For those of you who tuned in, last week, we shared some details about the text
messages that Alex Jones had exchanged with various associates, and
even members of his own family, like his wife.
In those messages, we learned that Jones is a rather sad, lonely and
paranoid man, who even employed spies to keep tabs on his wife,
who he suspected of cheating on him, even though he himself was having an affair.
But how did we get ahold of these text messages to begin with?
Joining us now to explain just that is Mark Bankston, who served as the attorney
for several families who lost their children in the Sandy Hook shooting.
And were later defamed by Alex Jones as crisis actors.
He helped those families when a pretty sizable amount in damages.
And he's been on the show before.
Mark, thank you so much for taking the time to come speak with us again.
>> Absolutely, it's good to be back.
>> So I wanted to start off by just having you walk us through how these
text messages ultimately became public in the first place.
>> Sure, sure.
You and Cenk know that I'm not a big fan of doing media, doing interviews,
getting on the cable shows, all that, but I wanted to come talk to you all.
Mainly so that I could make sure that the record is clear over exactly how
this happened, right, how these messages became public,
because it is not something that we expected.
It's an astonishing story to me, as many of your viewers know at the time of trial,
shortly before these messages were accidentally,
unintentionally produced to us.
And at that time we even brought it to the attention of the defense counsel,
we think that these have been, inadvertently produced.
And he could have at that point taken action to protect them and did not, and
that, of course, is how they ended up being used at trial.
But at the conclusion of the trial, the judge in that case gave the defense
the opportunity to do mark all of those text messages confidential, or
anyone that they thought would be private and needed to be sealed.
And then at some point in the later that could be ruled on by the court,
they didn't do that.
And so when we had a motion just last week,
that was on the subject of these text messages,
we filed a copy, an entire archive of those text messages, now with redactions.
Certain things were taken out, things about his children, explicit images,
things of his health care providers, things like that.
But we filed that, and
we didn't have any obligation to protect any of that when we did it.
But nonetheless, I approached Mr Jones's lawyers, and
I did this on three separate occasions, both over the phone and in writing.
To tell them that these are being filed, and that if they needed to,
they could go get an order from the court to have them temporarily sealed until
the court could sometime later rule on what should or shouldn't be public.
And we told them we didn't oppose this.
We brought it to their attention three times.
They rebuked us all three times.
And so for whatever reason, Mr Jones' attorneys chose not to seek a sealing
order, not to have all of this looked at by the court,
and it just allowed it to enter the public domain.
Now, we had already shared those text messages or a good portion of them anyway,
with the Southern Poverty Law Center to help consult with us to help understand
what the messages contained.
And so they could use them for their own research, internal purposes.
But that was all not for publication.
But when Jones' lawyers failed to take any steps to protect those documents yet
again, there was nothing that could be done, that the Southern Poverty Law Center
is totally free to report on those at the moment they became public record.
This should have happened where it was brought before the court.
And that's the way I would have liked to see it happen.
But unfortunately, again, there's no accounting for
the steps that Jones' lawyers take.
There's no explaining what they do.
And in this case, they allowed them to enter the public record,
even though we warned them several times that if they don't take action,
these will enter the media.
And apparently they were fine with them.
>> Yeah, Mark, I think we might have just done something unprecedented
in American legal history, where you wish your opposing counsel was more competent.
[LAUGH] Okay, but I mean there- >> Its been a running theme in this case
Cenk, that's for sure.
>> Yeah, and so with Alex Jones picking incompetent lawyers, a shocking twist.
[LAUGH] This has all been revealed now, and
we see as Alex Jones put in the black hole that he's in.
But there's a different kind of black hole that I'm interested in which is
the one where he's likely to bury the money.
So what I think a lot of us are intensely curious about is,
can he effectively hide the money or not?
Because you watch tv, and they always hide the money, and sometimes you
see stories about international bankers etcetera, and they always hide the money.
On the other hand, Alex Jones is deeply incompetent.
[LAUGH] so maybe they'll accidentally send that to you as well.
But how do you track down the money, and
make sure that you get what he has owed the families?
>> Well, the good thing in this case is we don't have to do it alone.
Jones was forced to make the decision to put himself into personal bankruptcy,
as a result there is now a bankruptcy court overseeing everything.
And I'm sure your viewers know there have been plenty of stories over the past few
years where pretty bad defendants have gotten into bankruptcy court and
walk away scot free.
We've all been following this stuff with,
with Purdue pharma, with Johnson and Johnson and the baby powder, and
they think that they can just skip out on their bills that way.
And some of them have been very effective.
But as you note, Alex Jones is a very different,
maybe less sophisticated defendant.
And now we have the help of the United States trustee, and
a bankruptcy court to really do a thorough examination of what his real assets are.
And if he plays around like he did in the trial court,
it's not gonna go well for him.
Bankruptcy court is a very dangerous place to be for
somebody who's not honest about all their assets.
So we're very confident in the bankruptcy process and how that works.
It's difficult to know right now exactly how all this is going to end, but
I do know that if he makes steps to hide significant assets,
he's going to have a bad time in the bankruptcy court.
So that process is gonna be going on over the next 3 to 4 months.
And the public can follow along and see all the filings and
we'll see what he does.
We'll see if he's finally honest about what is actually there in the info
wars coffers.
>> I'm curious, are there going to be any potential consequences for
his lawyers and the insane incompetence they've demonstrated in this case?
I mean, especially in terms of representing their client and
protecting his best interests.
Not that I'm personally concerned about his best interests, but I mean,
he hired counsel and they're clearly so incompetent that they have all this,
they allowed all this private information about him to go out into the public.
>> Well, and I wanna be careful that I don't just go ahead and call
them incompetent for doing that, because maybe they had their reasons, right?
They certainly knew it was an opportunity they could take.
I brought it to their attention multiple times.
And so maybe they had their reasons.
So I don't know.
But I do know that over the entire course of this case, there has been just flagrant
abuse of the judicial process, and so far that has only met consequences for Jones.
So far that has only mean that he has to pay the pain of attorney's fees.
And as you might know,
I've already collected over a million dollars in attorney's fees from Jones, for
the things that him and his lawyers have done in this case.
But recently, you're right that that has turned to the attorneys, we have filed two
different motions for sanctions against two different of his attorneys.
And Andino Reynal who represented him at trial, and
Eric Taub, one of his corporate attorneys.
Right now, the court has already granted sanctions against Andino Reynal, and
awarded us all of our fees for
the bankruptcy court that we were forced to go to in April.
Then later this month on February 22nd, your viewers can tune in live if they
could go to the YouTube page for the 459th district court, and
they'll be able to see a hearing on Jones corporate lawyers.
Where we are alleging that they dishonestly misled the court
about Jones corporate organization, and we're gonna seek fees from them as well.
So at this point, so many lawyers have bounced in and out.
He's had over a dozen different lawyers in the taxes allegation, and
each one of them is learning,
it was a bad idea to tie yourself to somebody like Alex Jones for money.
And some of these attorneys finally might pay some consequences for these actions.
So we already have one award against one of his attorneys, we're hoping to make
that another award against another one of his attorneys, to hopefully send a message
to the attorneys who aided this, because not all of this was Mr Jones fault.
This lawsuit has been unprecedented in terms of the shenanigans that
have gone on in it, and not all of that, you can lay at Mr Jones doorstep.
Some of that goes to his lawyers,
and and hopefully we'll be able to do something about that.
>> And I just want to fill the audience in on one of his other lawyers,
Norman Pattiz who represents him in Connecticut, I believe, he was suspended
earlier this year for sharing sensitive records about the Sandy Hook families,
with other lawyers who are not at all associated with the case.
That included some confidential medical records of the family members of
the Sandy Hook victims.
And so his license has been suspended by a judge for six months as a result of that.
So this isn't a question about one attorney or another attorney.
I mean, it seems like this is a trend in terms of the counsel representing
Alex Jones in these suits\ Cenk, did you wanna jump in?
>> Yeah, so I wanted to ask back to bankruptcy court,
because you say it's a dangerous place to lie.
And look, the reason we're seeing the lawyers and
Alex Jones in trouble is because it's one lie after another after another, and
lawyers are not allowed to lie.
I know it sounds funny to the layman, but in court you're definitely not supposed to
lie and that could have some consequences for your career etcetera with the bar.
And so that's why it's dangerous to take on a client like Alex Jones or
Donald Trump, who insist that their counsel lie on their behalf.
And Donald Trump's lawyers are having the same issues, but back to bankruptcy court.
Why is it dangerous?
Because if you're trying to hide your money, Mark, I would imagine
that you would, especially guys like that who don't seem to have any moral bounds.
We just keep lying and lying and hiding and hiding and
hiding until they can find every crumb from it, right?
Is there any criminal consequences or what happens if they catch you in these
lies since your whole point is to hide as much as you can anyway?
>> Right, right, and I mean the real answer there is,
the game has changed is that when we were down in the state court litigation, and
in the underlying lawsuit, Jones did disobey the court's orders as
far as turning over his information about assets.
He has already obstructed that way, and there he had to pay a civil penalty.
He had to pay attorneys fees for all the time he wasted.
But now that we've gone to bankruptcy court, if you fail to disclose assets,
if in your filings to the bankruptcy court, you have made false statements or
mislead the court about what your assets is, that is a criminal offense.
And criminal consequences can get involved in a bankruptcy court.
It is not a place to play around with.
The other problem that Jones obviously faces is when you have 12 lawyers in
the underlying litigation, and more lawyers in the bankruptcy litigation,
if you do want to hide things, if you do wanna make misleading statements,
it gets hard to keep the story straight between everybody.
It's very easy for one person like Jones to lie.
It's very difficult for 15 people to do.
And so that's a dangerous thing for them to do.
I actually, now in this process, we have seen new lawyers come aboard who
are longtime bankruptcy professionals, who are in front of that court a lot.
And I tend to think most of those new lawyers who have been brought into this
are not gonna risk their reputation and careers in front of that bankruptcy judge.
Again though, everything in this case has been unpredictable.
If there really is some malfeasance going on, if there's some hiding of assets,
we are going to be aggressive about it.
We are going to track that down, and
we will make people pay consequences for that.
I can tell you that not just myself, but
the attorneys for the other families up in Connecticut,
we are a united front on this, and we are definitely going to make sure
that we are not gonna allow Mr Jones to just slip out of this without consequence.
This bankruptcy court is a new game for him.
>> Mark, thank you so much for the work you do, and thank you for being so
generous with your time.
I hope you come back soon to fill us in with any updates that you might learn
about the bankruptcy proceedings, and all of that.
Again, thank you for coming on.
>> Absolutely.
I hope to be returning with some really good and positive news soon.
>> Us too. >> Yeah, great.
And now that I know bankruptcy court can lead to criminal consequences
that's already pretty good news.
The chance of Alex Jones not lying during those proceedings is near zero.