jones filed for bankruptcy in a personal capacity, and just recently, the case moved into a liquidation. A trustee was to take control of a raft of personal assets associated with Jones, a list apparently including his personal control of Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars.
And in a new court filing, the trustee indicated intentions of winding the company down and selling off its assets, putting Infowars’ future in jeopardy. In that filing, which related to another, more immediate dispute as the entire matter moves forward, the trustee “indicated publicly for the first time that he intends to “conduct an orderly wind-down” of the operations of Infowars’ parent company and “liquidate its inventory,”” said the Associated Press.
Jones has already been saying that he anticipates a shutdown of Infowars in connection to the bankruptcy proceedings.
