Right-wing nonsense-peddler Alex Jones doesn’t seem to be having a great time. Recently, bankruptcy filings for three businesses connected to his sprawling, conspiracy-driven media operation emerged, but the timing of these bankruptcy claims appears to suggest that he’s in the middle of a plan to try and avoid potentially ending up on the hook for millions of dollars in damages over false claims he made about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Families of victims of the shooting, which Jones previously suggested was some kind of staged, false flag event, sued him for defamation, and these families and the Justice Department recently requested a delay for a hearing that was scheduled for Friday regarding the bankruptcy filings, which cover InfoW, IW Health, and Prison Planet TV.
NBC News: Alex Jones' InfoWars website has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas as the company and its founder face defamation lawsuits related to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. @NBCNews
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 18, 2022
No matter how the fight over the hearing scheduled for Friday turns out, the Justice Department has formally laid out the argument that Jones is essentially trying to string the legal system along. A trial over defamation claims against Jones for his statements about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was set to soon begin in Texas, and as summarized by POLITICO, federal authorities “questioned why Jones had not filed for personal bankruptcy and why another business he controls, Free Speech Systems, was not included in the filings earlier this week.” As federal attorneys Jayson Ruff and Ha Nguyen put it:
‘Why didn’t Alex Jones or FSS file for bankruptcy relief when Debtors did? They are both defendants in the same litigation as Debtors, and all of them have been found liable in those cases… It appears that Jones intends to leverage the bankruptcy filings of his holding companies to extend the automatic stays of pending litigation against Debtors to him and FSS, while he maintains full control of FSS and its assets going forward. Thus, this Motion… seems to be just the first step for Debtors to carry out Jones’s and FSS’s scheme of avoiding the burdens of bankruptcy while reaping its benefits.’
NEW: Justice Department blasts Alex Jones's "emergency" bankruptcy filing as a potential "abuse of the bankruptcy system."
— Elizabeth Williamson (@NYTLiz) April 21, 2022
In other words, the bankruptcy filings seem questionably connected to actual financial states. Instead, Jones seems — the Justice Department suggests — to hope to benefit from automatic halts to pending litigation available in connection to his bankruptcy claims. As attorneys for the families suing Jones put it, “What Jones and his affiliates want to avoid is the wisdom of juries that would have liquidated his liability and the liability of his affiliates.” His false claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are among items on a long, long list of ridiculous and frankly destructive nonsense that Jones has pumped out. Recently, Fox host Tucker Carlson said he thought Jones seemed “talented” and “smart.” Meanwhile, Americans who hope to actually get in touch with the facts about Alex Jones have Google. Jones’s list of hits — meaning examples of his nonsense — include claiming that the 2017 car ramming that claimed the life of a protester against white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, was staged.
BREAKING: Justice Dept. enters Infowars bankruptcy fight, warns right-wing provocateur Alex Jones may have 'scheme' to manipulate system. Sandy Hook victims' families blast Jones for 'illegitimate' bid to dodge liability for his bizarre claims re: shootinghttps://t.co/qpap4mEBnG
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) April 21, 2022
Photo via Jared Holt, available under a Creative Commons license
