Speaker 1: Today we're going to be speaking with attorney Mark Bankston, who's a partner
at Fera and Ball and is lead counsel in several defamation lawsuits against Alex Jones and
Infowars.
Some people may recognize him from dozens and dozens and dozens of viral YouTube videos
that we all looked at extensively.
Mark, great having you on today.
Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for having me, David.
Speaker 1: So how how did you end up doing these cases and representing a variety of
different plaintiffs here in defamation against Alex Jones and Infowars?
Speaker 4: I'm glad you asked me that, because, you know, a lot of people just start and end
with these Sandy Hook cases.
But the first lawsuit I actually brought against Jones was for a young man in the Boston area
who was inexplicably accused of being the Parkland shooter in the 2018 shootings in
Florida.
And at that time, I was in touch with this young man, and he had never even been to Florida.
It turned out that he was accused on four channels of being the Parkland shooter, and
it was because he was wearing a communist themed T-shirt.
He had the the comedy t shirt.
That's the communist leaders with lampshades on their heads drinking from solo cups.
So a visual pun on Communist Party or Infowars just ran with that because they were so excited
that they could claim that the shooter was a communist and they took this kid's picture
who was being teased on Fortuyn and put it all over the world.
He reached out to me and we brought suit back in March of 2018.
And when we did that, and that made national headlines.
Several Sandy Hook parents picked up the phone and they said, you know, we've been trying
to get somebody to bring these suits for us, somebody who will take on Alex Jones.
People were saying it's too hard or it's too big of a fight.
We need to find a lawyer who would do it.
And I said, you found one.
Speaker 1: So in in general, with these types of cases, what is it you have to prove to
actually be able to prevail in a case?
Because it's not just that a statement was pejorative, but there are specific requirements
that have to be met.
And do they vary state by state?
Speaker 4: They do a little bit.
Right.
Our common law of defamation is as old as the Magna Carta, but every state has a little
bit different rules.
But it basically boils down to this you have to prove three things.
You have to prove that they published a false statement and that the second thing you have
to prove is that it was of or concerning a specific individual.
And the third thing you have to prove is that that false statement caused them some sort
of damages.
And it's interesting because, you know, these cases actually ended up having default judgments
on the liability, but it was never really something we needed.
It was sort of, you know, in a lot of cases, that would be an enormous victory.
But in this case, it was never going to be difficult to prove that Alex Jones published
false statements about these people that caused them damages.
This case was always about how much Alex Jones needed to be punished.
Speaker 1: When it comes to the judgment that you obtained, which made a number of headlines
that close to $50 million.
There are state limits on what can actually be collected.
Is that correct?
I mean, what what is it looking like will actually be the liability for Jones of the
$49 million?
Speaker 4: It's interesting because everyone's talking about this right now, and most of
the people who are talking about it are not familiar with Texas law.
There is a punitive damage cap statute that was passed by the legislature.
However, it does not apply under all factual situations.
There are large amounts of exceptions to it.
Okay.
We are going to be moving toward the injury of judgment sometime later this week and will
have a hearing with the court soon.
And we're very confident that those caps aren't going to apply.
There are several reasons why under this case and those will be discussed at the hearing
coming up.
But we believe it will be the full $50 million verdict.
The defendants are going to try to argue a cap applies, which basically limits us to
$750,000 in additional damages per claim per defendant.
There are three claims with two defendants each.
That would be a practical cap of 4.5 million at the end of the day, with costs in the interest,
it would be a total verdict of about ten.
But we actually do believe that we're going to have going to be able to get around those
caps, with the exceptions, and that will be collecting the entire $50 million verdict.
Speaker 1: What's your best assessment of the real financial situation at this point
of Alex Jones and Infowars?
Because as many of you in my audience know, there has been an assertion of bankruptcy.
And as the judge in your case astutely pointed out, just because you claim bankruptcy doesn't
mean you actually are bankrupt.
There are some statements I've seen from Jones basically copping to the reality that it's
a strategic move specifically to try to limit the amount that can actually be collected
from him in this and maybe in other cases.
What's your best assessment of his financial position?
Speaker 4: It's a real difficult question to answer.
You know, we had some very limited and contradictory evidence on that at trial.
And we know that his revenues are enormous.
But what's harder to understand is what's going on behind the scenes.
Right.
We have now started to encounter some very disturbing evidence that is showing Mr. Jones
has been pulling millions and millions out of his business after these default judgments.
In fact, in just just this last year, Jones used his business like a cash machine to the
tune of $60 million that he removed from the company.
We really don't know what is all there, but we know there is a very significant amount
of money.
We feel, though, that by the end of all of these lawsuits, you know, there's there's
eight more plaintiffs up in Connecticut.
I have two more I'm taking to trial on a Sandy Hook case.
Plus another issue that partially.
In case we're pretty sure these verdicts are going to wipe them out.
But actually chasing him down for that money and the collections process may become as
interesting as the lawsuits themselves.
Speaker 1: In a case like this, if someone just sort of like doesn't wire the money,
for lack of a better term.
What mechanisms are there like, you know, in evictions, eventually the men with guns
show up and kick you out sort of thing.
Like what ultimately happens in a case like this?
Speaker 4: Well, if it was a normal case and we were collecting outside of bankruptcy,
we have lots of tools at our disposal.
We can do a writ of execution that essentially sends the sheriff over to Infowars and start
seizing computers and cameras.
Those are the tools that you would normally have at your disposal.
But this bankruptcy proceeding is going to be very interesting because now you're going
to have a federal bankruptcy judge and a U.S. trustee who are overseeing the financial scrutiny
of Infowars.
That process itself is going to be very, very dangerous for Mr. Jones.
And we I think by the end of all of that, we're not going to need to resort to sending
sheriffs out.
We think the federal enforcement processes and the bankruptcy court are going to divide
up the Jones's empire.
Speaker 1: When you say pulling money out of businesses, is that and kind of running
it through various LLC?
Is is it all domestic?
Do you have evidence that money is being offshored now?
Speaker 4: You're thinking way too high level.
You're thinking that they're sophisticated financial operators.
Yeah, I'm literally talking about just money straight, drawn out of the company like it's
an ATM and put into Jones's hands cash, 60 million cash taken out of the company, not
routed through another LLC.
Not anything like this, but.
But denoted on the balance sheets purely as a member draw.
And Jones is the only member of free speech systems, so he really is just using the company
like a piggy bank.
Where exactly that money went and what happened to it is some questions that are going to
be answered in the coming months.
Speaker 1: And then again, you're talking about physical cash.
Speaker 4: I don't you know, that's harder to say.
That really is I sort of don't suspect that there was giant briefcases full of 60 million.
Right.
Like, I have to think that there was some sort of electronic transfer into certain accounts.
What we don't know yet is what accounts those went to.
We know since that it was member draws that that money was paid out to Alex Jones.
Where it went from there is very difficult to know yet.
Speaker 1: So there were all sorts of just things that to me were unprecedented I had
never seen before.
Like for example, that there was a running commentary on Infowars about the case as it
was going on.
And then there were exhibits brought in from during the trial which were about the judge,
about the jury, etc..
How did you even manage this?
Was it just like even during the trial you needed a team watching every minute that was
produced and broadcast?
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
And I had one luckily, one stuffed up is, you know, we're in court all day.
We can't do that.
Right.
You may be familiar with Dan Friesen of the podcast Knowledge Fight, who I would consider
maybe the world's foremost authority on Alex Jones.
He had actually joined on as a consulting expert pro-bono very early in the case and
in the knowledge fight team during the days of trial would keep track of what was said,
clip out the parts that we were interested in and provide them to us.
Those became exhibits in the courtroom.
And it's really funny when you think about it, that those those things almost get lost
in the details.
There's so many people talking about, for instance, Jones and Bush on the stand about
his text messages.
And it almost gets forgotten that there were videos of them accusing the judge of pedophilia
and saying that the trial was rigged and that the jurors are a bunch of blue collar locals
who don't understand what's going on.
If that had happened in any other trial, that would be the top story.
That would be the headline.
But there's so much that went on in this trial that almost gets lost in the details.
Speaker 1: So the text message thing for people who may not have seen or don't remember, there
was this incredible situation where for days you were sort of setting up a number of different
denials about Alex Jones having had text messages specifically related to Sandy Hook on his
phone.
Then it turned out you actually had a digital copy of what was on his phone because his
attorney accidentally, as far as we know, sent that digital copy to you.
And this became a huge flash point in the trial and corporate media covered it, etc..
First question, at any point, did you think that maybe it was a deliberate accident in
order to either try to argue for a mistrial or in some way manipulate the situation in
their favor?
Speaker 4: I knew that it wasn't deliberate in the sense that it was a strategy in Mr.
Jones's favor.
I knew that.
I will admit that very briefly.
I had the same sort of wild ideas in my head that Roger Stone has been spreading the last
few days of.
Is, is and you know, we're no an agent of the deep state for, you know, used to work
at the DOJ for Eric Holder.
Is he screwing over Alex Jones somewhere in a couple of seconds.
So you realize.
No, that's that's wild, wild thinking.
The reality of it is, is you had an attorney who was not used to doing civil law, decided
he was going to take some money to come in and represent Alex Jones purely for the fame
and attention.
He was not able to protect his clients data like he needed to.
And those were not, in my eyes, intentional moves or strategic moves.
They were actually very serious breaches of his duties to his client.
And that just sometimes happened when somebody is in over their head like this.
Speaker 1: There was a large, you know, an hour or so at least that I remember during
which a number of requests were made by Alex Jones, counsel of the judge, when it came
to that digital copy.
And I don't I didn't fully grasp the sort of fundamentals of what it was that they were
asking for on the basis that those that that record was accidentally sent to you.
What was it that they were asking for and why was it that it was not granted by the
judge?
Speaker 4: Well, it's funny that you say you were having trouble figuring out what they
were asking for, because they were we okay.
We they were asking for things that made no sense in the context.
They wanted the judge to just do a blanket sealing order over the entire documents, but
they had no basis to just suddenly steal 2.3 gigabytes of information.
That's not how these rules work.
Okay.
They actually had ten days from the time of disclosure to specifically identify any documents
that either had a legal privilege like they were between attorney.
They were husband and wife, something like that or that were confidential because they
were a trade secret or sensitive in some way.
And they just didn't do it.
And so when they came into the court, having violated all the rules to do that, and then
were essentially saying that that that my side had somehow acted inappropriately, that
was quickly dismissed by the judge.
She actually did give them and the opportunity to to in a day designate anything is confidential,
which means that I could still have it.
I just couldn't share it outside the courtroom.
They actually didn't do any of that.
So the second day of those hearings, the last day of trial, basically the judge declared
them free and clear.
They're in my hands now.
Is there going to become some bad news for Mr. Jones?
Speaker 1: Could Mr. Jones argue against the ultimate judgment on the basis that his counsel
inadequately represented him?
Speaker 4: Interestingly, no, you have that option in criminal law.
Okay.
If you're criminal defense lawyer provides you ineffective assistance, that is a basis
for appeal.
But in civil law, it is not.
And I think it's a good rule, because I think it'd be rare that a criminal lawyer would
intentionally throw a case because his client's going to end up in jail.
But in a civil case, it's more foreseeable.
And so we don't let ineffective assistance be the basis of their defense, particularly
in criminal law.
A lot of people who have appointed counsel, they can't choose who their lawyer is.
Mr. Jones got to choose this lawyer.
Speaker 1: You revealed on the Young Turks last week when speaking to our friend and
experienced that in that digital copy, there was a nude photo of Alex Jones wife sent to
Roger Stone.
And since then, Erica Wolf Jones came out and said that it was non-consensual.
It's not clear to me whether she means that the picture was taken non-consensual.
He or she knew about the picture, but it was not consensual to send it to Roger Stone.
What on earth is going on when it comes to this?
This is almost like a side story, but raising a ton of different questions about the relationship
between Jones and Stone and just bizarre things that you often just never even see become
part of a trial.
Is there anything else on that that you've since found out?
Speaker 4: I mean, the only thing that I can say that I can help clarify the record on
that is because Jones is actually what I found was interesting is after I discussed that,
Jones actually showed the picture on his show, which I thought was strange.
But what I can tell you is from the nature of the.
It was definitely consensually taken.
Right.
It wasn't it wasn't something that he was creep shotting her or something like that.
The non consent issue comes that it was sent apropos of nothing do Roger Stone and what
seems to be a bid for his attention that was totally ignored by Stone.
Just a random picture that was sent and some other messages trying to get his attention
as terms of what's going on in the future with those kinds of issues.
Because I brought that to the fore, because it does look like a crime.
And that's not that's not an okay thing to do.
Speaker 1: Oh, is that right?
So it would be that it's even if the picture was taken consensually to disseminate it is
potentially criminal.
Speaker 4: Correct.
And I mean, there's some decent caveats to that in Texas.
There has to be basically an intent to harm or embarrass or something like that.
But sending your wife's picture to Roger Stone nonconsensual, he pretty much meets that that
definition.
And so, you know, I'm glad that Miss Wolf Jones knows about that now.
And there's a lot of other things in those text messages that will likely come out in
due course, which raise other troubling issues in Mr. Jones's life.
And so as that process goes forward, there may very well be more revelations about what's
going on there.
Speaker 1: Do you think I might have a defamation case against Alex Jones?
He did call me a predator about six months ago because I have a paid membership program
on my show where people can pay and get access to an extra 20 minute show a day.
I can't really say that I was damaged by it.
In fact, it was probably the best possible thing that's ever happened.
To be honest, I probably don't have a case right now.
Speaker 4: I would figure it out for a couple of reasons.
One is you're very much a public figure now.
You know, you're a guy in the involved in the middle of the discourse.
And in this country, we let you be pretty reckless, right up to the edge about public
figures.
Right.
And then the Sandy Hook parents.
Right.
But it's also funny that I just find it ironic that here you are talking about a promotion
program you're doing on your your show for more content.
Right.
And here's a guy who's hawking, you know, super male vitality force and he's calling
you a predator.
That's that's really funny to me.
I think it's also funny you bring this up because somebody was asking me today to explain,
said, can you who's David Pakman?
What's the show about?
Obviously an older person who is not watching their news on the Internet.
Sure.
And the best thing I could come up with was imagine if Alex Jones wasn't bad.
Imagine if somebody was doing news and commentary on the Internet in an independent way that
wasn't just a grift to try to sell you pills that turn you red, right?
Like what if you had that?
And you know, that's one of the reasons I went on TNT to one of the reasons I was really
happy to come here.
Yeah.
Is because the solution sure isn't getting through the corporate media.
It's through shows like this and by people who are taking it seriously, being responsible.
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that.
Last thing I want to ask you about.
The last time I was in the same room with Alex Jones was years ago at a radio conference
called The New Media Seminar, which I don't even know if it exists anymore.
And at the time my impressions were he's playing a character.
My impressions were that he got off the stage after giving a sort of animated but still
kind of normal speech.
And he said something like, you know, I could have really freaked them out if I wanted to.
And it seemed that he sort of understood that the on air persona was not at all his sort
of real life.
In the last two years, from everything I've seen and read and interactions with Jones
out in public that people have, it's increasingly seeming like the Infowars.
Alex Jones is the real guy.
In your experience, having been in the room with him for as long as you were, is it is
it a character or is that the real Alex Jones?
Speaker 4: You know, that is a question I have struggled with since the beginning and
at the start I thought I knew the answer.
And I think that has changed over time.
For me, it's you.
You see, at first I was positive and I still remain very positive that most of the things
he said, for instance, about Sandy Hook, he never believed he never believed there were
pictures of the children still alive.
He never really believed the school was shut down and Stockton was a fake school.
I don't think he believed any of that.
And so there was a time that I really believed that he was a sophisticated operator, completely
detached from the things he was saying.
But as we went through this whole process, I deposed him several times.
As we went through trial, I also realized there is no off switch for Jones and there
is something about spending every day wrapped in your own B.S. that it starts to actually
affect you.
And there is a mindset.
Jones I think you're right when you say that he is conscious of how his words appear to
people, he and he is any and he wants to try to control that.
But here we just saw him in this trial, totally unable to turn off the freak flag just for
10 minutes in front of that jury.
And it really shows that there is there's two sides of Jones.
There's a very, very conscious manipulator side to Jones.
And then there is a side where he is not really in control of himself.
Those two parts of himself are at war.
And right now, the part of him that's out of control has been winning handily for the
last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, out of control is quite, quite an understatement.
Mark Bankston, partner at Farah and Ball.
And lead counsel in a number of defamation lawsuits against Alex Jones and Infowars.
Mark, really a pleasure having you on today.
Speaker 4: Hey, really pleasure being here.
If you ever have legal questions and want to talk about some more stuff, please have
them back.