Deposition of InfoWars Corporate Representative Daria Karpova - December 2, 2021
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We are on the record on February 15, 2022 at 9.03 a.m., This is the videotape deposition of Brittany Hawks.
Can you please introduce yourself?
Oh, I'm sorry.
You forgot to swear a minute.
My name is Amy M. Clark, court reporter, CSR number 8753. You must pause with your finger at your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm your testimony you're about to give in this matter?
Will it be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes.
Thank you.
Can you please introduce yourself to the jury?
Sure.
My name is Brittany Posp.
Just for the record, we're going to take this subject to the protective order that's been entered in this case.
Okay.
I don't think we have one in Fontaine, actually.
I'm not sure we do.
Okay.
I don't think we do.
My apologies.
I don't have to check that.
Before we get started, can I amend something that we talked about yesterday?
This is kind of a different, completely different case.
You get to read inside.
No, I want to add something.
It was on the subject of, Attorney Bankston asked me about a Bloomberg article that was referenced by Mr. Jones, and I didn't know which article it was, but I located the article, so I just wanted to bring it to your attention and put it on the record.
I don't...
I'm not...
Is that entirely different?
Yeah.
It's a different case, different subject matter.
Okay.
Well, I guess Attorney Block can email you.
We're not terribly concerned with what your attorneys prepared you on after your obligations.
I'm going to object because...
It wasn't anything she prepared me on, but...
Okay.
Okay.
Well, I mean, just because this is put on the record and it may be used in the Sandy Hook case, and I was taking that deposition.
That's our position.
Ms. Paz was ordered by the court to appear yesterday for a deposition prepped on this topic.
We do not feel she was prepared in anything she did last night after her obligation to the deposition is completely irrelevant to us.
That's our position on the Sandy Hook case.
All right.
Ms. Paz, what do you do for a living?
I am a practicing attorney in Connecticut.
Okay.
And today we are obviously in Austin, Texas.
You're not going to be practicing law today, correct?
No.
Okay.
What were you tasked with doing today?
For this deposition?
Yes.
In the Fontaine deposition, I was tasked with being the corporate representative for free speech in relationship to the petition that he filed.
Okay.
And you just used the term corporate representative.
What does that mean to you?
It means that I am a fact witness on behalf of the company.
Okay, and does that job have responsibilities with it?
I think I was tasked and have the responsibility to speak coherently on what the company knows or knew at the time that the allegations were made about the allegations in his petition.
And that's it?
In relation to this case?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
Do you have a copy of the notice?
I don't think I got one.
Yeah.
When were you retained to be the corporate representative in this case?
It was at the same time as with the previous cases, so January 31st, February 1st, around that time.
It's about two weeks ago.
Who retained you?
The company.
No, who specifically?
I believe Mr. Jones retained me.
He called you?
Did I speak directly to him at the time?
No, I spoke to Attorney Blott.
Okay, so Ms. Blott reached out to you to be the corporate representative?
And Mr. Pattis.
So, Attorney Blott and Mr. Pattis.
Was it kind of like a conference call with everybody on it?
Or did Mr. Pattis call you and then Ms. Blott called you?
I think Mr. Pattis called me and then Attorney Blott called me.
Okay, and you have a relationship with Mr. Pattis, correct?
I have a prior professional relationship with Attorney Pattis, yes.
Okay, do you carry a personal relationship with him in any way as you sit here today?
No.
Okay, so y'all aren't friends.
I wouldn't consider us friends.
I consider us work colleagues.
When Mr. Pattis called you to be the corporate representative for Free Speech Systems and InfoWars LLC, what was your reaction?
I don't know that I had a reaction.
He had a need for someone to serve as a corporate representative.
He asked if I would be able to do so, given the time constraints and my other work obligations.
I considered it.
We had some discussions about it, and ultimately we decided it would work.
You understand that Free Speech Systems and InfoWars LLC have had a couple of different corporate representatives previously, correct?
Yes.
So, and when Mr. Pattis retained you, did he tell you the time constraint of, you only have two weeks to prepare?
Yes, I was aware.
I think I had already seen the deposition notice.
When Mr. Pattis was telling you about the time constraints, did he also mention the amount of work and materials that would go into being prepared for these depositions?
Yes.
So he told you, Mr. Pattis did, that you'd have to review over 100,000 pages of documents?
He said that there were those types of volumes of documents that were a part of the case, yes.
And you agreed that you were, you know, able-bodied enough to be able to be prepared and review every single one of those documents?
I don't think anyone is able to review every single one of those documents.
I think what I was tasked to do was try to be as prepared as possible given the time constraints because the court ordered a corporate representative to come in and cogently talk about these topics and I did that to the best of my ability.
Okay.
And did Mr. Pattis tell you that the judge in these cases On the record, and we have the transcript, went into pretty good amount of detail as to what she expected out of you as the corporate representative in these depositions.
Did you know that?
I didn't read the transcript, and I don't think he talked about the transcript.
I read the deposition notice.
As we sit here today, if the judge had expectations of what a corporate representative should be prepared to do, would that be something you'd probably find helpful as you were getting started and preparing for these depots?
Would I have found it helpful to have read the transcripts?
Of what the judge specifically said for you as the corporate representative to be prepared to do in these rooms yesterday and today?
Sure, it would have been helpful, but I did review the depo notice.
So if the judge said, I expect every single document to be read, Would you understand that to mean that the corporate representative that sits down for these depots should have reviewed every single document?
I don't know that that's what was said.
I'm not asking you if you know that's what was said.
I'm saying if the judge said that, you would understand that to mean whoever's sitting in the chair that you're sitting in right now should have reviewed every single document that was produced and discovered.
I don't know.
I don't know how to answer that.
I don't think it's possible for one person to read all those documents.
I think you're right.
So would it surprise you to know that the judge on the record, and we have the transcript if you'd like to review it during break, said this would likely require multiple corporate representative designees for different topics to share the brunt of what would be expected.
Did you know that?
I don't know.
Like I said, I haven't reviewed the transcript.
Right.
But one thing we can agree on is that you don't have the capacity to be fully prepared to discuss the topics in detail from the depot notices from yesterday and today.
No.
No, you don't agree with that?
No, I don't agree with that.
Okay.
Well, you said just a second ago, to the best of your ability, not, I'm completely prepared.
So which is it?
I think that I have reviewed the documents that are relevant and to be prepared to talk on the topics that the deposition has noticed me for.
That didn't answer my question.
I think it did.
Okay.
What was my question?
Your question was whether or not I am able to testify as to the topics in this deposition that were noticed as per Mr. Fontaine, and I am able to do that.
Okay.
That wasn't my question, but we'll just move on from there.
How much are you being paid?
As I testified yesterday...
For this case and this case only, how much are you being paid?
It was the same amount as the case yesterday, so as I testified yesterday, I was paid a flat fee of $30,000, and it encompassed both cases.
Okay.
How much did you...
Okay.
How much of the $30,000 was for today?
Okay.
It wasn't divided up or allocated.
It was just a flat $30,000 fee for the both cases.
So the $30,000 that you were paid was not allocated to the specific time that was done Rather, it was just a flat fee to encompass all of it.
Yes.
Okay.
Where did that number come from?
I believe I testified yesterday that there was a starting number and that we negotiated from there.
Okay.
What was the starting number?
I believe it was 25,000 and then I negotiated back at 30. Okay.
Where did you get that number?
Just given the amount of time that I thought it would take, how many documents I would have to review, how much time constraints there were with the case, I thought it was a fair number.
Right, and I'm trying to figure out how did you come to the idea that $30,000 was fair?
As I just testified, the time that I thought it would require, the documents I would have to review, and the time constraints involved in the case.
That's how I came to that number.
How much time did you think it would require?
I would think it would require as much time as I could dedicate to it, but ultimately it ended up requiring probably around 100 hours of review time.
Okay.
For this case specifically, how many hours did you take preparing?
So with the document review of these, just specifically related to Mr. Fontaine, including the interviews that I had with Mr. Daniels and other employees in connection with this case, I would say probably in the neighborhood of 10 hours.
That also includes preparation with the attorneys discussing the case.
So 10 hours total?
Probably, yes.
Okay.
Do you remember how many topics are on the deposition notice?
I believe there were eight.
Right.
So you spent roughly 1.25, an hour and 15 minutes per topic.
Well, that doesn't, you told me, specifically related to Fontaine.
Correct.
So I've testified that it's taken 100 hours of review time total to review all of the documents.
So I think that per the eight topics, if we're dividing them up, that would include all 100 hours.
For the Fontaine documents specifically, It was about 10 hours.
Right.
And there's eight topics for the Fontaine case, which is why we're here today, correct?
Right, but that would also include the Sandy Hook discovery.
So that would include 100 hours of review of that material.
Tell me how they're related.
A lot of those questions have to do with the company and the business structure of the company and the information about the...
I might be referring to the other deposition notice.
I think you are.
Okay.
We can print this out if you need to.
Sure.
I don't recall off the top of my head which ones those are.
Yesterday you came in and you had a pretty, you know, color-coded tabbed up binder with a lot of information in it.
You remember that?
Yes.
Okay.
Today you don't have anything.
That was marked as an exhibit for that deposition.
Was there something in that binder that you would have needed for today?
Most of that binder were the video discoveries.
I'm sorry, not video discoveries, the summaries that I had of the videos specifically related to Sandy Hook.
Right, so we don't need those.
I don't think we were talking about those for the Fontaine case.
Correct.
So you didn't bring anything with you today for this case?
Aside from the supplemental production that we produced yesterday.
Okay.
And have you reviewed all of that production?
I believe so, yes.
When did you review it?
Sometime last week and through the weekend.
So that supplemental production was prepared and ready to go last week and it was given to us today?
No.
That's not what I said.
Okay.
When did you review that?
This particular packet?
Yes.
It was emailed to me this morning.
Okay.
But the materials in here have been started to be put together sometime last week.
How do you know that?
Because I looked at some of the Fontaine production.
Okay.
Which parts of the Fontaine production were you able to see last week?
So, on our Dropbox that I believe I did mention yesterday, I did see articles, I saw blog posts, I saw social media posts on Twitter, Facebook.
I saw...
Not just news articles, but articles posted by other people on the internet.
I believe I saw our article.
There was maybe a couple hundred pages worth of material on that.
Okay.
By a couple hundred, let's say 200. You could round it.
Okay.
So you got an additional 140 pages this morning.
Yes.
And you were able to review those fully.
I haven't read each and every line of these, no.
Have you looked at every single page, at least?
I did try to look at each and every single page.
I didn't ask if you tried, Ms. Paz.
I asked if you have looked at every page.
I don't know that I looked through every page.
Okay, so it's safe to say if one of the expectations today was to be able to testify to the discovery produced, there's probably some things in there you're not prepared to do, considering you haven't read it all.
Well, it was filed this morning or yesterday morning, so no.
Okay.
Were you surprised when you got a call from Mr.
Pattis to be the corporate representative in this case?
I wouldn't say I was surprised.
I knew he had been working on the Mr. Jones case For a couple of years, so I wouldn't say I was surprised.
When you say working on it, he's been litigating it.
I believe he litigates the Connecticut cases.
Correct.
So when he said, hey, I need you to go to Texas, did that surprise you?
Not really.
Have you ever given a deposition prior to yesterday?
No.
Have you ever served as a corporate representative?
No.
Have you ever gone through a civil jury trial?
Have I gone through a jury trial?
No.
Okay.
So, your background is in criminal law, correct?
For the most part, yes.
So when a civil lawyer calls you and says, I'd like for you to be the corporate representative in these civil matters, things you've never done before, you weren't at all surprised?
Well, Norm's not only a civil lawyer, but no, I wasn't very surprised.
I didn't say Norm was only a civil lawyer.
You said when a civil lawyer calls you.
So he's not just a civil lawyer.
True or false?
Norm's a civil lawyer.
He practices civil and criminal.
Well, there we go.
So the answer to my question would be yes, and I don't need all the extra.
You understand that, right?
Sure.
Right.
Because I sat through yesterday, and unfortunately, Mr. Bankston is far more patient than I'm going to be.
Okay?
I'm just putting it out there.
If I ask a question, answer the one that's on the table.
You're a lawyer.
You know what to do.
Right?
Is there an actual question there?
Yes.
Do you know what to do when someone asks you a question in the deposition?
Okay.
Well then, based on what just happened there, let me tell you that when I'm asking a question in the deposition, let me finish and then answer so that the court reporter right here can get down a clear record.
Okay?
Sure.
That's just giving you another heads up because when you said yes, you know what you're doing, it actually kind of violated a different rule.
When you came to your $30,000 flat rate, how much were you estimating how much were you estimating per hour?
over.
Um, I don't know if it actually works out to be that, but usually my hourly rate was around $350, but given the amount of time, I doubt it's calculated out to be that much.
Sure, I was asking how you came to that number, $30,000.
It's a specific number, correct?
Sure, it's a specific number.
Okay, so you estimated, I guess, what, 86 hours of work times 350, that get us there, correct?
That's probably what it breaks down to, but ultimately it required more.
Right.
Are you going to charge more?
No.
Okay.
You mentioned that you talked with Mr. Daniels in preparation for today, right?
Yes.
How long did y'all talk?
A couple of hours.
I think probably about two hours.
Okay, that was on the phone?
No, I spoke to him in person.
Where?
At the office.
Whose office?
The company's office.
In Austin?
Yes.
When was that?
Saturday.
Okay.
Who else?
You said you spoke with Mr. Daniels and other employees earlier.
Who else did you talk to?
In connection with just the Fontaine case?
Yes, ma'am.
I spoke to Mr. Jones.
I spoke to Mr. Salazar.
I spoke to the attorneys.
You said that plurally.
Who are the attorneys?
I spoke to Attorney Blatt.
I spoke to Attorney Pattis.
Okay.
What was Mr. Pattis' role in all of this?
I just generally were talking about the depositions and the information that I needed and required.
What did y'all talk about?
I think that's privileged.
I didn't ask you if you think it's privileged.
If it's privileged, this blot will object and instruct you.
But Mr. Pattis isn't an attorney of record here.
He's not an employee of InfoWars.
And you, in your capacity, weren't acting as a lawyer.
So I'm going to ask you again.
What did you and Mr. Pattis talk about?
I'm going to object to the attorney-client privilege.
I think that Attorney Pattis is an attorney for the company.
Maybe not in this particular case, but he is an attorney for the company.
And Mr. Pattis was in Austin?
No, he's not in Austin.
You said you spoke to him on this case, so you didn't speak to him here?
In person?
No, I spoke to him on the phone.
Okay.
And was Mr. Pattis giving legal advice?
About this particular case?
Yes.
I believe so, yes.
Okay.
I'm just going to leave that there.
Yeah.
You understand that if practicing law in a state that you're not licensed is an ethical violation, and in most states, criminal.
Do you understand that?
I'm not here to testify as to that.
I just asked you if you understood that.
- I don't understand that. - Okay.
Mr. Jones, Mr. Daniels, Mr. Salazar, Miss Blott, and Mr. Pattis. Miss Blott, and Mr. Pattis.
Anybody else you spoke to on this case?
I don't believe so.
Do you feel sitting here right now that you're adequately prepared to discuss the topics that were in the deposition notice?
Yes.
Did you think walking into yesterday that you were prepared?
As much as I could be, yes.
I didn't ask as much as you could be.
I asked if you were prepared, fully prepared.
Like I said, as much as I could be, yes.
I don't think there's anybody else who could have testified any better as to those topics.
Okay.
Did I ask that?
No.
Did I ask you if you thought there was anyone else that could be better prepared?
No.
Okay.
Why'd you say it?
Because it's true.
Right.
But, I like hot dogs, is true, but I'm not going to blurt it out randomly in a deposition, am I? It wasn't random.
It wasn't, which is why I'm asking you why you said it.
And I just told you.
Because it's true?
- No, because it's relevant to your question. - Okay.
I truly want to get on the road back home today.
You understand that?
I'm not from Austin.
Did you know that?
No, I don't.
Okay.
I know you need to get back home too, right?
Sir, do you have a question for me?
Right.
You have a flight booked this afternoon, correct?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
And it leaves at 4, right?
No, it doesn't.
Okay.
Then you need to leave here by 4. Yes.
Okay.
And I'd like to get us both out of here.
Truly, I don't want to be here any longer than I can be.
But when you start randomly injecting information into questions that aren't asked, do you understand that that's going to make this a much longer process?
Sir, can you pose me a question?
I asked you, do you understand that?
I understand what your point is.
Can you please pose me a question?
Sure.
How old are you?
I'm 35. Okay.
Where'd you go to law school?
Quinnipiac University School of Law.
You said, I believe you're in your 10th year?
Yes.
Where's your office?
I have an office in Shelton, Connecticut.
Earlier you said you had a professional relationship with Mr. Pattis.
You used to work for him, correct?
Yes.
How long?
About five years.
And that was right out of law school?
Yes.
What kind of cases did you work on?
Mostly criminal, but we did do some civil.
Okay.
Did you handle any defamation cases?
No.
All right.
There's a number of individuals at the company that have been with the company for much longer than two weeks, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Why do you think that you were the only person, as you stated earlier, that could have possibly been prepared to testify on the subject matter of these two depositions?
Because I think that you have previously tried to depose to other people.
Those depositions, they were not adequately able to testify to the topics that were presented.
And I also think that perhaps they didn't have either the time that was required to dedicate to such an undertaking.
And third, that I think that there is no one person that is in charge with What did you do to prepare to discuss the company's policies regarding the factual vetting of information that InfoWars disseminates?
Sure.
So I've spoken to, as we testified to yesterday, I've spoken to a number of other people in connection with the policies and procedures.
So I spoke to Melinda, I spoke to Daria, I spoke to Rob Dew, I spoke to Alex Jones, a bunch of other people, and generally speaking as far as the vetting procedures for sourcing and articles.
The company's position is that it does not engage in journalism, so it requires the vetting be done by the sources that it's citing.
I believe yesterday you said there are no policies at Infowars for fact checking, I think is how it came out.
Do you remember that?
Right.
There are no written policies, but generally speaking, as I said earlier and yesterday, the company relies on the sources to do their fact-checking.
Okay.
And the sources are also, let's back up a little bit, also you said that Infowars doesn't really have journal.
And by Infowars, you understand I mean free speech systems and its employees.
I understand.
You said that Infowars doesn't necessarily have journalists.
It's all punditry type things.
Right.
Commentary, blogging, that type of thing.
That's right.
Let's mark Exhibit 1.
I'm going to mark this as Exhibit 1, now that you gave me that answer.
Exhibit 1, can you read for the jury who that's from?
It appears to be from Kit Daniels.
Okay, and you spoke with Mr. Daniels preparing for today, correct?
I did.
So you had spoken to him prior to you just telling the jury that there are no written policies and procedures, correct?
Correct?
May I just look at this for a second?
The question doesn't require you to know what's in there.
I'm just asking you if you spoke to Kit Daniels before you just told the jury that there are no written policies and procedures.
I did speak to Kit Daniels and I have seen this in the connection with this is the company handbook that was produced to me by Melinda.
There's no question.
There's no question on the table.
You're just talking.
The question was, did I speak to Kid Daniels?
Yes, I did.
Okay.
Trust me, I will ask you about Melinda if I need to.
The front page of Exhibit 1, can you read who that's to?
It says Infowars staff.
Okay, in the subject line.
Can you read it for me?
It says, new editorial policy for all reporters, journalists, and writers.
I swear, so after reporters, what was that word you said?
It says journalists.
And you told us that you have seen this prior to today, correct?
This particular email?
Exhibit 1. Well, Exhibit 1 is two things, so I want to know what part of it you are asking about.
Did you see the first page before today?
No.
Don't you think you probably should have?
Sure.
Especially if you spoke to the person that wrote it, who implemented the policies, correct?
I did speak to Kit Jones, so yes.
Daniels, correct?
Oh yes, I'm sorry, I did say Jones.
Mr. Daniels, he withheld this information about sending this out, a specific policy that was implemented post the filing of these lawsuits?
I don't know that he withheld it.
But you didn't know about it, right?
I didn't see this, no.
Okay.
You wish you would have?
Because prior to me handing you that document, you also told the jury that InfoWars doesn't have journalists.
And that document appears Mr. Daniels in a supervisory role that is instructing requirements for journalists, right?
As I testified earlier, it's the company's position that we're not engaged generally in journalism.
Was not my question.
My question was, Mr. Daniels is writing that to researchers and journalists.
It doesn't say researchers.
It says reporters.
Excuse me, you're right.
Reporters and journalists.
That's what it says.
Okay.
And the key word there is journalists.
Okay.
And that's what I want to focus on because you would agree that prior to me handing you that document, you were going to have this jury believe that InfoWars doesn't have journalists.
It's the company's position that we're not engaged in journalism.
Okay.
It wasn't my question.
I asked if you, prior to that document being handed to you, your testimony would lead this jury to believe that InfoWars doesn't have journalists.
Yes, that's the company's position.
Okay.
When did that change?
What do you mean, when did that change?
Well, you had Mr. Jones three times, Mr. Schroyer, Mr. Do twice, Ms. Karpova at least once, and that document in front of you, all stating that Infowars does journalism and has journalists.
So I'm asking you, when did the policy change to where they no longer have journalists and don't do journalism?
I don't think it's changed.
Okay.
You would agree with me that every single person I listed before you in that last question is more qualified to tell us what InfoWars does, correct?
No.
You think you're more qualified than which one?
Which person that I named?
Well, first of all, I don't want to add, not just advocate, but I don't want to say that I agree with what you're saying that these people have said these things in the past, but I'm here to testify on behalf of the company, not individual people, and what individual people may think about themselves and what they do.
The company's position is that 98% of what we do is commentary on things that have already been in the news cycle.
I heard you say that 98% yesterday.
Yes.
Very specific number.
Where'd you get it?
That's based on my conversations with Mr. Jones and the other employees that a vast, vast, vast majority of what they do is just, like I said yesterday, the production process of looking through the news cycle and what other sources are saying and commenting on those particular sources.
There are a small percentage of things that would probably be considered independent, such as The few articles Mr. Salazar did as an example.
But that is not the norm or what the company is engaged in for the vast majority of it.
Okay.
And I know that we have to say the company, right?
Because there's a legal vacuum of LLCs.
Who owns the company?
Who owns Free Speech?
Who owns Free Speech and InfoWars LLC? I believe Mr. Jones owns Free Speech.
Right.
And you understood earlier when I said, Mr. Jones has been in a deposition chair, raised his right hand, and swore to God to tell the whole truth three times before you sat here, correct?
I know he's given three depositions, yes.
And Mr. Jones also started these companies, right?
Yes, he did.
And you're sitting here today saying, your testimony is the company's position, but Mr. Jones testifying on the company as the owner's position.
An inventor of these companies, we should discount that.
I'm saying I don't recall what you're referring to in his depositions, but like I'm saying, after my conversations with Mr. Jones and others, as I've already testified, that is the company's position.
Do political commentary, people that do political commentary, do they have a duty to tell their audiences the truth?
I think that what we are offering are opinions.
Didn't ask what you're offering.
Didn't even get close to that question.
Yeah, you said I'm offering political commentary.
Nope.
If you'll listen carefully, I'll ask it again.
I said, do individuals that do political commentary owe a duty to their viewers to be truthful?
And here's what my problem with the question is.
When you're saying truthful, something is truthful if it's capable of being true or false.
An opinion is an opinion incapable of being proven true or false.
So that's why I'm having a problem with your question.
Okay.
The things that a political commentator say that can be proven true or false, does that individual have a duty to its viewers to be truthful in those positions?
So I think that the company's position has been that they do strive to put forth truthful information.
I didn't ask that.
But as far as a duty owed to the viewership or whoever's listening to the broadcast, I think what the company puts forth are the source materials and tells the audience where they can go find this information And then that source has a duty to be truthful.
Listen to the question.
You've watched a number of hours of InfoWars, I'm sure, over the past two weeks?
Yes.
Okay.
Surely you've heard Mr. Jones on one of his shows numerous times say his kind of a motto that he does when he's signing off that says, we're the truth in journalism.
Surely you've heard that if you've watched a hundred hours.
I do recall him saying something to that effect.
What do you think he meant?
I don't know.
Surely if you're going to sit here and say that 98% isn't journalism, you'd ask him in one of the interviews, right?
Well, as I said, Mr. Jones has his own opinions and this is something that you'd probably have to ask him.
Right.
We did.
He doesn't think in any way your 98% is accurate on any planet.
I don't think that that's accurate based on my conversations with him.
Okay.
That's why I asked, did you ask when it changed?
Because you've read his depositions, right?
I didn't read all of them.
I think my testimony was I didn't read all of them.
Why didn't you read them all?
Just time constraints.
You just didn't have time.
Was that the only reason?
Yes.
Okay.
The depositions that you did read, who gave those to you?
They were provided to me on our Dropbox, so it was the materials that were produced in connection with these cases, the Texas cases.
Who created that Dropbox?
You know what, I'm not 100% sure.
We at one time did have a consultant that we worked with to try to put information on the Dropbox and organize it and try to help us find material, but I don't know anything other than that.
Not an InfoWars person, it's a third party.
A third party.
Surely he signed the protective order, right?
I don't know the answer to that.
You didn't sign a protective order, correct?
No, I didn't.
And you're not an employee of InfoWars?
No, I'm not.
Or Free Speech Systems?
No.
Okay.
I want to get back to this 98% because you've said it twice under oath and it seems like you based that number on all of the research and preparation you did for the two depositions yesterday and today, correct?
Yes.
Would you use some sort of algorithm or matrix to get to that number?
No.
Why didn't you settle for a whole number like 95 or 99, 97?
How did you get to 98?
I think it wasn't my number.
I think that was a number that Mr. Jones had said that, in his estimation, that's what he thought we did as a company.
Okay, so Mr. Jones is now the position, based on the company, the company's position is that Mr. Jones believes 98% of what he does on air is not journalism.
Correct?
I think the company's position is that, not Mr. Jones.
Right, but the company is basing that opinion on an interview it did with Mr. Jones, right?
It's not just that interview, no.
Okay, what else is it?
It was based on my interviews with the other employees as to the purpose and types of material that are put onto the air on a daily basis and how they do their production and what the purpose of those productions are.
So I think that it's based on confirmatory interviews that I did with other people, not just with Mr. Jones.
Okay.
Mr. Jones, did he give you a percentage?
I believe that that percentage came from Mr. Jones based on our conversation, but like I said, it was confirmed by my other conversations with people.
Okay, so other people in the company also are saying 98%.
I don't think they used that number, but their position to me was that the process is, and generally what they're engaged in, is commentary on what is in the news cycle and the process by which that happens on a daily basis.
If I ran a business and 98% of it was baking cakes and 2% of it was doing brain surgery, you would expect that I would be extremely qualified and adhere to the standards for the 2% of brain surgery that I do, correct?
I don't know how to answer that.
Well, let me ask you this.
Because 2% is journalism, would you agree that InfoWars has a duty to make sure that what they report is true?
For the articles or whatever that are independent reporting?
Sure.
Okay.
And when Mr. Jones or any other personality goes on air and says, I've done the research, I've seen the data, and this is my conclusion.
What is that?
It's an opinion.
What if they don't say opinion?
What if they say, based on the evidence, this is a fact?
I don't think that's what he said.
That's not what he said.
Who and when?
I think you're referring to Mr. Jones' statement that I've done the deep research and I think this, etc.
No.
He did not say it the way you said it.
I didn't say you did.
I'm not talking about that.
Okay.
I'm saying if a personality like David Knight Or Owen Schroer, Owen Schroer specifically, we'll focus on him, says, I've done the research and this is a fact.
If that comes out of someone's mouth at Infowars, there's a duty that it should be truthful, right?
I'm sorry, I don't know which statement you're referring to.
Are you representing that Owen did in fact say that?
Or are you saying, or is that a hypothetical question?
I want to make sure I understand.
I'll say it's hypothetical right now.
Okay, if it's a hypothetical and someone is the original source saying this is a fact and putting something forth as a fact, then I think there's a different standard, yes.
What do you mean when you use the term source?
What I mean is that someone has done vetting of a particular piece of information.
Okay, so when someone's talking about the vetting they've done on a piece of information, that's a source.
Right.
So if InfoWars is talking about the research and the review of data that they've done, And then they come out with a conclusion at the end of that, that they would be the source.
No.
How is that different?
Because when the research that they're referring to are other articles that have cited their own source and have done their own sourcing and their own vetting, they are not the source.
The person that the information came from is the source.
But when someone from Infowars takes an independent article and then says, I've read this, I've done the research, I've seen this stuff, and this is my conclusion.
I don't think that's the context of the statement.
I think the context is, I've read this source, this is what I'm basing my opinion on, and here's my opinion.
Oh, so they definitely use the word opinion.
I don't think they definitely used the word opinion, but it was presented as an opinion.
How do the viewers of InfoWars know when it's an opinion or when it's fact?
Objection calls for speculation.
I don't know how to answer that.
If you want to just restrict those to form and adhere to the Texas rules, I'd appreciate it.
Can you repeat your answer, please?
I said I don't really know how to answer that.
I don't know what somebody else is going to think.
Okay.
If a source is used at InfoWars, who determines whether or not they're trustworthy?
I believe this was a conversation we had yesterday too.
Pre-production, there's a list of sources.
Each host has their own list of preferred sources that they like to go to.
That source changes over time based on my conversations with For example, Nico, Alex's list now is not Alex's list from when Nico worked with him, but basically these are sources that the host prefers and has found to be reliable in the past and so would then trust where the articles are coming from.
Excuse me.
And you saw the lists.
Did I see the lists for each host?
No.
I did talk to Daria about what Alex's current list is, but aside from that, I did not do any research for other hosts.
What's on Mr. Jones's current list?
I don't know if this is an exhaustive list, but I know that he looks at Drudge Report, he looks at what is trending on Twitter, he looks at Zero Hedge, and there may be two or three others that I'm missing.
But there's a list of five or six different sources.
Okay.
4chan on there?
No.
Why not?
I don't think that he does his sourcing from 4chan.
Okay.
Does anyone use 4chan for sourcing?
I don't think sourcing is the right word, but I do know that, based on my conversations, that certain of the reporters, writers, probably a better word, uses that for tips.
But I wouldn't say that it's used for sourcing.
Okay.
When you say sourcing, Is there an implication that sourcing is reliable?
I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.
Can you rephrase it?
Something you use as a source is reliable.
Something you use for a tip is just kind of what is what it is and you need to go verify it.
Yes, that would be a fair assessment.
Okay.
Now that you've seen Exhibit 1, you understand it's from Kit Daniels?
Yes.
I understand.
It looks like an email from Kit Daniels, yes.
And yesterday you testified he's one of the supervisor roles at the company, correct?
Yes, I think he started in that capacity sometime in 2018. Why would he be sending that out to all journalists, among other people, if InfoWars doesn't have any?
I don't know why he used these specific terms.
I do know that after the litigation, there had been some efforts made to try to put forth some standards, policies, and procedures that weren't in place previously.
Did Infowars, in the Fontaine case, did Infowars do anything wrong?
In the Fontaine case specifically?
Correct.
I think that in the Fontaine case there was a breaking news story that Mr. Daniels saw a photo circulating on social media.
He had seen that photo in a couple of different locations and he posted an article the same day.
It was late in the afternoon and then left for the day, saw that it was inaccurate and immediately took it down the next day.
The answer to my question is No.
No, InfoWars didn't do anything wrong?
No.
Okay.
In the Sandy Hook coverage, did InfoWars do anything wrong?
Can you be more specific?
No.
Do you think in any way InfoWars did anything wrong in the Sandy Hook case?
I don't know how to answer that just because I don't know what you're referring to.
Okay.
Their coverage, was any of it wrong or inaccurate?
I think that most of the Sandy Hook coverage was opinion statements that the hosts and writers are entitled to have opinions.
Okay.
Was any of it wrong?
Wrong factually?
Correct.
Which part?
Any of it.
I don't know what you're specifically referring to.
Well, I'm trying to figure out why after the litigation started that one of the supervisors at Infowars decided to put a policy in place to protect the company if the company's position is it didn't do anything wrong.
I didn't testify.
It was to protect the company.
Okay.
Why would he put that in place?
Because I think that...
It came to the attention of the company that it was growing.
There were a lot of different people involved, different departments, and that it wasn't being managed or supervised in an appropriate way, and they wanted to make certain policies clearer going forward.
All of these things, like I testified yesterday, there were departments that nobody was talking to anybody.
There's really no overall hierarchical structure.
So after the lawsuits, there were efforts made to rectify that.
Okay, so based on that answer, we can agree on something finally, which is the way that these different departments were being supervised was inappropriate.
I just think it was not organized well for a company.
Well, you used the term, you said they were not managed appropriately, and then I inferred from that that we can agree that they were managed inappropriately, correct?
I think they could have been managed better.
Right.
It wasn't my question, but it's inappropriate.
I wouldn't use the term inappropriate.
Okay, then I'll use it the way you used it in your answer.
We can agree that InfoWars was managed, the way that InfoWars was managed was not appropriate.
Correct?
Correct.
Correct.
It could have been done better.
Okay.
Can I see that real quick?
This?
Yeah.
I only have one copy, but...
Okay.
Yeah.
That policy...
would you agree, was made to protect the company?
Which policy?
The one in the email?
The email that has the attachment behind it.
Well, the attachment is not the same thing as what is being cited in the email.
Okay.
So that's why I want to know which policy.
We'll focus on the policy in the body of the email.
Okay.
So this policy in the body of the email regarding possibility of crimes being committed, that's the one you're talking about?
Okay, what was your question?
It's made to protect the company.
I think it was made to give guidance on how to write articles in the future.
Why was it giving guidance to write articles in the future?
Because there was no guidance previously.
Okay.
And the reason we're giving guidance is to protect the company, correct?
I'm not sure why you're fighting on this.
It helps you.
I don't know why it would...
I mean, sure, it helps the company.
So there could obviate any potential future lawsuits.
So sure, it could help the company.
Okay.
It could be for other things.
I don't know if the purpose of it was that, but...
It mentions in there that any story involving even the potential for criminal liability needs to be vetted by multiple, in all caps, editors, correct?
I'm going to object to the extent that it mischaracterized the content.
Ms. Blott, I'm going to ask you one more time.
If you don't follow the Texas rules and you can object to form or the other two permissible objections, thank you.
I'll ask if I need clarification to cure it.
I mean, I'm not trying to be rude at all, but I'm having a hard enough time getting your witness to answer my questions, and if I have a bunch of speaking objections for you, I don't think that we're going to be able to do this.
We may have to get the judge on the phone.
Okay?
I'm sorry, what was your question?
My question was, it says that articles need to be checked by multiple, in all caps, editors, correct?
That's what it says.
Why would something need to be checked by multiple editors?
I don't know.
Prior to today, you had never seen that email?
No, I've never seen this email.
Right.
And so, whenever I asked you about Topic 1 in your deposition notice, which were the policies regarding the factual vetting of information, Nobody even gave you this document to prepare.
True?
No, this doesn't have a bait stamp on it, so it wouldn't have been included in the material that I was provided.
So the only thing that you reviewed for this case was bait stamped?
I don't think the only material I reviewed was bait stamped.
The depositions are not bait stamped.
Did you review any other documents that weren't bait stamped preparing for yesterday or today?
The depositions, as I said, were not bait-stamped.
I don't believe the petitions were bait-stamped.
How many documents did you get through out of the 81,297?
Thousands of documents.
Let me finish my question, please.
Out of the 81,297 documents, how many did you get through?
Thousands.
How many thousands?
I don't know how many thousands.
Tens of thousands?
Fives of thousands?
Probably tens of thousands.
Okay.
Did you get about half, maybe?
I'm sorry?
Halfway.
Halfway through what?
Did you get 40,596 documents through?
That's half of the document.
I don't know.
I don't know the exact number.
Right.
And probably because you don't is because I don't know, 22,000 of those documents were produced by Infowars without bait stamps.
Did you know that?
I know that there has been an issue with the organization of the production materials.
So surely you weren't shocked when you said that you've never seen this, but it doesn't have a bait stamp, right?
Because you saw a number of documents that were produced in this litigation that didn't have those, right?
Did I see documents without bait stamps?
Is that your question?
Correct.
I didn't see documents like this without bait stamps.
What do you mean like this?
This is an email.
Sure.
I didn't see any emails without bait stamps.
Okay, so we can, out of the production that's been given to us, all emails that aren't baits labeled, we can take those out as you didn't read those.
I didn't see any emails that did not have bait stamps.
Okay, because that'll give us a better idea what documents you did get through.
Okay.
Because there's a number of them.
Okay.
Would you agree that Mr. Daniels is creating a policy for vetting information?
For vetting this specific type of information?
Right, so if I say all information and that's a specific type of information, the answer to my question is yes.
True.
Not all information, just this type of information, yes.
Right.
Other than the one that I just had the privilege of teaching you about, are there any other policies regarding the vetting of information at Infowars that began February are there any other policies regarding the vetting of information at Infowars that
I don't believe so, but I will say just a caveat to this is In my conversations, I don't want to make you think, like, Mr. Daniels didn't talk to me about this.
I was aware of this.
I just never saw this particular email.
I just wanted to make sure that you're aware that it's not that I didn't know that he made this policy.
It's just I didn't see this particular document.
Madam Court Reporter, I'm going to object to all of that as non-responsive.
Other than the policy that you just got put in front of you today, you were also tasked with the Actually, let's back up.
Sorry.
Other than that policy there, are there any other policies InfoWars has in place to vet information?
To vet information?
No.
So from the inception of Infowars to February of 2000...
Actually, I don't know what the date is on that.
June 2018. June 2018. There were no policies for whether or not anybody needed to vet the veracity of information that was disseminated by Infowars.
The veracity?
No.
I do believe, based on my conversations with people, that there was a...
I don't want to say policy, but there was an understanding that there would be multiple sources used for articles that you wouldn't rely solely on one source.
But I don't think that that's checking the veracity of the information.
Outside of articles, what about with on-air talent?
I think that that would apply on-air as well.
Okay, so anything that went out on-air that was...
quote-unquote, journalism, would have multiple sources to back it up.
True?
Assuming it was journalism, it should have multiple sources.
Okay.
Who told you that?
So that's based on my conversation with Mr. Daniels.
When I asked him about, prior to him being a supervisor, if Kurt Nimmo had the same policy, we're calling it a policy, although it's not a written policy, but It is an understanding that it would have multiple sources.
When I spoke to Adan, his position was similar, that he agreed that I just asked for names.
I just asked for who.
I didn't ask for anything else.
I'll ask you follow-ups.
I promise.
I've got a lot of them.
I'm really good at follow-up questions.
It's probably one of my best qualities.
I spoke to Adan and I spoke to Kit and those are the two people I spoke to.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Are there any policies or procedures in place when it comes to using anonymous sources?
I'm sorry, can you be more specific?
You mean about like 4chan, like that type of source?
Anonymous social media content.
That would be what I'm referring to.
Okay.
So if there is a policy or procedure about checking to make sure that something is, that's seen on a social media source and it's anonymous.
So when I ask this question, I don't think there's a policy, so to speak, Information such as 4chan or on social media, I think I said earlier those are used more so as tips rather than sources.
So if it's seen on social media, generally we try to find another source or to at least make sure where that information is coming from is not a fake page or something like that.
And by fake page, you mean a page that was recently created with a name that's not an actual person and maybe a picture that's not of a person at all?
You mean like the profile picture?
Any of it.
So when I talked to Nico, his basic premise when he was trying to vet guests, that was his process by just trying to make sure that a person was who he said he was.
But as I said earlier, I think that sites such as 4chan were used more as tips rather than actual sources and then they would try to go and verify it in another place.
Okay, like Twitter.
Like Twitter.
On Twitter, Twitter has also links and sites to other news sources.
So like if something was trending, it would link to other news articles, things like that.
So Twitter could potentially be a source.
You've used the term trending a couple of times today.
Yes.
What does that mean?
On Twitter, there are...
I'm sorry, I don't personally use Twitter, but on Twitter there are...
News stories that are trending for the day and the time.
Some might be breaking news.
And so there's things on Twitter with a hashtag that would be trending for that time period.
So the hashtags that are attached to different categories of information, based on that hashtag, something could be trending if it was popular enough?
Sure.
Okay.
We kind of went into the anonymous social media content policies and it sounded like there were more like, they're not rules, they're like guidelines.
Guidelines is a good word.
Guidelines.
Nobody's getting fired if they disseminate something that's completely factually wrong because they pulled it off of 4chan and threw it up on Infowars.com, correct?
They could be.
Okay.
What would make, was Mr. Daniels fired?
No, Mr. Daniels was not fired.
Okay.
Has anybody, to your knowledge, ever been fired for doing that?
For doing that?
I'm not sure for doing that, but there are people who have been terminated from the company.
I would assume so.
It's been, I don't know, 30 years.
But for the specific topic that we were talking about, which is, has anybody ever been fired for disseminating, recklessly, information that's just not true?
I don't know.
So when I say, oh, they're not going to get fired, and you say they could be, pure guess.
No, it's not a pure guess.
Okay.
Because when I've spoken to Mr. Jones and Melinda, who does HR, they couldn't name for me specific instances where people had been fired, but it is a possibility and it is listed in the handbook as up to termination.
So it is a possibility.
What about prior to June 2018?
This handbook was not made in June 2018. Okay.
When was it made?
It says effective date 10-12-2012.
Okay.
So that was when this was last updated.
I gotcha.
So it's your position that that employee handbook was updated in June of 2018?
No.
I don't believe that this policy was ever incorporated into this employee handbook.
Was that employee handbook made specifically for InfoWorks?
I don't know.
It says Free Speech Systems on it.
When I asked Melinda about the handbook, because I did ask to see it, she said it was there.
It predated her tenure there, so she doesn't know who created it or when.
It was updated on that date, but it had existed before that.
You did ask Melinda, though?
I did talk to Melinda about the handbook, yes.
And when she said she didn't know, surely you wouldn't ask Mr. Jones?
I don't think Mr. Jones would have known.
He didn't write this.
Okay.
He's been at the company the longest, though, correct?
Well, I mean, it's his company, but he wouldn't have written this.
So he would know when that was initially implemented?
I don't know if he knows that.
Right, because you didn't ask him.
I didn't ask him about the handbook, no.
I asked Melinda.
I can't remember the name of the woman that was there before her.
Okay, let's break this down.
You asked someone about the handbook, and they said, I don't know, that was before I started here, right?
Regarding when it was produced?
Correct.
Yes.
And who produced it?
She didn't know who produced it.
Why it was produced initially?
I don't know why it's produced, but...
Right.
So, yeah, this person says, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
And that's where you stop your investigation?
The person who probably would have known didn't work there anymore and I didn't know how to reach her.
You used the word probably, but you don't know because you didn't ask anybody that was there.
When it was implemented?
I couldn't.
That person, whoever would have been there, is no longer there.
You don't think the owner of the company knows when he invoked an employee handbook?
No, I don't.
Why?
Because I don't think he would have had anything to do with this.
But you had conversations with him, right?
I did have conversations with him.
And you'd seen this document before that, right?
Sure.
Okay.
So you could have just asked.
I could have.
But you chose not to.
I don't know that I chose not to.
I just didn't ask.
You either didn't care or you chose not to, correct?
No.
Okay, what's the other alternative?
That I didn't think he was a good source of information on that particular topic.
Do you think he's a good source of information on any topics?
Sure.
Like what?
Like what type of business the company is engaged in as he started the business, like what he is doing on a daily basis on his shows, like some of the structure of the company, that type of information.
What person at the company is in charge overall of making sure all employees follow the rules?
There is no one such person.
Okay, so if Alex Jones tries to fire someone because they violated a rule, there are other, depending on the department, he may or may not have that power?
I didn't say that.
Alex Jones is, obviously it's his company, so I'm sure he would have the ultimate say over whether someone got fired or not.
But to a lesser extent, if there is some issue within a department, I'm sure the supervisor would take up the issue with the person, whatever the issue was.
And if it escalated, I'm sure Alex would take care of it.
Okay, so when I asked who, if anyone, at InfoWars is overall in charge, the answer to that question is Alex Jones.
Whether he had an ultimate say?
- Okay, sure. - Were there any policies in place in February of 2018 regarding the reliability of 4chan posting or the information in 4chan posts and any facts or knowledge informing that position?
That's one of the topics you're tasked with, correct?
I believe so.
Okay.
What was the company's position?
On 4chan?
On 4chan, I think, as I testified earlier, it was more so Used as a tip and then the general position guideline, I think is the word you used, was you should always make sure to have multiple sources.
And that would include for 4chan.
Multiple additional sources, that's what you said?
I think, well it says here multiple editors, but I think that it, based on my conversation, it was at least two sources.
I don't know that there was a specific number attached to that guideline.
Who told you about the two source rule?
When I spoke to Mr. Daniels, he indicated that prior to this time period where he's the supervisor, Kurt Nemo was the supervisor, that was generally his policy as well.
That was confirmed by Adan when I spoke to him as well.
I can't remember if you spoke with Nimmo or not.
I did not speak to Mr. Nimmo.
Okay.
Any particular reason?
I don't know that I had his information readily available, and I don't know that I had the time to talk to him.
I spoke to a lot of people.
Did you ask for it?
For Mr. Nimmo's phone number?
Yes, I did ask Melinda for it, and I don't know that she was able to find it.
Okay.
Did she tell you?
Did she tell me?
Actually, let's back up.
How did you communicate with Melinda?
I spoke to Melinda in person.
Okay.
And you just asked her for Kurt Nemo's phone number?
I asked her for a bunch of phone numbers, yes.
Okay.
Kurt Nemo's is among them.
Okay.
And you can't recall whether or not you were given...
No, I was not given it.
And what was Mr. Nemo's position in February 2018?
I believe at that time he was the lead writer.
So he would have been like the supervisor.
Who's the lead writer currently?
I believe it's Mr. Daniels.
Has Paul Watson ever held that title?
No.
Paul Watson, I believe, has always been a consultant. - Okay.
The analytics for the number of page views from Mr. Daniels' article received by Free Speech from February 14th to February 15th, 2018. Are you prepared to discuss that topic?
I believe I did see Google Analytics, yes.
I asked you if you were prepared to discuss the topic.
Yes.
Okay.
When did you see Google Analytics?
Was that part of this morning or was that part of when you had it last week?
I believe I reviewed the Google Analytics when I spoke to Mr. Zimmerman last week, Thursday or Friday maybe.
And that was for Fontaine, not for the Sandy Hooks, correct?
I think for both.
Okay.
What did Mr. Zimmerman have to say about the Fontaine case?
Specifically about the Fontaine case?
Correct.
I think that what he...
Let's back up real quick.
Sure.
I don't want any answer to start with.
It might, maybe, I think.
Not here for your personal opinion and frankly I just don't care about it.
I want to know what you know and only what you know.
If you don't know, that's fine.
You can say that.
We have procedures in place here where we can go and cure those deficiencies.
Okay.
So don't guess.
I don't specifically remember what he said.
Okay.
As far as discussing the analytics and the number of page views between February 14th and February 15th for free speech systems, you will be relying wholly on the documents produced to plaintiffs last night, correct?
That is a fair statement.
Those are the documents that were produced?
This was what was handed to me by counsel.
And when it was handed to you, Ms. Blott represented to you, that's what was produced to us last night?
I think so.
Okay.
Where in the documents, can you point where in those documents you're going to pull the analytics for the page views?
I'd have to look through every single page.
I've not seen this before this morning.
So, yeah, so fair to say that if you've got to flip through everything, because you've never seen some of this before, that you're not prepared.
Right?
I'm not trying to trick you.
Just stating the obvious.
No, I mean, I can't off the top of my head tell you a specific number without looking at a document.
Sure, I'm giving you a cheat sheet.
Look for the document.
You want me to flip through all a couple hundred pages?
333. Okay, so like I said, do you want me to flip through all...
Sure.
I mean, if you are aware of what you're looking for, it's not hard to flip through 333 pages.
We'll wait.
I'm okay with some awkward silence.
I mean, I don't...
I don't know where it would be.
I bet it's in that stack.
You told me it was.
Well, I don't know if it is in this stack.
I didn't put this together.
Well, then now you were guessing, and we already talked about what happens when you guess.
I'm not guessing.
I didn't put this document together.
Yeah, you told me it was in there.
And then you said, well, I don't know if it's in here.
So which one is it?
Were you lying then or are you lying now?
I'm not lying at all.
Sure.
I just don't know what's in here because I didn't put this together.
Okay.
Where's the materials you did put together for this depot?
Yesterday you had a very extensive binder with tabs and color coding.
It looked very professional.
Where's the one for today, or this one is not as serious as yesterday's?
It's not that it's not as serious.
There weren't a lot of documents in connection with this specific case.
Sounds like you were.
You said, how am I supposed to flip through all these documents to find the analytics?
I don't know if the analytics are in here, is what I'm telling you.
Why didn't you bring them with you?
If you needed them to discuss topic four, why didn't you bring the information you need?
I don't know.
Because without that information, it's safe to say you're not prepared to talk about topic four, are you?
I can't give you a specific number without looking at it.
Okay, and you don't, as far as right now, you don't have it?
I don't know if it's in here, no.
Okay.
Well, I'm going to represent to you that that's being unprepared, and if I'm wrong, Ms. Blott will correct me right now.
You're wrong.
Okay.
Now, would you like me to tell you why?
No, I don't, Ms. Blott, because the witness here, she's supposed to tell me.
So, actually, here's my question.
Tell me the page views for February 14th, 2018, for the webpage in question in this lawsuit.
I think I already answered your question.
How many?
I can't tell you a specific number without looking at the document.
Sure, take your time.
I'm not going to flip through all of those pages.
I don't know if it's in there.
Okay.
Well, what do you...
Actually, let's take a break.
We're going to get the court on the phone.
Well, I think we should at least give the court a quarter, right?
Yeah, we're going to take a...
We're off the record.
Let's talk about this.
we are off the record at 10 18.
we are back on the record at 10 28.
Ms. Paz, we just got back from a break.
I observed you walk back into the room with Ms. Blott and the documents that you brought with you today.
Were you able to go through those documents during the break?
I did not look through the entirety of the documents.
I flipped through it.
Okay.
Before we call the court and inform the court that a question has been asked Verbatim of topic 4 on the deposition notice.
The witness has informed us that the responsive information might be in the set of documents that she brought with her today and she is refusing to look through it to find that information.
Before we do that, now that we've come back from a break, would you like to change your answers?
I don't believe it's in there.
Okay, so if it's not in there and you didn't bring anything else with you for this case, is it safe to say you're not prepared to discuss topic four today?
I can't discuss the exact numbers, but the Google Analytics are the ones that I reviewed that have been produced in this case.
So it's in the production, but I just don't have it in front of me.
Right.
I understand that document, I mean there's 81,000 pages of documents.
You understand that you're designated here today.
81,000, that's actually in the Sandy Hook case.
In the Fontaine case, it's like 450 documents, right?
It was a much smaller number.
Right.
And you understand that you're here as a corporate representative to discuss those documents.
The 450 pages that you just mentioned?
If the 450 pages contain the information that's listed in a specific topic that you were given to be prepared for, I don't know if the Google Analytics were prepared amongst those 450 pages.
I do know the Google Analytics were produced in connection with the general Sandy Hook case, so we did not make a differentiation between this case and the Sandy Hook case as far as the Google Analytics.
We produced analytics for all of our landing pages.
Amongst those would have been this particular article.
You're certain?
Right.
So what we did was there were thousands of landing pages for thousands of articles and thousands of videos.
And what I reviewed with Mr. Zimmerman were the thousands of that Google Analytics page that had those thousands of landing pages.
Do I believe those were produced?
Is that what you're asking?
No.
Are you certain the information for the Fontaine post is in those analytics?
Yes, it would have been in the landing page because it's all of our landing pages.
Okay.
You understand as the corporate representative you are tasked with being able and prepared to discuss the analytics of that post?
Yes.
Okay.
Are you prepared?
I can't testify as to the exact number because I just don't have it in front of me.
Okay.
I'll ask my question a simpler way.
Are you prepared?
I don't have the number in front of me, so I can't testify as to the number.
So would that be on the yes side of prepared or the no side?
I don't want to agree with your words.
Okay.
I'm not asking you to agree one way or the other.
I'm just asking you if you're prepared to discuss topic four.
And as I've already testified, I can testify to the exact number.
I don't have the document in front of me.
Ms. Blatt, before we have to call the court, I really don't want to...
Is it yes or no?
Thank you.
No, I cannot testify to the number.
No, you were not prepared to discuss topic four.
No.
Okay.
Let's talk about topic five.
The analytics for the number of page views after a retraction was posted on April 2, 2018. Are you prepared to discuss topic five today?
That would be the same answer as the previous one.
Which was, no, I'm not prepared to discuss the topics that were laid out in plaintiff's notice of deposition of a corporate representative.
As far as the numbers, no.
I'm sorry.
As far as the numbers, no, you were not prepared or no...
That was your question, yes.
Are you prepared?
Right.
Okay.
Just making sure.
And that was a bad question.
I would be the first one to say I'm going to ask bad questions.
I do it all the time.
Okay.
Topic number six.
The company's knowledge of Mr. Fontaine.
Are you prepared to discuss Mr. Fontaine?
Yes.
Okay.
What did you do to prepare for that?
So, in addition to speaking to Mr. Daniels, I spoke to, I think we talked about, we spoke to Mr. Salazar, I spoke to Mr. Jones, I reviewed the documents that we had and are in the production, and I think that's the universe of information that I have on that.
Why did you talk to Mr. Jones about the Fontaine case?
I wanted to see what, if anything, he knew about the case, which wasn't very much.
Did he know anything?
No, not really.
He said not really and he said very much.
So what did Mr. Jones know about the Fontaine case?
I don't think he really knew anything except that there was this issue that happened and that it was rectified in a relatively short period of time.
Not asking you what you think, asking you what you know.
That's what he conveyed to me is what he knew.
Let's slow down.
I promise I'll let you finish your answer if you let me finish my question.
Not asking what you think, I'm asking what you know.
So what do you know?
I know that he doesn't know anything aside from the article went up and it was taken down in a relatively short period of time.
Okay, that's Mr. Jones' knowledge of Mr. Fontaine.
Right.
Okay.
What did Mr. Salazar have to say?
According to my interview with him, he thought that the article went up relatively late in the afternoon, but there were some red flags relatively shortly thereafter, within a few hours.
I think it was pretty late in the afternoon, and I think that what he conveyed to me was that I believe people had left for the afternoon already.
But that they had talked about it amongst themselves and that they agreed that it should be taken down.
And so it was taken down.
Who is they?
According to my conversation with Adan, he spoke to the other writers.
I want to say one of them, his name is, you know what, I'm not really sure the other two names.
There's two other names.
And then had spoken with Kit, and then they all agreed that it should be taken down.
Okay.
If I wanted to know what other two writers were in the editorial discussion as to whether or not to take the post down how would I ascertain that information?
I could probably get their names.
I just can't remember off the top of my head right now.
How would you get them?
I'm sorry?
How would you get those names?
I could ask for them.
From who?
From either Mr. Jones or Mr. Salazar or Mr. Daniels.
Let's back up a little bit.
I thought you said Mr. Jones's knowledge was restricted to only knowing that a post went up and a post came down.
He knows who is in his writing department.
Okay.
Are those the only two other writers in his writing department or are there more?
There's a group of three writers that are generally the three main writers.
Who was working that day?
I'm sorry I don't have that information in front of me.
I think we produced an exhibit yesterday that it might have been in there.
And again, might, may, I think, I don't want them.
Okay, I'm not sure.
It's not fair to the jury.
You have a couple of jobs sitting in that chair today.
One of them is don't guess.
And whether or not it's been produced is irrelevant to me because I want to know as a corporate representative tasked with discussing these topics what you know.
Other than the two unknown writers, Mr. Salazar, Mr. Daniels, and Mr. Jones, did anyone else at the company have any knowledge did anyone else at the company have any knowledge of Mr. Fontaine?
No.
And I'm saying that from the date of February 14th, 2018 to today.
No, we don't have any other information on Mr. Fontaine.
Okay.
No one knows where he lives?
Correct.
I believe I read in an article, he lives in Massachusetts, but other...
Was it an Infowars article?
No.
So then why do I care?
That's why I'm saying you're asking me what I know and I'm telling you what I know.
On behalf, I'm not asking for your personal knowledge, I'm asking you your knowledge as the corporate representative.
And I know it's a confusing topic for people that don't do this all the time and I'm trying to be patient with you.
But when I say what you know, it means what you know based on the list of instructions on information you were supposed to go and prepare.
And I do know it based on that because it was in the production.
I didn't do any independent research, if that's what the question is.
I read it in the production.
When you read it, did you ask, hey, where'd this come from?
Where did the piece of paper in the production come from?
Correct.
No, I didn't ask where it came from.
Did you ask who pulled it and why?
No.
Okay.
Did you ask where this was saved?
Are there any others in that folder?
In what folder?
Whatever folder this was in.
I don't know what folder you're talking about.
It was in amongst the production material on the Dropbox for this particular case.
Okay, so an attorney gave you a document to review and you saw that it contained information about the plaintiff, right?
Information about where he lived?
Yes.
Information about the plaintiff.
I'm not splitting hairs here.
Right.
And so then when you got the deposition notice and you saw the company's knowledge of the plaintiff, and you were like, oh, that document definitely is knowledge of the plaintiff, you didn't ask any follow-ups as to, hey, where'd this come from?
Why?
When?
I didn't really think it was a relevant question just because it was clearly not our article.
So does this ask for the knowledge of InfoWars articles of the plaintiff?
No.
No, it isn't.
Other than that one article, were there any other articles that you came across or that were given to you?
There were numerous articles in the production.
About Mr. Fontaine?
About the issue for which he's suing, about, I don't know if there's any more personal information about him other than where he lives in the articles, but there were numerous articles.
Okay.
Is it all in that production?
This production?
It's not in this production.
Is it in the previous production in the Fontaine case?
That's where I saw it, on the Dropbox.
Okay.
Did you do any searching on your own to figure out if there were any other documents about Mr. Fontaine at Infowars that were not in the production?
Did I independently do a search?
Right, because yesterday you said that you did a pretty in-depth search in the Sandy Hook case while you were at Infowars, searching for documents and different things.
And so I'm asking you, did you do the same thing in the Fontaine case?
Well, yesterday what I testified to was I did a search trying to narrow down documents that I should look at.
So I did a search regarding search terms.
Is that what you're referring to?
Did I do the same thing here?
Let's break this down.
Did you do a search when you did the search in the Sandy Hook case preparation?
Yes.
Was that search limited to only the documents that have been produced?
Or was that at InfoWars, you know, their email servers, or going through their files and that kind of thing?
No, I didn't do any.
I didn't do that, no.
So you relied on the documents that were given to you by an attorney?
Right.
This is the list of everything that's in the initial collection of 324, right?
And then yesterday they gave us the letter.
I just conferred with my co-counsel, and he went through the indexing of the first set of production.
And last night, he and I had the benefit of going through the new set of production.
We don't see any articles that you're talking about.
I'm sorry?
We don't see any articles that you are talking about referencing where Mr. Fontaine lives, what state he lives in, anything like that.
I disagree.
I recall specifically reading articles.
Okay, show me.
I don't have the entirety of the production that has been produced in this case.
I have the supplemental production, but I don't have that production.
You have...
So all this information was sent to you on Dropbox.
Is that true?
You keep mentioning Dropbox?
Okay.
Did you bring your computer today?
Sure.
Okay.
Let's take a break.
Let her pull her computer out and let her find the documents and the production that she has in the Dropbox, and then she can point us to what she's talking about.
We are of the record at 1042. We are back on the record at 11.02.
We just took a break so that you could look through some materials on a computer to find a document that we were talking about.
The stack of documents that's next to you, is that the production that was made last night?
I believe so, yes.
Okay, can you flip to the last page?
Okay.
Okay.
Can you read the Bates number on it?
The last one?
Yes, ma'am.
DEFS000334. Okay.
The article we were talking about that identifies personal information about Mr. Fontaine.
What's the Bates number on that?
This one says...
Fontaine 001103 through 1104. Okay, that would signify that there are 1,104 pages of production, correct?
I don't know how these Bates numbers are produced, but I think that's accurate, yeah.
Okay, because when I asked you earlier how many documents were involved, it appeared the global number of documents was about 425, correct?
I think that was the number you put on it, and I said I didn't know how many documents there were, but that it was significantly less than Sandy Hook.
I don't think I subscribed to that number.
Okay.
How many documents, roughly, did you review in the Fontaine case?
A few hundred documents, probably.
Definitely more than a couple of hundred documents.
It probably would be in the range of five or six hundred pages total.
So if there are 1,104 pages, it's safe to say you didn't review at all?
I don't know if that's the end of the production.
That's fine.
But if there are 1,100, you didn't look at 1,100.
I don't know that I looked at 1,100 pages, no.
Probably more like half.
I don't know how many.
Do you know when that document was produced?
It doesn't say when it was produced.
What's the source of that article?
You mean where did this article come from?
Yes.
I don't know how it came to be in our possession.
I know what it appears to be, an American Statesman article dated for 2018. But otherwise, I don't know where else it came from.
You don't know who Infowars found it, saved it, anything like that?
That's assuming anyone at Infowars did do that.
I don't know if that's accurate.
Okay, so this production could have come from outside of Infowars and someone slapped a Fontaine sticker on it?
No, someone could have sent it to us.
It could have been produced in connection with the litigation by one of our attorneys.
I just don't know how it came to be in the company's possession.
Okay.
So, as far as the knowledge of the defendants with regards to Mr. Fontaine, you aren't sure where that knowledge came from or how it was given, if at all, to Infowars?
Regarding his location in Massachusetts?
Yes.
Well, I could testify as a source of my knowledge of these articles, but as far as how these articles came to me in our possession, no, I don't know that.
Okay.
And you understand that you're here to testify on how they came, our possession.
It's not your personal knowledge, but you're here to testify on the company's knowledge.
Yes.
Okay.
You can't do that as far as where this document came from, when, why, or how?
I don't know where this document came from, no.
Okay.
Are there any other documents that contain information that InfoWars has on Mr. Fontaine, similar to this one?
Is there a Bates number on it?
Bates don't go that high.
I agree.
Are there any others besides the one you're viewing now?
Yes, I do recall a report from a psychologist.
I believe that might have been produced by plaintiffs.
I recall reading a letter from his psychologist or therapist.
Okay, so Mr. Fontaine's personal information was shared with you and you have not signed the protective order?
That's true?
I don't have a protective order.
I didn't sign anything, no.
So true?
Yes, that's true.
Did you come across any documents that were stamped confidential during your review?
That document may have been stamped confidential.
I'm not sure.
In general, do you remember any documents that were stamped?
I don't remember anything stamped confidential.
Okay.
Other than Mr. Fontaine's mental health records that were given to you by counsel and the article that is Bates labeled Fontaine 1103 and 1104, does the company have any other knowledge of Mr. Fontaine?
Okay.
This might not be the only article that would list his location in Massachusetts, so I don't know if this is the only article, but I think that that's the entirety of what the company knows about Mr. Fontaine.
That's correct.
Did you look at the posts that the company had done that displayed Mr. Fontaine's image?
Oh, you mean the photograph you mean?
Any post that the company has made with Mr. Fontaine's photograph?
Sure.
I viewed the post, or I should call it an article, regarding the Parkland shooting that contained the photograph of Mr. Fontaine.
Did you read the comments?
I've read some comments.
There are also a bunch of comments on other sites regarding that photograph.
When you were going through, and I'm going to mark these exhibits two and three, when you were reviewing the documents that were previously produced in this case, I'll give you some printouts.
You understand that those are baits labeled 252 and 296.
Do you see that at the bottom?
I see that, yes.
Okay.
Did you come across documents like this when you were reviewing?
I did see some pages that looked like this.
Okay.
So, when you had them, you couldn't access these either, correct?
No.
Okay.
So, when you got them, did you download them immediately?
When I got what?
Well, there's been an accusation in this case that the reason that the production looks like this is because we didn't download them when they were sent, however we did, and you just verified that yours look like this too, correct?
What I have on the Dropbox.
Did you ask anybody, hey, where are these web pages?
I think that what you just said was what was conveyed to me, which was there are links that we no longer have anymore.
Okay, so who told you that?
I don't know if I can testify as to...
Attorney-client privilege.
Right.
Rejection of attorney-client privilege.
Okay.
When were you told that these web pages were no longer available?
When I was reviewing the Fontaine material this past week.
Okay, so it was in the last seven days?
Right.
Once you informed them that the pages were no longer available, was that the end of the conversation or did it go further?
When I was informed?
Yes.
No, that was the end of the conversation.
They just said, skip over those.
We don't have them.
They did not say that.
But I can't testify as to what our communications were.
Okay.
Did you skip over them because you didn't have them?
I can't review something I don't have.
I can't either, so...
Right.
We're finding some more common ground, Ms. Paz.
Okay.
The other than, is it your understanding that the document Fontaine's 1103 to 1104 has been produced to the plaintiffs in this case?
Yes.
I know that we've given over everything that we have.
I know that there have been some Production issues as to what's been turned over to you, so I don't know what's been turned over to you.
I know that it has a base label on it, so to me that means that it was produced.
Okay.
I'm going to represent to you that I produced this.
Okay.
Other than the production that we've provided to defendants, is there any other knowledge of Mr. Fontaine that anyone at Infowars has?
Based on my review, no, nothing that I can see.
If you produce this, then we didn't have this in our original, in our material.
Did you review a letter that was sent after the article went up requesting a retraction and correction?
Yes, I did see that.
Okay.
And the information in that states that Mr. Fontaine is in fact not Mr. Cruz and the post is incorrect, correct?
That's what the letter says.
Okay.
So that would be knowledge of the plaintiff as well, correct?
I don't think that's knowledge of the plaintiff.
Okay.
Prior to that letter, was the company aware they posted a picture of the wrong person?
Yes, because we had taken it down before we received that letter.
Okay.
We'll get to that.
What information did the company become aware of to take down the post?
Just based on my comments, or I'm sorry, my communications with Mr. Daniels and interviews, I think that this photograph was originally seen on social media by Mr. Daniels.
He had seen it in a number of places on social media.
He put it in.
It wasn't just on 4chan.
It was on other locations on social media.
And then he wrote the article.
The article contained a photograph that says it's an alleged picture of the shooter.
And then there were quickly chatter on social media that confirmed that that picture was not of the shooter.
And so based on that, It was felt that that photograph was not accurate and taken down.
Where was this chatter?
Based on my conversations with Mr. Daniels, it appears that it was on social media.
Did Infowars take steps to save any of that?
To save what he reviewed?
To save whatever information on social media that he found chattering about the identity of Mr. Fontaine's photo.
No, but I will say that in this material, I don't know if it's production that you've produced or we've produced, there is a lot of social media information and chatter talking about the identity of the person in the photograph.
So it could very well have been something like that, but did the company take any steps to preserve those particular posts?
No.
And just for the record, everything you said about the article that you have in front of you marked Fontaine 1103 and 04, that's just conjecture.
You have no idea when the company got that, if it ever got it, and if it's ever been reviewed by anybody other than an attorney.
This particular document?
Yes, ma'am.
I know that it was produced by you because you just told me it was produced by you.
Right.
So it's not conjecture.
You don't know.
Right.
But you said, oh, well, this article has all this information about social media chatter, but...
No, this article doesn't.
No.
Okay.
Maybe I just misunderstood your question.
Frankly, I think I got what I need out of this.
Okay.
The net worth of the company.
Are you prepared to discuss that?
Yes.
Okay.
What did you do to prepare for that topic?
So this also was in the binder from yesterday that we marked as Exhibit 8, I believe, but I do also have another copy of that.
But essentially what I did was I sat with Melinda, who does the QuickBooks, and I went through the profit loss sheet for 2020. That's the most recent time that that information is available.
And we discussed the profit loss sheet.
Okay.
What else did you do?
I discussed with Melinda the structure of the company so that I could understand the reasons why I was seeing what I was seeing and the numbers and the relationship between free speech and other companies such as PQPR because there are some debts due and owing amongst the companies.
I think I may have reviewed Alex's tax statements, which I believe you have.
I think that's it.
Were they tax statements or were they bank statements?
I think they were his tax returns.
I don't have those.
What do we do here?
Because if she reviewed it.
Got you.
They were produced in the net worth discovery in the Sandy Hook case.
I know that.
Not in Texas.
While you're looking for that, can I proceed a little bit with this?
Yeah.
Okay.
So you discussed with Melinda the company structure, the profit loss, PQPR, and Mr. Jones' tax statements.
Anything else?
No, that's it.
Are you positive?
I believe so.
I think that's it.
Yes.
Didn't ask if you believed you were possible.
That's it.
Okay, because yesterday I swore I heard you say that you talked with Dustin Wittenberg.
Dustin is a tax attorney.
What'd you talk to him about?
I did not talk to him about the company's profit loss.
What'd you talk to him about?
I would object to the extent that the attorney-client privilege and any conversations that she had with Mr. Wittenberg.
Who is Mr. Wittenberg?
Mr. Wittenberg is a tax attorney for who?
I believe he's a tax attorney for the company.
Okay.
I'm not going to ask you what you talked about.
I'm going to ask why you talked to him.
I think that would necessitate I talk to you about what we talked about.
I don't think it would necessitate that.
Why did you talk to him?
Because I felt like maybe I should talk to him.
Why'd you feel that way?
To get a better idea about the company, and that was pretty much it.
A better idea about what about the company?
Sorry, I do believe that these are privileged conversations.
That's fine.
I'm not asking what y'all talked about.
I'm not asking about the communications.
I'm asking your...
You had beliefs and feelings going forward in your preparation for today, and you said that you wanted to talk to him.
And so I'm asking, why did you want to talk to him?
I didn't specifically ask to talk to him, no.
So he came and I talked to him, but I didn't specifically request that I talk to him.
I don't think I ever testified that I requested to speak to him.
Can you read back her prior answer?
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to be rude there.
Question, why did you feel that way?
Answer, to get a better idea about the company and that was pretty much it.
Okay.
So you said you talked to him because you wanted a better idea of the company, correct?
He was there.
I spoke to him.
Not my question.
Not even close.
I said you spoke to him because you wanted a better idea of the company, correct?
He was there and he was available and I could get a better idea about the company, so I figured I would talk to him.
What about the company?
About the structure of the company, about how the company runs.
We also talked about some other privileged information, but that's pretty much it.
Do you do any white collar law?
Not usually, no.
During any of your preparation for yesterday or today, were there any instances where you drew concern as far as were there any instances where you drew concern as far as any ethical duties that may or may not have been violated by anyone in this I'm sorry, can you be more specific?
Anyone meaning who, like the attorneys?
Anybody you talk to.
Did I have a concern about ethical violations by attorneys, by accountants?
Can we break that down a little bit?
Sure, we'll start with accountants.
Sure.
No, I did not have a concern about ethical violations on the part of the accountants.
Did you speak with Robert Rowe?
I did.
Okay.
Are you aware of his history in litigation regarding Sandy Hook cases?
I'm sorry, can you be more specific?
Yeah, did you know that the defendants in that case were sanctioned?
Because Mr. Rowe had been found by the court to have manipulated the QuickBooks entries prior to producing them.
Did you know that?
I'm aware there was an issue to which there was a profit loss statement or something to that effect that there were missing lines that weren't produced at the bottom that were subsequently reproduced.
So I'm aware of that issue, yes.
Did you read the court's order?
I did not read the court's order, no.
How did you find out the information you just regurgitated?
I was told that by Mr. Rowe and I was in discussions with counsel.
Okay.
Because I encourage you to go read that order.
What about any lawyers?
Do I have concerns about whether lawyers in the case have breached duty to the company?
Is that the question?
Only with regard to anything you came across while preparing for the last two depositions.
Anything regarding, you mean the financial statements or anything in the entire universe of the case?
Anything that you came across in preparation for your depositions.
I did have concerns on behalf of the company regarding the company's prior representation, yes.
What about it?
The company's prior lawyers.
Okay.
What about them?
I think that there are issues that there have been, even though the company has produced material to its attorneys, has not been produced appropriately and has resulted in many, if not all, of the sanctions.
Would that be in the Texas cases or the Connecticut?
Both.
Okay.
Any lawyers in specifics?
I think that there are specific issues regarding Mr. Randazza, although he doesn't have an appearance in this file, and Brad Reeves.
And perhaps the, I can't remember his name before him.
There's a bunch, and I agree with you, yes.
Okay, so Brad Reeves, Mr. Randazza, I'll just go, Mr. Enoch?
I'm not sure about Mr. Enoch.
I think he's done a pretty decent job.
T. Wade Jeffries.
I'm sorry, I don't know much about him.
I don't have an opinion about him.
Is it Burnett?
Michael Burnett.
Michael Burnett.
I don't have an opinion about him either.
Yeah, Bob Barnes?
Barnes.
You did have an issue with him?
Yes.
Okay.
And...
Whitehurst?
No.
Wilhelm.
Wilhite?
I'm sorry, I don't have an opinion about him either.
Okay.
And Ms. Blot?
I think Ms. Blot is fabulous.
I think she is too.
Okay.
With regards to Mr. Randazza, what were your kind of issues that you took with his representation?
I think the company thinks that there have been attempts by Mr. Randazza to gain entry into Texas ProHackVice.
Those attempts were unsuccessful ultimately, but while those issues were pending, there were orders and timelines and deadlines and scheduling orders that were in place that weren't Being responded to in a timely fashion.
There's also some issues regarding the organization.
I think we already talked about the bait stamps and how they're not necessarily organized appropriately so we know what was produced where.
I think I said that yesterday as well that I'm not really sure what documents were produced in which cases.
And that's a problem with the organization amongst the attorneys.
And I assume that was the problem for Mr. Barnes, Mr. Reeves, and Mr. Randazza?
Yes, I'm not really sure which time periods are overlapping and who is responsible for what, but generally, based on my discussions, those were my issues.
And we'll just go in order.
We'll start with Mr. Randazza.
So while his pro hoc was pending, his representation of the company caused a disorganization and an inability to tell whether or not something had or had not been produced, correct?
Right.
And also, I don't even know whether he was communicating to us About what needed to be produced or what was still outstanding, if there was anything outstanding.
So, in general, there were a lot of issues regarding production.
Was Mr. Randazza at the time, was he in charge of the litigation?
At what time?
When he was involved.
I don't know the time period, I'm sorry.
I know there's some overlap.
There were six or seven other attorneys at various points, so I don't know the time period.
I'll just say this.
At some point since the Sandy Hook and the Fontaine case had been filed, Mr. Randazza was representing the defendants in these defamation suits.
Yes.
Okay.
As he was doing his representation in the litigation, Did he have an explanation as to when he would be filing a motion for ProHogvice or anything like that?
You mean to the company?
Correct, to his clients.
I think he was having those conversations ongoing about getting admitted, but we were not being informed as to, you know, the issues regarding the production and the timelines with the case.
And at that point, he was in charge of...
I believe so.
But I don't know, like I said, I don't know what dates.
there's those overlaps.
Okay.
Yeah.
I went over this a little bit with Mr. Schroyer in his deposition, and I'll ask you the same thing.
Based on the information that you just testified to, has the company decided one way or another on legal malpractice as a potential asset?
We have not made any final decisions on legal malpractice yet as to whether to file or who to file against.
We've not made any final decisions on that.
Okay.
Has it been discussed or is it going to be discussed?
It's being discussed.
I would ask that should that discussion happen and that go forward that the plaintiffs in this case as a potential creditor just be made aware because that would be a potential asset to the company.
Sure.
Was the company at all aware?
Did Mr. Randazza inform the company at any moment...
It's okay.
I'm stupid.
Can we go off the record a minute?
I'm okay.
Do you need to take that?
No, I need to...
Are we off the record?
No.
Okay, I'm older than you guys.
I don't know how to make it quit ringing through my phone, so let me just turn it off.
Okay.
and I sincerely apologize.
Of course, it just means I know how to turn it on.
Just hold the power button, hold the button down.
Which button?
The power button.
The sleep button.
Which one?
Oh, look.
My son just bought this for me.
Is this the power button?
I don't do it.
Interesting question.
Oh, shit.
So, y'all can all laugh at me, okay?
I'm sorry.
Oh, fuck you.
I'm sorry.
I apologize for my language.
See, as to your question, I said she's fabulous.
That's why.
Why?
Because I don't know how to work an iPad.
More so your language, but...
Okay.
I just proved the veracity of my opinion.
Go ahead.
At any point during these proceedings, did Mr. Randazza inform the company that he was practicing law in Texas without a license and without any order on a ProHocMiche?
I don't know the answer to that.
Okay.
Did Mr. Randazza ever work on the preparation of any pleadings or motions or documents involved in these two actions in Texas?
I don't know the answer.
If he worked on them, like as in drafts, I know he didn't sign them because he couldn't sign them and file them, but I don't know if he worked on them, no.
Okay.
Did Ms. Randazza give any legal advice?
To the company?
Yes.
Specifically to the actions in Texas.
I mean, he represented the company, so I believe that that's a yes answer.
Don't guess.
I mean, I haven't had any conversations with Mr. Randazza, so I don't know for sure.
We'll go back up to the net worth now, because this is kind of all tied into it.
When you talked with Mr. Wittenberg, did you review any documents that he gave you?
I never spoke to Mr. Wittenberg.
Okay.
I thought you had conversations with Dustin Wittenberg.
Oh, I'm sorry.
That's his name?
I didn't know his last name.
You're right.
I did talk to Mr. Wittenberg.
Did you review any documents when you spoke with him?
No.
Okay.
He didn't show me anything.
Yeah.
Um, okay.
I'm going to start hitting the outline now.
Oh, there she is. there she is.
Oh.
All right.
And seven.
It's going to be exhibit four.
Did you review this prior to today?
Okay.
No.
Which number is that?
What do you mean?
I don't remember which one.
Oh, that's the topic number.
Oh, there's tab number.
You said you did not look at the discovery responses?
I don't think I saw this.
No.
Okay.
Okay.
Aside from the pleadings, the petitions, I think the petitions were the only pleadings I reviewed, so no, I didn't read this.
I'll point you to request for production number four on page three.
Okay.
And request for production number four on page three says, all communications within InfoWars relating to the plaintiff, the article in question, or efforts to ascertain the identity of the Douglas High School shooter.
I see that.
In response, the answer is, after a diligent search, no responsive documents in free speech systems, possession, custody, or control were identified.
I see that.
Okay.
Can you tell me what this search, who did the search?
So after speaking to Mr. Daniels, once we were informed that there was going to be a lawsuit, he searched through his personal computer, he searched through his phone, and I believe searched through anything that would have been on his computer at work, and there was nothing found.
So we didn't have anything in our custody.
Okay, so it was just Mr. Daniels doing the search?
Mr. Daniels searched his specific phone and computer and I believe, I'm sorry, let me just amend my response.
I think that also...
I don't want thinking.
Because we did search our emails, and that was not done by Mr. Daniels.
So we did search the emails as well.
Okay.
Who searched the emails?
I don't know the identity of the person who searched the emails.
I'm not sure.
I think, and like I said, I'm not sure.
Then we can end it there?
I don't know is an answer that...
I'm not sure.
Okay.
And how do you know that someone did an email search?
Because we've produced many thousands of pages of emails.
In this case?
Amongst the two cases.
I don't know in this case specifically, but I know we've produced many thousands of emails.
Have any emails at all been produced in this case regarding Mr. Fontaine or specifically the information requested in Request for Production 4?
I don't believe that we had any responsive emails on Mr. Fontaine.
I didn't ask if you believed if you did.
We did not produce any emails because there are no responsive emails on Mr. Fontaine.
Okay.
When was the search done?
I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that.
Okay.
What were the searching and culling terms?
Because I don't know who did the search.
search.
I'm not sure who did the search terms.
Okay.
Did you, when you when you came and did your interviews with members of the company, were you given any sort of restrictions on your access of who you could talk to? were you given any sort of restrictions on No.
Did you ask who did the search?
I don't remember.
Did you ask when a search was done?
So here's the reason why I don't know is just because I know we've been dealing, there was some third party person and I'm not really sure who or when that was.
So no, I'm not sure.
So you mean third party as in the defendants hired a person from a different company to search their own system?
No, I don't know necessarily search.
I know that there was a mirror image done of our hard drives, and I don't know who did that, but I don't know who did the search.
If it was that third party or someone in the company, it may very well have been Mr. Zimmerman, but I don't know Okay And did you ask Mr. Zimmer if he did the search?
You know what?
I may have, but I just don't remember as I sit here right now.
Okay.
Did you ask Mr. Zimmer what searching and culling terms he used in the ESI? That's assuming he did it.
I don't know.
Okay.
Did you ask if he was aware of who did it?
You know what?
I don't recall.
Do you know when this third party imaged the defendant's ESI system?
No.
Okay.
Do you remember how you became aware that a third party contractor had imaged the hard drives at the defendant's place of business?
I know that, based on my discussions with counsel, that that had been done.
I just didn't know how or when.
Wrong pipe?
I'm sorry?
I said, excuse me.
Water went down the wrong pipe.
Okay, so...
Earlier, you gave me a definitive response that there are no communications, correct?
I'm sorry, communications regarding requests for production 4?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
And you're giving me the affirmative.
You're not saying you're not sure, you're saying there are none, correct?
Based on my review of the documents, and I know we've produced everything that we have, we do not have anything regarding production number four.
And the documents you reviewed were based on a search that you have no idea what the parameters are, correct?
You mean my search?
No.
My search through the documents?
The documents were given to you by lawyers, correct?
Right, right.
Okay.
Those documents were the result of someone doing a search.
Yes.
You have no idea what was searched for, correct?
No, I don't know.
You don't know what terms, searching terms or calling terms were used, correct?
No, I don't.
You don't know when it was done.
No.
And you don't know who did it.
No.
Okay.
And based on those four points, you are sitting here today definitively telling this jury that no communications exist.
Correct?
Whatever we had, we produced, and we don't have anything.
Cool.
No.
Sorry.
I'm sorry.
And that question was a little winded, but based on that, You're telling this jury that there are no communications that exist, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Would you, as a, you know, I'm not even going to ask you as a lawyer, do you think that that is a reliable basis to come to that conclusion, under oath, swearing to God?
I know that we've produced everything that we have on Mr. Fontaine, so yes.
So you believe that you have reliable information to make that conclusion to the jury?
Based on my review and my communications with the interviews, yes.
We've produced everything.
By based on your communications, you mean the conversation you had with Mr. Zimmerman that you don't even remember?
I don't remember the whole thing.
I spoke to Mr. Zimmerman a long time.
Right.
But you don't remember anything about the definitive answer you're now giving the jury, correct?
I don't know anything about who did the search.
Or if he did?
When?
Yeah, I don't know the specifics of that.
That's correct?
Mark this Exhibit 5. Earlier
you said you hadn't reviewed any of the pleadings or responses in Discovery.
Is that true for this document as well?
Yes.
Okay.
We're going to focus on request for production number one.
Okay.
It says, produce any documents which show what time on February 14, 2018, the challenged image was published on Infowars.com.
The response says defendant will produce any additional responsive documents in its possession, custody, or control, correct?
That's what it says.
Okay.
When was the document first published?
At what time?
Based on my conversations with Mr. Daniels, it was published late in the afternoon, probably around 4 p.m.
I still like that.
So the answer to my question is, I don't know exactly.
True?
I don't know exactly what time, but based on my conversations with Mr. Daniels, it was late in the afternoon.
Okay.
Okay, yeah, I was going to say.
Earlier you said once we were informed that a lawsuit may be coming.
Do you remember that?
When you said that?
In response to what question?
I'm sorry.
This lawsuit.
Do you know when the company was informed there may or may not be a lawsuit?
When we received your letter.
Okay.
Do you remember the date on that?
I don't remember the exact date.
Okay.
Is it safe to say that once that letter was received, efforts were made by the defendants to preserve evidence?
Yes.
Okay.
What were those efforts?
As I testified to earlier, Mr. Daniels was made aware of the letter and he made efforts to search through his devices and report back whether there was anything responsive.
And as I also testified, I don't know exactly when those searches were done for emails.
So I can't really respond to it for the emails end of it.
So you can respond for Mr. Daniels specifically, but not really for the company in any way.
True.
Regarding the emails?
Regarding the preservation of evidence.
Regarding the preservation of the information on Mr. Daniels' devices, I can.
Right.
For the company.
And the rest of the company?
You mean other individuals besides Mr. Daniels?
Well, I'll give you a very specific one.
The original post.
Mm-hmm.
Was that preserved?
I thought that-- I don't want to say if I read the original post, but I do remember seeing the article as it is in current form, but I don't know if I saw the original post.
So you're sitting here today in a defamation lawsuit against the defendants.
You're sitting as the corporate representative for the defendants, and you're not sure if you've even seen the defamatory post?
The defamatory post was taken down the very next day and so in its current form or in its original form was not preserved because we did not receive that preservation email from you or letter until after it was already taken down.
How do you know?
Because we received that letter many weeks later.
You said you didn't know when you received the letter.
I don't know the exact date, but it was way after we took it down.
So it was February 26th.
This letter is sued.
April 1st.
Attraction and change of the article is April 2nd.
Okay.
Are you aware, I'm going to represent to you, that our letter was sent to you on February 26th.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'm going to then represent to you that there was no response and that a lawsuit was filed on April 1st.
Okay?
Okay.
I'm then going to represent to you that the retraction in its current form, as you refer to it as, was done on April 2nd the next day.
The post was taken down on February 15th, so 10 days before your letter or 11 days before your letter.
The post was?
The article was revised on February 15th.
To say what?
To take out the defamatory language.
Okay, so one thing we can agree on is there was defamatory language.
I think that the photograph representing that it was Mr. Fontaine was not accurate and represented him to be potentially the shooter in Parkland, so it was removed on February 15th, along with the language saying this is the alleged photo of the shooter was removed.
When was the retraction done?
I don't know the date.
April 2nd.
Okay.
Did you read the letter that plaintiff sent on February 26th?
Yes, I saw the letter.
Based on that, were you able to learn why defendants did not, pursuant to the statute, do a proper retraction until after the deadline that's in the statute?
I don't believe that that's accurate.
I don't believe we missed a deadline per the statute, and I do believe that we mitigated the issue regarding the photograph.
Do you know if Mr. Fontaine's ever even been to Florida?
No, I don't know.
Do you know about the death threats that Mr. Fontaine has received?
I don't believe I reviewed anything like that in the production, so no.
Well, you read our production.
We know because you cited it, Fontaine 1103 and 1104. So you read some of my production, correct?
I read some of your production.
In that production, you didn't see any of the horrific things that were said about him online in the comments sections?
Oh, I'm sure there were horrific things.
Yes, I read a number of...
I didn't ask you if you were sure there were.
I'm asking you if you read them.
Yes, I did read them.
Okay, so when I ask you whether or not you know about it, I don't want to hear...
I'm sure there were.
I want to know whether or not you know.
Yes, I know.
Okay.
After reading some of those comments, what did you come away with?
I came away with there was a misidentification of Mr. Fontaine as the shooter and that there were negative comments about him as a result.
When you say negative comments, what do you mean?
Negative comments.
Not nice comments.
Sure.
Were there any threats?
Not that I recall, but...
Okay.
I encourage you after this depot to keep reading because there's a lot of them.
Are any of the defendants apologetic for putting Mr. Fontaine through this?
Oh, yes.
When I spoke to Mr. Daniels, he was very, very upset and he is very apologetic.
So, yes.
Usually when you're apologetic, you give an apology to the person, correct?
I would disagree with that, especially when there's ongoing litigation, so I would disagree with that.
Right, you would tell your lawyer and the lawyers would tell each other, right?
Tell each other or tell the other lawyers?
The lawyers would tell.
If Mr. Daniels wanted to, at any point, he could have asked Ms. Blot or Mr. Reeves or Mr. Randazzer or Mr. Barnes, Mr. Whitehurst, I forget it, Will Hite, Mr. Enoch, Mr. I mean, could have asked any of them, hey, I would like to apologize to the plaintiff, and that could have been communicated through the lawyers, right?
I don't know if he was advised not to do that.
Oh, so the lawyers may have advised him not to apologize.
I don't know the answer to that.
You keep falling back into that.
But you're saying that he could have, and I don't know that he could have, because I don't know if he was advised not to.
I will traditionally advise my clients who commit offenses and criminal offenses.
They may be very apologetic, but they cannot make admissions during the pendency of the case.
And so I don't know that he could have done that.
Do you know what happened to Mr. Schroyer after he communicated an apologetic message to the plaintiffs?
Do I know if anything happened to him?
No, I don't know.
So you don't know where he currently stands in these cases?
What do you mean?
Can you be more specific?
I know he's still a defendant in the case.
Yeah.
Do you know whether or not he's in negotiations to settle?
I can't answer that.
You don't know?
I don't know.
Okay.
Does any of the defendants contend that they produced documents showing what time this article in question was originally published?
No.
Okay.
I want to go to request for production two.
Are we still on number five?
Yes.
Would this be a good time to take a break?
If I can get through this one, this will be the last of this document.
Okay.
Which one did you say?
Number two.
Okay.
It says, a copy of every version of the article in question which was published on the InfoWars website.
And the response is, free speech systems has produced responsive documents in its possession, custody, or control.
I'm sorry, which one are you on?
Number two.
This one says web browser history for request for production 2. Oh, you're right.
Sorry.
I'm on the right one now.
Number 2. This is exhibit 2?
Yes.
Okay, let me just...
No, I'm sorry.
This is the exhibit you were on.
Oh, it's the same exhibit?
Yes.
Okay, so which one was it?
The one you were on.
Produce a copy of any web browser history showing all pages you visited from each web browser on any electronic device you used on February 14, 2018, to February 15, 2018, concerning searches or pages related to the challenged publication, the challenged image, the plaintiff, Or your efforts to ascertain the identity of Stoneman Douglas High School shooter.
I see it.
Okay.
Response, none known to exist.
What does that mean?
It means that at the time this was drafted, we didn't have any knowledge that existed that had these browser histories that were being requested.
Were there any attempts to search for this information?
I don't know.
Were there any efforts to preserve this information?
I don't know.
As I said, I think we asked Mr. Daniels to search his computer, so I don't know if Mr. Daniels did it, so I don't know.
Did you ask anybody else?
No.
Okay.
So you didn't ask any of the individuals that you listed out to us, Mr. Salazar or the two ghost writers that we do not know the identities of, you didn't ask them to preserve their browsing history and to search it?
I don't know the answer to that.
So when it comes to the company's efforts to preserve evidence for this case, topic number seven in the Notice of Deposition,
You would not be prepared to discuss any of the preservation of web browsing history because the only thing that you did was talk to Mr. Daniel.
Yes.
We take a break there.
We are off the record at 11.57.
We are back on the record at 12.12.
I'll give you Exhibit 6.
Oh, and I don't know if you want the names of the three writers, but I could give that to you if you want them.
Okay.
Go ahead.
So it's Adan, Kellen, and Jamie.
I did not speak to Kellen and Jamie, though.
Jamie, a boy or a girl?
He's male.
Okay.
He's at six.
Okay.
We're going to look at interrogatory number six.
It's on page three.
Okay.
Okay.
It says, list every occasion in every medium by which any employee or agent of InfoWars publicly posted a link, shared, or otherwise referenced the article in question.
Do you understand what that request is for?
Yes, I think you're asking for whether or not the company or an employee for the company posted the original article about Mr. Fontaine, correct?
It's asking for a list of any time that that post was made, shared, or referenced.
Okay.
And the answer is kind of long, so I'll go slow.
Answer.
As sent forth in its general response above, Infowars LLC does not engage in any business, has no employees, and did not publicly discuss or post a link to the article in question, and thus does not have in its possession, custody or control, information responsive to this interrogatory.
Free Speech Systems LLC published a link to the Challenge publication on the InfoWars.com website on February 14, 2018. The Challenge publication was also scraped to NewsWars.com,
but Free Speech does not believe that version of the article Kit Daniels shared a link to the Challenge publication on his work-related Twitter account and his work-related Facebook page on February 14,
2018. Free Speech Systems LLC does not have any records of whether or not a link to the challenge publication was posted on social media accounts maintained by Free Speech Systems LLC,
including Twitter and Facebook, since those platforms, without notice to or consent from Free Speech Systems LLC, removed all Free Speech Systems LLC's content.
I read that correctly?
Yes.
Okay.
So the only place that Free Speech Systems published the article with Mr. Fontaine's picture was Mr. Daniel's article on Infowars.com, correct?
Yes.
So that's what this answer is saying, yes.
Okay.
I don't have a type 7.
What do you mean?
Tab 7 is this.
You took it out, remember?
Oh, that's right.
So now you just need to go here.
Oh yeah, you're right.
Okay.
This is going to be exhibit number 7. It's going to be two pages.
Excuse me, one page.
Copy.
Okay.
Have you ever seen this document?
No.
I believe I saw this in the materials that I reviewed, so yes.
Okay.
And can you describe for the jury what this document is?
This appears to be a post on social media.
I'm not sure which.
It might be Facebook or Twitter.
And it's replying to at TheRealDonaldTrump at CNN and at MSNBC. And the commentary is, Shooter was a communist with a photograph of Mr. Fontaine on the right and an advertisement for Trump 2020 on the left.
Okay.
Let me hand you Exhibit 8. So when you click on the images in Exhibit 7, this is the full picture of Exhibit 8, which is a screenshot, you would agree?
And I take that as, look at the top right of the document, you can see a cell phone battery, time, all that good stuff.
Yes, I see that, but I guess I don't understand what you're saying.
Is if I click on a link on Exhibit 7, it will link me to Exhibit 8?
No.
Exhibit 7 is two photographs.
Right.
Okay.
If you click on either of them, you can see the entire photograph.
Okay, yes, yes.
Okay.
And so you understand Exhibit 8 would be enlarging the picture on the right of Exhibit 7. I don't know that that's true.
Okay.
Well, I'm going to represent to you that that's what we did.
Okay.
Okay?
And it doesn't really matter necessarily what the stuff at the top is in the screenshot, but if you look at the bottom of it, you can see that that picture was taken from a website.
Can you read what website that is?
Prisonplanet.com.
www.prisonplanet.com.
Have you ever heard of Prisonplanet.com?
Yes.
Who owns it?
I believe that this, well, actually, I'm not sure, because I know that Mr. Watson has something to do with prisonplanet.com, so I'm not sure if because I know that Mr. Watson has something to do with prisonplanet.com, so I'm not sure if he owns it personally or the so I'm not sure.
I'm going to represent to you that the public filings show that PrisonPlanet.com is owned by Free Speech Systems, LLC. Okay.
And the reason we went through the last three exhibits is we saw the interrogatory response that I read at length that said the only place we can find that it was posted was Infowars.com.
Yes, I see that.
But then when plaintiffs actually go do a search, not with the internal documents, but just what's out in the public, we find that it was also posted on the defendant's other website, So I have to ask, what efforts were made to actually locate responsive information?
Well, I don't know anything about Exhibit 8. I've never seen that before, and it wasn't amongst the materials that I reviewed, so I don't know where it came from.
I see that you're representing that it was taken from PrisonPlanet.com.
But I don't have any independent recollection or information that that's where it came from.
Okay, you told the jury you'd seen Exhibit 7 before, right?
Yes, I've seen this, yes.
And you saw it on your computer, true?
Yes.
Okay, and was it a native?
You mean could I, from that article, click and it would redirect me?
Correct, to CNN or MSNBC or Donald Trump.
No, I couldn't click on it.
It was just a photo.
Okay.
Well, in the production, These two were right next to each other, correct?
Or did the attorneys who gave you documents leave that one out?
I don't remember ever seeing this in Exhibit 8. If you had seen it, would it have caught your eye?
Yes.
Okay.
So it's fair to say that this Exhibit 7 was a document you did review, but Exhibit 8 was a document you did not review, correct?
Right.
Okay.
From this we can establish that there are additional posts with Mr. Fontaine's photograph that the defendants published, correct?
I don't know.
And I'll say it like this.
If Exhibit 8 is rendered to be a true and accurate copy of a PrisonPlanet.com post, that would be an additional publication defendants made that was not disclosed in their interrogatory answers which were sworn to be a complete and accurate truth.
True?
If this, in fact, was published by PrisonPlanet.com?
Yes.
Yes.
And I will represent to you that if you went to prisonplanet.com and tried to find this, that it's been taken down.
Okay.
Do you know anybody outside of the defendants that would have access to takedown posts on a website owned by free speech systems?
I don't know the answer to that.
Okay.
Do you know whether or not any preservation or searching and culling was done on the PrisonPlanet.com platform?
I don't know.
Other than this photo in Exhibit 8 that shows PrisonPlanet.com, did you come across any other PrisonPlanet.com postings or information regarding that website?
No, I don't recall seeing anything else by PrisonPlanet.com.
In your conversations with the individuals you spoke to at Free Speech Systems regarding this lawsuit and evidence preservation, did any of them mention PrisonPlanet.com?
No.
When you talked with Melinda about the company structures and how they work, Did she disseminate any information to you explaining how Infowars posts can end up on PrisonPlanet.com?
No, those conversations were mostly about the structure of the company, not necessarily all the websites that we post content to.
Sitting here today, do you have an understanding of Of how Infowars.com, PrisonPlanet.com, Free Speech Systems, and all of the programming at Free Speech Systems, how they all work together and cross-post and republish.
Do you have an understanding of how that works?
No.
Based on the documents that were produced by the defendants in this case that you reviewed, would you agree that this document was not in there?
I don't recall seeing it.
I don't want to say it's not in there, but I don't recall seeing it.
I recall seeing this photo with the Picture of Mr. Fontaine and this commentary underneath.
R, zero, shooters, a commie, re, whatever that means.
I recall seeing that.
I've seen it reposted a number of times.
But I don't recall seeing this with theprisonplanet.com on the bottom.
Okay.
And the...
Based on your testimony and this line of questioning, it's fair to say that you don't have any information on the viewership or any analytics for PrisonPlanet.com, correct?
No, I don't have analytics for that website.
Just for the record because the Bates number is obscured on here.
And sure, for the record, Exhibit 8 is Bates labeled Fontaine 000989.
Do you know what this one is?
Oh, yeah.
yeah oh it is Yeah, it's 991. 991?
And then Exhibit 7 is a page from Fontaine 00991. Okay.
I've added you Exhibit 9, and we're going to look at interrogatory number 3. Interrogatory number three says,
if Free Speech Systems LLC contends there were any publications of the challenged image by a non-party, The answer is
Free Speech Systems responds that Kit Daniels He visited websites on February 14, 2018, where he saw the challenged image of Mr. Fontaine, parentheses, prior to the publication of the challenged image on Infowars.com,
in parentheses, including 4chan.org, twitter.com, and other websites, the identities of which he cannot recall.
Mr. Daniels does not recall the exact times he saw the challenged image on these websites on February 14, 2018, but it was after the Parkland shooting was reported and before the publication of the challenged image on the Infowars.com website.
Did I read that correctly?
Yes.
Okay.
Please Tell the jury what efforts were made to preserve the sources that Mr. Daniels allegedly relied on.
You mean did we go back to 4chan and Twitter and other websites, the identities of which Mr. Daniels cannot recall, to preserve what he saw?
Is that what the question is?
Yes.
We did not do that.
Okay.
What did you do?
Just ask Mr. Daniels.
We asked Mr. Daniels what his basis for the post was, or the article, using the photograph in his article.
And he told us, we don't traditionally maintain those types of records.
So when we source an article and we don't take screenshots of the original source to save for later, we'll link it, usually, In the article, but it's not a part of our record system to preserve every single source.
Did you link it here?
He did not link it, no.
Okay, so Mr. Daniel's behavior in this case was abnormal.
I think I would agree with that.
He saw some pictures on social media.
It had been circulating.
In his opinion, he had seen it in a number of places and that was adequate sourcing.
At the time of this post, who was In Mr. Daniels' position.
Mr. Daniels' current position is the supervisor role.
Right.
Who was the supervisor at that time?
Curt Nemo.
Curt Nemo.
Okay.
So after Mr. Daniels posted this article in an abnormal way that was not standard operating procedure, we'll call it, he was promoted, correct?
Promoted in the sense that he currently is a supervisor.
Well, before he posted it, let's say this, when he woke up on February 14th, he wasn't a supervisor, correct?
Right.
And then when he woke up this morning, he was a supervisor, right?
Yes.
That's a promotion, correct?
Yes.
So he was rewarded for what he does for the company and promoted into a more important role, correct?
I don't think he was promoted because of this, but he has been promoted, yes.
Okay.
I can't say as to why.
Other than the subject post that Mr. Daniels made on February 14, 2018, have any other Infowars employee, or excuse me, Free Speech Systems employees made defamatory posts and then been promoted?
I don't know.
Did you ask why Mr. Daniels was promoted?
No.
Did he get a pay raise?
I don't know.
You would agree typically when you're promoted you get a pay raise?
Not necessarily.
Okay.
But typically?
I don't know whether it happened in this case and I don't want to say that it happened.
I'm not asking you if it happened in this case.
I'm asking you if your understanding is typically when someone's promoted to a supervisor role, there's a pay increase.
I don't know.
Okay.
I'll let that answer stand for the jury.
On February 26th of 2018, you would agree Mr. Daniel's web browsing history existed.
On what date?
Excuse me.
On February 26, 2018, you would agree with me that Mr. Daniel's web browsing history from February 14 still existed.
True?
I don't know.
I don't know how often he clears his web browser history.
So you would not be prepared to discuss the evidence preservation on that specific topic or question?
No.
Okay.
Are you aware of any steps that the defendants took to preserve Mr. Daniels' web browsing history?
Aside from what I've already testified to, no.
Which, you've testified to nothing, correct?
No, that's not accurate.
I testified that we requested that Mr. Daniels review his computer and his phone to get the material, and he did so.
When?
I don't know when.
It would have been sometime after we received your letter.
Okay.
Could have been a month ago, could have been a year ago, it could have been two years ago.
I don't know.
Who instructed him?
I'm not sure exactly who he spoke to.
So your information on this is purely just Mr. Daniels telling you that someone told him to, at some point, that we just don't know, and instructed him to preserve his web browsing history.
It's based on my communications with Mr. Daniels, yes.
Did you ask anybody else?
About who preserved, or what preservation efforts were made for the browser history, specifically?
No, because he was the only one that would have had access to that.
He was the one that was asked to preserve that.
Right, but you were tasked with discussing what the company did to preserve, right?
Right.
So what did the company do?
We asked Mr. Daniels.
Who is we?
The company, I'm not sure who individually representing the company, but the company asked Mr. Daniels to preserve, to go through his materials.
Do you, do you know who, who from, how do you know that it was the company that asked him?
You mean, do I think it was a lawyer who asked him?
I'm asking you why you keep saying the company did this, but you have no idea who that person is.
I just don't know who exactly asked him.
But somebody from the company.
You're 100% Are you certain on that and not guessing?
I don't know who talked to him.
As I said, I don't know who asked him to do it.
So you don't know what the company did or didn't do.
You don't know if the company was the one who asked him, true?
I don't know who asked him.
Right.
So you don't know what the company did to preserve this.
Objection asked and answered.
It's been asked.
I will agree with that.
I've answered to the best of my knowledge that I do not know who asked him.
Okay.
Yeah.
You mentioned that Mr. Daniels was told by someone, either with the company or not, to preserve his emails and some other items, correct?
I don't know that he was asked specifically what to preserve.
I think he was asked to go through his phone and his computer to preserve information related to Mr. Fontaine.
I don't know that it was specified what to preserve.
Is that concerning to you?
That somebody said, we need you to go preserve all this.
We're not going to tell you what, but you need to preserve it.
Like I said, I don't know if it was communicated to him what to preserve.
Again, same question.
Isn't that very concerning sitting here where you are right now?
No, I don't know that it didn't happen.
It could have happened.
I just don't know whether it happened or not.
Sure.
And it could just as well could have not happened, right?
Sure.
Because you're guessing.
I'm not guessing.
I'm just saying I don't know.
Anytime you say it could have happened, let's be honest with each other.
We know what that means, right?
I don't understand your question.
It means you have no idea.
That's exactly what I said.
I don't know what was communicated to him on what to preserve or if there was direction given to him.
I don't know because I don't know who communicated to him.
Right.
And you did nothing to find out who communicated it.
True?
I don't know who communicated it, no.
I didn't say that.
I said you, as the corporate representative tasked with this topic, did nothing to find out who made this direction to Mr. Daniels or what they actually told Mr. Daniels to do.
Correct?
Correct.
No, not correct.
I believe I asked, but I don't think I got a reply or a response or nobody knew for sure.
Who did you ask?
I asked Mr. Daniels.
I don't think that he remembered.
Okay, and you said you didn't get a reply.
Was that by text or email?
No, I spoke to Mr. Daniels in person.
Okay, and then he said, I'll get back to you?
No, he doesn't know.
I don't think he knows who communicated to him.
Well, you said you didn't get a reply.
I think I asked and the response was...
You did or you didn't?
Not you thought.
The response I got was that he didn't remember.
Okay.
Did you talk to Mr. Nemo?
I did not talk to Mr. Nemo, no.
Did you try?
I think we talked earlier about I asked Melinda to try to get his number and she couldn't get it or she didn't have it, so I was not able to talk to him.
Okay.
Did you talk to Mr. Jones?
I've spoken to Mr. Jones, yes.
Okay.
About this specifically?
About preservation of this particular article and anything related to it?
No.
Okay.
And did you talk to anybody at Free Speech Systems as to who made the decision to instruct Mr. Daniels to preserve evidence?
I think what my testimony was was that I asked Mr. Daniels and he wasn't sure.
but aside from that, no.
Okay.
It's going to be exhibit 10.
Okay.
We went over this photo a little bit previously.
You've seen this photo, correct?
Yes.
And the Bates label at the bottom, DEFS-000106, would identify to you that it was in the production that defendants gave to plaintiffs in this case, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Where'd this photo come from?
I'm unable to tell just by looking at this document its origin.
Okay.
Where was this located in InfoWars' files?
I don't know.
There's no way to tell.
Who was tasked with searching and pulling out things like this from InfoWars' system?
Like I said, I don't know where this came from, so I don't know whether it was in our system, whether it was online, whether we got it on the internet.
I don't know where it came from.
What did you do to try and find that out?
I didn't do anything to ask where this came from.
Do you know when this was saved or preserved?
No, I don't know how it came to be in the files.
One thing we can agree on that you do know is that this is the photo that was posted in the original article by Mr. Daniels, correct?
Yes.
Were there any other photographs of Mr. Fontaine in the original article?
No, it was just this one.
How do you know?
Based on my conversations with Mr. Daniels.
Okay.
Other than based on the conversations with the individual who made the defamatory post...
How else, if at all, do you know where this photo, or if any other photos were in the original post Mr. Daniels made?
Well, I don't have the original post, so I couldn't look at the original post.
So I asked Mr. Daniels, and this was the only photo.
I believe it's the only photo, and there was the commentary Saying that this is the alleged shooter.
Okay.
I think there was also another photo of Mr. Cruz.
How do you know that?
Because the subsequent version of the article still contained a photo of Mr. Cruz.
Well, you say still contained, but you don't know if it was contained in the original post because you've never seen it, correct?
Well, I've never seen it.
That's correct.
But when I asked Mr. Daniels, his position was the only thing that he did to change the article once it had been up for however many hours it was up was to remove the photo and the commentary related to the photo.
Okay.
Was there any text included that was taken out of the original post?
Yes.
From what my conversation with Mr. Daniels was that the comment related to this is an alleged picture of the shooter was removed.
Anything else?
Aside from that, I don't know.
Did you ask anyone?
Anyone else aside from Mr. Daniels?
Did you ask Mr. Daniels?
When I asked Mr. Daniels, he told me that he removed the photo and he removed the reference to the photo.
What did you ask him specifically?
what he did to mitigate the post once it came to his attention, that it was not accurate.
Okay.
It's going to be Exhibit 11.
Have you ever seen Exhibit 11?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
When?
When I was reviewing the Fontaine document sometime in the last week.
Okay.
Since, can you please tell the jury when this was posted?
You mean you want me to read the date?
Date and time.
It says February 14th, 2018, 1750-12.
Okay.
And at the bottom right-hand corner you see that it's marked Defendants 00006. Yes.
Which would mean that it was produced by the defendants, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Why would the defendants produce this to us?
I don't know how it came to be in our possession, so I don't know.
Okay.
Do you know anything about the history of this document?
No, this wasn't produced by us in the sense that this is a post that we made.
So, no.
Who made this post that we're looking at?
It looks like a post by somebody posting on a chat room, so to speak.
Okay.
How was it found?
I don't know.
When was it found?
I don't know how it came to be in our possession, so I don't know.
When you got this document, did it confuse you a little bit as to why it was in the possession of defendants?
No.
Okay.
Is this, is this, is Defendant 006, is that the post that was used for Mr. Daniels off I don't know.
Did you take any steps to figure out what this was?
I didn't talk to Mr. Daniels about this particular document.
I'm going to represent to you that this is a post from 4chan.
Okay.
And if it is a post from 4chan and Mr. Daniels pulled the image from 4chan, wouldn't that be something you want to talk about with him?
I don't think it's accurate to say he pulled the image only from 4chan.
I think his response was he saw the image on 4chan as well as other social media sources.
So I don't know that this was the post that he saw necessarily.
Where did Mr. Daniels pull the post that he used in his article?
As his representation in the production was, and his similar comment to me was, he saw it on social media first.
I think he said Twitter.
I think that's what it says in the production in the responses.
And he also saw it on 4chan.
I don't know whether this was the particular document he saw on 4chan, But when I spoke to him, he said he had seen it not first on 4chan, but on a social media site such as, I believe, Twitter.
Okay.
So we're not really, you know, what I got out of all that is we're not 100% sure why this exists in Info vs.
Files, correct?
That's right.
And we didn't really take any steps to figure out what it is, why, when, how it came about, anything, right?
I didn't ask him about this, no.
You didn't ask anyone?
No.
Okay.
Okay.
Does info, do defendants have the ability to provide information any time a post is put up on the Internet?
that.
On its website?
I'm sorry, can you repeat that?
Is it documented in Infowars system when a post is put up on its webpage?
I guess I don't understand the question.
So you mean if there's a post, like an article?
Yeah, sure.
And when that is posted to the website?
Yes.
Okay, so yes, I think that what would happen is if you post the article, the time would be posted.
Okay, and if you alter the article, what's the time say at the top?
Oh, you know what?
I don't know.
I don't know if the time gets changed.
Okay.
Because that's kind of an important detail, correct?
As to the time that the original article was uploaded?
As to the time that's at the top of the webpage that we have available to us today.
Well, that's not the original article.
I know.
Right.
But is that the original time?
I don't know the answer to that.
What time was the article originally posted?
Based on my conversation with Kit Daniels, he says it was posted sometime in the late afternoon around 4 o'clock.
Okay.
So we don't know.
I can give you about time that it was posted.
That sounds like a guess.
Wouldn't you agree?
It's not a guess.
It's based on my interview.
Okay.
So it's definitely not 9 o'clock in the morning.
I know that.
And it's definitely not 7.30 or 8 o'clock at night.
What about 3?
In the afternoon?
Yeah.
What about 5?
I don't know how late it was posted.
It was in the afternoon.
7?
I don't think it was posted that late because it was before Kit left in the afternoon.
What time does the afternoon end?
To me, it would end before someone left in the evening time.
Not to you, to the company.
He would have left his office at the end of business hours.
Okay, what time is that?
He would have left around 5. Do employees clock in and clock out?
I don't know around this time whether they were clocking in or clocking out.
Did you look?
Did I ask if people were clocking in and clocking out?
Did you look for any information to ascertain when Mr. Daniels left?
I don't know that the company has such information.
You didn't look either.
My question is whether or not you looked.
No.
Okay.
This is going to be Exhibit 12.
Have you seen Exhibit 12? - I don't think so.
Really?
It doesn't look familiar.
Okay.
Well, I'm going to represent to you that this is a screenshot or a screen capture of InfoWars' internal system.
And if you look at it, The name of the post, the ID of the post is 479629. See where it says that?
Yes.
And then it says the name of the post is Report Florida Shooter Inspired by Isis Al-Akbar.
You see that?
Yes.
Okay.
If you go up one line, it says post status.
What's it say right next to that?
You mean under it?
Next to it.
Post modified.
Post modified.
And under that, it says a time.
Yes.
Okay, so this tells us exactly when the post was modified, correct?
That's what it says.
Okay, and that's April 2nd, 2018. So that's when I represented to you earlier when the proper retraction was made the day after this lawsuit was filed.
Do you remember that?
I know we talked about that date, but that doesn't represent all of the times this article was modified.
You're right.
Thank you for that.
Please tell the jury why we don't have one of these for every other modification.
Because I don't know that we saved that information.
Why would you save this one?
I don't know.
Okay.
The answer to my question of why we don't have one of these for every single time this article was published and then modified is because you just don't know.
Well, I don't know when in relationship to the time we received your notification it was modified.
I know it was modified on the 15th and then we wouldn't have necessarily saved that information because we didn't get the letter yet.
And then it was modified after that on this date as well.
I don't know if it was modified again before that.
But at least as far as the 215 modification, I can say that we wouldn't have saved this because we weren't aware that it needed to be saved.
When?
Actually, what question were you just answering?
You asked me why you don't have this document for every modification.
That's not what I asked.
Okay.
Which was why I was sitting here with my arms crossed, confused as to what you were talking about for that long.
If you'll listen to my question, they're not hard.
Most of them can be answered with a yes or no.
I get that you want to advocate for the company you represent here today.
You don't have to.
If Miss Blot wants to ask you questions when I'm done, she's free to do so.
Do you want to re-ask your question?
I'd love to.
The reason we don't have a document like Document Defendants 0025 is because you don't know.
No.
No as in I'm not agreeing with your question.
Okay.
How long does InfoWars save these? - I don't know the answer to that.
I don't know that they are saved.
Are they auto-deleted, or does somebody go in in cash?
If you know.
I don't know.
Okay.
What program sets this up?
I don't know the name of it.
Okay.
Does it happen immediately after, or is there a delay after the article goes live?
Or is this generated immediately?
If you know.
You mean is this date, is this time?
Was this document created at this exact time that's listed on it, or do you know when?
Oh, when is this document created?
I don't know when this document was created.
Okay.
Who has access to the system that generates this information?
I don't know the name of the person.
Right.
And so when you say, the original post, the modification, we're on 215, so we don't have those.
You have no idea, do you?
No, I don't.
I have an idea, and that was the prior answer I was giving.
Okay, Ms. Paz, you just testified.
You've never even seen this before.
No, I've never seen this.
Okay, so, but now all of a sudden, you've got all this knowledge as to when information on this system is deleted, not deleted, whether...
That's not what I said, sir.
Okay, then I'll ask my questions a little more simpler.
Do the information from the system in Exhibit 12, does Infowars have possession of the same information for when the post was originally posted and then the first modification?
I don't believe so, no.
Why?
Because I don't think that information gets saved.
I'm not asking what you think.
I'm asking what you know.
And I've tried very hard to be patient with you, Ms. Paz.
You're an attorney and you know better.
Answer my questions.
Don't guess.
Please, stop.
Answer the question that's on the table and stop guessing.
I don't know why it doesn't save that information or how it gets saved.
Is it saved?
I don't know.
Right.
So when you're sitting here, no, I don't believe so, that's a pure pull-out-of-the-air guess.
True?
No, it's not a pull-out-of-the-air guess.
I'm making an educated inference based on the information that I see on this document.
You asked me about the document and you asked me about this document and I'm getting an inference from the document.
Stop inferring because that's a guess.
I want to know what you know.
I didn't ask about this document.
I know you didn't because you didn't know it existed until I handed it to you.
That's right.
Now, my question is, does one of these exist for February 14, 2018 that says original post?
I don't know.
You don't know.
Does a document like this with this information exist for February 15 with the first post modified?
I don't know.
Okay.
Sitting here today, that information very well could be on the system, correct?
I don't know if it gets saved on the system, so I don't know.
Right.
You have no idea.
So when you sit here and say, no, I don't believe that exists, that is a guess and that's not accurate.
True?
I don't know what exists or what doesn't exist or what gets saved or what doesn't get saved on this particular platform.
Okay, with that answer in mind, I want you to answer this question.
Why previously did you say that information no longer exists?
Because it says the dates that are modified and whether it was posted It doesn't say how many times it was modified.
That's why.
That's the basis for my testimony.
I will let that answer stand for the jury.
Thank you.
That' good.
Are you okay?
If you just give me the look, I'll know that you're going to break down.
Okay.
And you exhibit 13.
Have you ever seen exhibit 13 before?
Yes.
Okay.
Earlier you said that you'd only seen what I assumed was the petitions.
And you said, that was all that I've looked at.
And now we've established that you have seen some interrogatory answers.
So let me go back and ask you again, what documents did you review to prepare yourself for today?
I think this was shown to me in connection with my conversations regarding the net worth.
With who?
With Melinda, maybe.
Okay.
And it's your testimony sitting here today that the conversation you had with Mr. Wittenberg did not go into the net worth?
That was my understanding of your answer?
No, I didn't talk to him about the net worth.
Okay.
Did he have information about any of the deposition topics from yesterday or today?
Him?
Yes.
I don't know what he has information about.
Okay.
I can't say what he knows.
It's very peculiar that you spoke to him.
I don't agree.
He represents the company.
I represent the company.
In what capacity?
What capacity do I represent the company?
Yeah.
In connection with these depositions?
She told me she didn't.
Yeah, I thought you said you did not represent the company.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I misspoke.
I'm getting exhausted.
I don't represent the company in a legal capacity as a lawyer.
I represent the company as the corporate representative.
But I don't represent the company as an attorney, no.
How long did you talk to Mr. Wittenberg?
I don't know.
I didn't talk to him very long.
After how yesterday went and how today is definitely gone, don't you think that time would have been more useful reviewing the information that you should have been reviewing?
No.
Okay.
And just to establish, your conversation with Mr. Wittenberg had nothing to do with any of the InfoWars internal discussions about yesterday or today or any of the depot topics that were listed yesterday or today, correct?
You mean did I talk to him today or yesterday?
No, I'm sorry.
Sure.
You had two deposition notices, correct?
Yes.
One for yesterday and one for today.
Yes.
And Mr. Wittenberg, did he possess knowledge on any of those topics?
I don't know.
I don't think so.
Okay.
So my same question.
Don't you think your very limited time preparing for these two depositions would have been well spent doing something actually productive to prepare you?
No.
When you spoke to him, were you aware of how many documents you were tasked with reviewing?
Yes.
And knowing that, you still think that having a conversation completely unrelated to these depots was a good idea?
Yes.
Okay.
I need to clear up a little thing.
You told us that today you spent about 10 hours preparing for this deposition.
True?
Yes.
How many total hours did you spend preparing?
Between the two cases?
Since you've been hired by the defendant, how much have you spent?
It's around 100 hours.
Not including the deposition time.
Okay.
Because yesterday, I believe the breakdown was 100 hours of...
I thought it was...
I calculated it to be like 145 hours.
Is that wrong?
It's just 100 hours total?
How did you get 145?
I don't recall ever saying 145. You mean you were adding up hours?
I'll break it down.
You gave Mr. Banks and yesterday, do you remember saying that you spent about 75 hours reviewing documents?
Do you remember that?
No.
I think what I said was I spent about 35 hours or so reviewing videos.
Yep, I got that one.
Right.
And then I spent more hours, I can't remember what I said yesterday as far as reviewing documents and then talking to people and etc.
I don't think I said 75 hours reviewing documents.
That's not accurate.
Okay.
What is accurate?
How many hours did you spend reviewing documents?
Are we talking about all documents, the universal documents, depositions, bait stamps, things like that?
Yep.
Maybe 45 or 50 hours plus the interviews that I did.
Okay.
Okay, how many hours did you spend doing interviews?
So I started interviewing people on Wednesday through Saturday.
Yesterday you testified between that Wednesday and Saturday during interviews was about 25 hours.
There about so 8, 16, 12.
20, 25 hours.
I also spent on Sunday an hour interviewing Mr. Watson via Zoom.
Okay.
So I got 50. My math is terrible, I'm sorry.
I've got 50 and 25 is 75. Plus 36 is 116. Okay.
Okay.
So in 14 days you build 116 hours.
It's not billable time, but can I account for 116 hours?
I can account for my time, yes.
Okay.
So, just breaking this down.
It's 58 hours.
No.
Yeah.
58 hours.
For week 1, 58 hours for week 2 if we just split it in half, right?
I don't know.
My math is terrible, so I can't do that in my head.
Okay.
So out of the roughly 116 hours, and I know that's not an exact number, you spent 106 on Sandy Hook and 10 on Mr. Fontaine.
No, the review of the documents and those hours and the time include the Fontaine review, but if you're saying, did I spend 10 hours reviewing Fontaine documents specifically, and if you're going to break it down like that, then in comparison, is that what the question is?
I got 116 hours total.
Earlier you told me that in preparation for today, total, you spent about 10 hours on this deposition, on these topics.
Right.
I'll end it there.
I think we're pretty clear.
Do you think you're prepared for today?
I'm prepared as I could be with the time that I was given, so yes.
Okay.
Does she know when the depositions were ordered?
Do you know when these depositions were ordered by the court?
No, I don't.
I don't know the date.
All I can tell you is when I was retained to prepare.
We'll start here.
What is Kit Daniel's net worth?
I don't know if we've produced that.
I'm asking you, you were tasked with...
Do I recall his net worth?
No, I don't.
Let's back up and slow down.
You were tasked with the net worth of defendants in this case, correct?
I was tasked with testifying as to the net worth of free speech because I'm the corporate representative.
Okay.
I'll back it.
What is the net worth of free speech systems?
I believe we have a negative net worth.
I'm not asking what you believe.
I'm asking for what...
We have a negative net worth.
Okay.
What is it?
If I may refer to...
The profit loss.
Okay.
I'm going to go ahead and throw a sticker on that.
If you want to, sure.
This will be 14. A couple of questions while you're reviewing it.
Where did that come from?
As I testified earlier, I met with Melinda who printed me the QuickBooks information.
What's that you're talking about?
The document she was put out of a purse.
Oh, I don't know.
I don't know what I'm talking about.
May I continue?
Sure.
So I asked Melinda for the profit loss statements through 2020. The 2021 numbers are not available yet.
They're not finalized.
So according to the profit loss for the year, there is a negative net income of $6.8 million.
Okay.
Sitting here today, what is free speech systems net worth?
I'm sorry, this doesn't tell me the exact number.
Just give me one second.
What's the Bates label?
What's the Bates number on Exhibit 14?
This doesn't have a Bates label.
Okay.
This was produced to me and this was at my request that I asked Melinda to produce this to me.
When did she give it to you?
Friday.
Okay.
And did you...
Did you go over it with anyone after you got it?
I went over it with...
I don't think I spoke to Melinda about it.
I might have spoken to Bob about it, just to ask him to explain it to me.
But other than that, no.
You spoke with Bob about it on Friday?
Friday.
How long did y'all talk?
An hour or so.
That was on the phone?
No, I saw him in person.
He was at the office.
So you were at the office during all this?
Yes, I was at the office Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Why did you ask for that document?
Because I believe it was relative to the topics that I was to testify about today.
Okay.
Were you under the belief that that document had been produced in this litigation?
I don't know whether this has been produced.
These are the numbers for 2020. I don't know if it's been produced already.
Ms. Blott?
We don't have that.
I know we don't because the numbers were...
This is a revised one that she and I was giving Friday and I believe the revisions took place.
Can I ask you a question?
Sure.
Why didn't it come with the other 333 I got last night?
Because I was concentrating on those for the Fontaine and I ran out of time.
Okay.
Why didn't you hand it to me this morning?
Or during the first break, the second break, even the third break?
This is actually in...
I'm not asking you, Ms. Paz.
I was in the binder.
That's fine.
I understand you have comments.
You can keep them to yourself for a second.
I didn't do it.
Okay.
That's my answer.
Okay.
Do you believe that the information in Exhibit 14 that I just stickered is information plaintiffs are entitled to?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
Okay.
That's good.
Let's take a short break so that we can read over what's in there.
We are off the record at 114. We are back on the record at 129. Mr. Ogden, I need to clarify my response to a question you posed with respect to the financial document that Ms. Paws has.
This document was provided on Friday, this immediately past Friday, and in my continuous review of the discovery responses by prior counsel in this case, I did not see where any profit and loss or balance sheet had been produced in response to the interrogatory that used the term financial statement.
And so I reached out and learned that no, in fact, it had not been produced by prior counsel because they did not consider it a financial statement, which is contrary to my professional opinion.
And because of that, I did get the document so that I can supplement that discovery.
Okay.
I just want to put on the record for myself and on behalf of my clients that that document Has been sitting in the corporate representative's bag next to her all day without producing it to us.
It is in the binder that you have and contains another document.
What binder do we have?
Yesterday I had brought me into my binder.
I don't have that.
Well, whoever has it.
The court reporter has it.
Somebody has it.
Did you give me a copy?
Does it have a Bates number?
Well, yes, as a matter of fact.
What's the Bates number?
I'd have to look on my iPad.
Is it what they gave us Friday?
No, not at all.
I have not produced it.
No, it hasn't been produced.
It has not been formally produced.
Okay.
I mean, let's just...
Has it been produced right now, is what we're saying?
Like, within the past ten minutes?
Well, I mean, yes, but let's just...
I want to make something clear.
When we started this depot, The topics were very clear that net worth was one of those topics.
And that document, this witness testified.
She asked for it to be prepared to discuss that topic.
And it's been sitting in her bag.
I wouldn't have a problem if I'd have gotten it this morning or during any of our breaks.
But the fact that at the very end, after, I don't know, four or five hours of questioning, I asked the witness, we get to that topic, and then all of a sudden it comes out of the bag, and now it's saying that it's been Bates labeled, and it's on the way.
You can obviously probably see how it looks from my seat.
I'm not accusing you one way or the other, but I'm just looking at the aggregate of what's happened in this case with all lawyers.
Every lawyer has come in and told me they're not that person.
They are transparent.
They're going to get on it.
And every single time they're replaced, the new one comes in and says the same thing.
Who did you talk to that had a different professional opinion than you on the production of that document?
so that I know who to name in my motion.
Bradley Reigs.
I need to make a phone call.
My other, and I need to clear one thing up before I go into this line of questioning.
A document was produced to me by Mr. Wittenberg when y'all came to my office.
And I wanted to, it was not clear which case he was giving that to me for.
The profit and loss and balance sheet?
So they were provided to you?
Okay.
A completely different one with completely different numbers was provided to me.
And it's stamped attorney's eyes only.
And I don't know if it was in regards to This case, the Sandy Hook cases, or both.
And I don't want to violate a protective order by bringing it out here right now, so I'm asking on the record if you'll consent to us using that as an exhibit when we question the witness.
Yes.
Okay.
I will represent to you, though, Mr. Ogden, just so that there is no confusion, the profit and loss...
Oh, wait a minute.
May I see that a minute?
I want to make sure that's the most recent one.
That's what Mr. Wittenberg gave us.
Oh.
Okay.
Okay, so wait, wait, wait.
Before you...
Okay, you haven't marked this one.
This is not any type of balance sheet, profit and loss statement.
This was merely prepared for the purposes of settlement negotiations.
You'd agree with me, though, that it has information in it that is completely relevant to the net worth of the company.
Yes.
But it's not current.
Didn't ask if it was current.
I asked if it had information relevant to the net worth of the company.
Yes.
Okay.
At one point.
Okay.
With that said, is it still okay if we talk about it with this witness?
No, because it's not a financial statement per se.
I don't know whether, so no.
Do you know what the order does not say financial statement?
Neither does my net worth discovery request.
Yes, it does say financial statement.
I'm going to propose a potential solution, which is we use this.
There is no protective order in this case, so I guess that is an issue.
Well, we can take care of that on the record.
I know, I just realized that.
I mean, I knew it.
How would you like to take care of this?
How would you like to take care of this?
I'm not going to agree to it.
This was work product in preparation of settlement negotiations only.
And it was provided to you only for that reason.
That's fine.
But the rule 408 that was cited prior to us engaging in that discussion in my office goes directly to admissibility, not the use of it in discovery.
And it's not work product because you gave it to me.
So let's do this.
Thank you.
And I will tell you, she has not seen this.
It's fine.
I know she's talked to the person that put it together.
So...
I will agree that you can use this at the deposition provided that we agree that this document will not be produced or will not be circulated, will remain confidential unless and until one of us applies to the court to release it to dissemination.
We don't have a protective order in place, so if we use it, what am I, I mean, then what happens to all the testimony that we have about it?
Well, alright.
I don't even know what that is.
I know.
Kind of put me in a little pinch here.
No, I'm sorry, and I'm, both of us.
So, yes, go ahead.
Okay, so we can use this in the deposition.
Okay.
I'm going to hand the witness exhibit 15, which is Bates labeled FSS underscore NET underscore 204.
I'm also going to hand the witness exhibit 16.
which is marked confidential attorney's eyes only.
It's not Bates labeled.
And was provided to counsel by Ms. Blott and a Mr. Dustin Wittenberg.
Is that his name?
Dustin or Justin?
Dustin Wittenberg.
Was provided to counsel by Dustin Wittenberg at Plaintiff's Counsel's office two weeks ago in a meeting where myself, Mr. Bankston, Mr. Wittenberg, and Ms. Blott met.
I'm also going to hand over Exhibit 17, which is also marked attorney's eyes only, but it's actually a public record.
It's just the UCC filing that we discussed.
That'll be Exhibit 17. We'll just hold those.
We're going to work on that one first.
Okay.
Now that you have Exhibit 15, I believe is the one you pulled out of your purse, correct?
No, 14. 14. Okay, 14. All right.
And same question.
What is the net worth of free speech systems?
This is the profit loss statement.
So this document does not reflect a profit loss number.
The net worth of free speech systems is negative $53 million and change.
How do you know?
This is based on my conversations and my review of the documents.
So I did, as I previously represented, I spoke to Mr. Rowe.
I also, like I said earlier, I have seen this answer regarding the net worth.
And I do know that these numbers are updated because these were revised for 2020.
So the numbers that we see in Exhibit 13 are off by about $160,000 but are otherwise accurate.
Okay.
It does not sound like Free Speech Systems operates a very good business, does it?
Thank you.
I think I testified to that earlier that I did not think that Mr. Jones was a good businessman.
Considering he ran a company that was highly profitable into a negative $53 million debt.
That's your understanding?
That is my understanding, yes.
Okay.
Who is that debt owed to?
A vast majority of that debt is approximately $53 million or $54 million or so debt to PQPR on the basis of costs of products that were not paid to PQPR. Okay.
How long has that debt been accrued? - Thank you.
I think that that debt was accruing up to a few months ago, and I don't know when it started, unfortunately.
I could tell you the reasons why it was accruing, but I don't know when it was started to be accruing.
Okay.
Let me see those real quick.
This one?
Yeah.
The stack of $53 million.
Yeah, awesome.
Okay.
How did we get to $53 million note?
So...
Sure.
So PQPR is the company that purchases the products that are ultimately sold on the Infowars website.
And for a number of years, and I'm sorry, I don't know for how long, All of the money was flowing to free speech systems instead of being paid to PQPR. They were kind of just giving them money here and there, but with no regularity.
And so the amount of money that was owed to PQPR for those products totals that amount of money.
Okay.
Who at PQPR was able to front $53 million?
I don't know.
I can't answer anything for PQPR. I don't represent them as a corporate representative.
Sure.
I don't know.
Where did you learn about PQPR? When I was discussing the structure of the company from Melinda and how the money is paid from free speech to PQPR and who has ownership interests in PQPR and free speech, that's how I found it out through some of my conversations.
How is money paid?
Now how is it paid to PQPR? I can say now how it is.
Previously, I don't know.
So within the last few months, there's this debt, and Free Speech has been attempting to pay this debt down.
It pays PQPR $11,000 Per week, I believe it's five business days, so it's not seven business days, it's five business days, plus a percentage of the products that are sold on the site in attempt to address the backlog.
But prior to the last few months, it wasn't being paid with any regularity.
So $44,000 every 20 days.
Right, so five days, so yes.
So per five business days, $11,000.
the plus the percentage the when you say it started a few months ago when uh I believe that based on my conversations with Mr. Rowe, the financial disentanglement between the two companies happened within the last few months, perhaps back to September.
But it's relatively recent.
Do you know what triggered that?
I know that Mr. Jones had begun some...
Some estate management that was in motion in the years prior.
And I also know that PQPR and an attorney associated with PQPR retained Mr. Rowe as a consultant to try to disentangle this.
I can't say as to when he was retained to do that.
He wasn't retained by free speech.
He was retained by, I believe, an attorney.
I can't remember his name on behalf of PQPR. His name is Eric Taub.
I don't think that's the person that retained him, no.
The only reason I say that is because Mr. Wittenberg is the attorney you're talking about that was retained, correct?
No, that's not accurate.
Well, who's the attorney that was retained?
Like I said, I don't remember his name.
So you don't remember the name of the person that represents PQPR? You don't remember the attorney that was retained by that person at PQPR? I'm not the corporate representative for PQPR, so I don't know.
Just trying to figure out what you know.
Yep.
So a lawyer at PQPR hired a lawyer...
No, the lawyer hired Mr. Rowe.
Ah, I gotcha.
Right, as a consultant.
Okay.
If you look at, let's look at exhibit 15. let's look at exhibit 15.
Okay.
Do you see the redactions?
Yes.
Why are those redacted?
I don't know.
Have you seen copies without the redactions?
I've only seen the exhibit 14. Someone showed you the profit-loss breakdown, but nobody in preparing you to talk about net worth showed you the actual balance sheet?
Wait, I'm sorry.
Sorry, just give me one second.
I don't know what the redactions are.
I may have seen this.
It may have been in the binder that I brought yesterday, but I don't know what the redactions are.
Okay.
You said that you had an electronic copy of the binder.
No, I have an electronic copy of my notes from the binder.
So I don't have an electronic copy of this.
It's my understanding that Ms. Blott printed out all the documents in your binder yesterday, I believe she put the binder together for me, yes, because I didn't have a printer.
Okay.
Did you send her everything that needed to go in the binder and then she printed it for you?
No, I sent her my notes to go into the binder.
Everything else that's in there was put in by Ms. Blott?
I believe so.
Okay.
How did Ms. Blott get a copy of the profit-loss breakdown that is Exhibit 14?
I don't know where this came from.
That's 15. 15, right.
So 14?
You're asking for 14?
Oh, I believe I testified to this.
We received this from Melinda.
Melinda printed this off of QuickBooks.
Okay.
And that was on Friday?
Yes.
And that was put into your binder?
Yes, this is in my binder.
I remember this being in my binder.
And then the balance sheet, Exhibit 15, it's your testimony that that is also in your binder?
I think it is in the binder.
Okay.
Because I remember that Attorney Blatt told me it was in the binder.
But I didn't physically print it, though, so.
So Free Speech Systems has a $54,876,000 note that it owes, or excuse me, has a note that it is secured against.
Sorry, back up.
QPR has a $54,876,000,000 note that Free Speech Systems is responsible for paying.
Yes, just with the caveat that that number I don't think is accurate anymore, just because, like I said, we've been paying down the debt.
It's probably a little over $53 million, but principally, yes, that's correct.
Okay.
Where were you getting the exact number from?
So, the numbers that are in the answer regarding net worth in Exhibit 13, These numbers are accurate with the caveat that it's off by about $160,000, which is what the updated information was that was provided to us this week.
The reason why there's a discography of the $160,000 was there's some Write-offs regarding the equipment that needed to be corrected.
Who did that correction?
I don't know.
It probably would have been the tax attorney, but I'm not sure, so I don't want to say.
Okay.
So, these numbers are from 2020, correct?
The ones that you're referring to?
Exhibit 15 and Exhibit 14 are numbers from 2020, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
and exhibit Was it 13, the interrogatory?
Yes.
Exhibit 13, that was produced in December of 2021. Yes.
Okay.
And it's now your...
It's your testimony that the number that was given...
I don't know.
60 days ago, 75 days ago, is not accurate.
And instead we go look at the balance sheet and profit loss sheet that have adjustments made by someone of $160,000 and that's the accurate number for the net worth of the company at the end of 2020?
Yes.
Okay.
Why were adjustments being made in the last 75 days to a balance sheet from almost two years ago?
I don't know.
I'm not an accountant.
I don't know why.
I don't know.
Okay.
I think there was an error that was found regarding the...
I'm sorry, I'm not really a tax attorney.
Why do you think that?
Just based on my conversations with Mr. Rowe regarding the accuracy of these numbers.
And the reason why this was updated.
Again, we establish that you are unaware of any findings in Connecticut on Mr. Rowe's accounting practices.
Correct?
I'm aware that there was an issue in Connecticut, but I wouldn't say I'm aware of issues regarding his practices.
Okay.
Do you know whether or not he was found to have manipulated the numbers?
I didn't read that decision, so I'm not aware of the finding.
What's your understanding of what happened?
My understanding of what happened was there was a document that was produced and there were lines at the bottom that were missing or cut off and that subsequently the accurate numbers with the lines that were missing were produced.
Well, that doesn't sound like anything nefarious, true.
Not to me.
Do you know what the basis for the Connecticut Court's granting of the default judgment?
Do you know why they did that?
No, I don't.
Would it surprise you to know that Mr. Rowe's accounting practices had a little bit to do with that?
Like I said, I didn't review it, so I don't know.
Okay.
Do you find Mr. Rowe to be reliable?
I found him to be forthcoming in answering all of my questions and providing me the information that I requested and explaining this to me so that I could testify cogently about it.
What were your questions to him?
I asked him to explain to me these numbers.
I asked him to explain to me why the numbers were slightly different.
I asked him to explain to me how free speech has been addressing the debt.
I asked him to explain to me the And also the tax, the Schedule C, asked him to explain that to me too.
And I think that that's it.
I think I spoke to him for an hour or two.
It wasn't a very long conversation.
What Schedule C? The taxes.
I think I said I reviewed the taxes earlier.
Do we have any taxes?
No.
Okay.
So free speech is reported in Mr. Jones's taxes.
So he showed me the Schedule C. So when I testified earlier, I reviewed the taxes.
That's what I reviewed because those are where free speech's income is reported.
Okay.
Where is the copy of this?
I'm sorry, I don't have a copy of those.
You didn't ask for a copy of the document that's filed with the federal agency that reflects Free Speech Systems income?
I don't have a copy of the Schedule C, no.
Okay.
What's in it?
I can't testify as to the numbers that are in there.
Why?
Because I don't recall.
I can't give you an exact number and I don't want to tell you a wrong number.
Why didn't you ask for a copy of that?
I saw it.
I honestly assume that you had it.
Okay.
But if you knew you had to testify about this and there was a filed document that reflected income for free speech systems, why didn't you get a copy and bring it with you?
Like I said, I assumed you had it.
Do you have an electronic copy?
No, I don't have an electronic copy.
Okay, so Mr. Rowe gave you a hard copy and then...
No, he didn't give me a hard copy.
He showed me a copy.
He did not give me a copy.
I don't have a copy of the Schedule C. And you just purposefully didn't ask him for a copy?
I mean, you went to accounting and asked her to pull a profit-loss breakdown.
Well, I did that because I know this is different.
This is updated information that was updated just this past week.
So that's why I did that.
Why were the profit losses from 2020 updated in February of 2022?
As I testified earlier, there was an issue with the deductions associated with some of the equipment, and that had to be adjusted.
And you learned that, and Mr. Rowe was the one that made that adjustment and informed you, correct?
I don't know whether he made the adjustment, but he informed me of why the numbers were different.
Did you ask why so late?
I didn't ask why so late.
Do you think, sitting here today under oath, that the numbers that are putting forth in these balance sheets, the profit, loss, and everything in the document that's Exhibit 17, do you believe those are accurate?
Yes, with the exception of the $160,000 that I testified to, these numbers are accurate.
Is it normal, based on any experience you may have, for a company to accrue a $53 million debt over an unknown amount of years, paying zero back on it, and then in the middle of litigation, post losing a default judgment, All of a sudden that debt's secured up and a payment system's been made in the last four months?
Does that sound normal?
Well, first of all, I don't have any experience with that, so I don't think I'm qualified to answer that question.
But I also don't know when that note was written, so I'm not qualified to answer that question.
Does Mr. Rowe work at InfoWarn?
No, he's not an employee of InfoWars.
Okay.
Where's he an employee of?
He's a consultant.
He's an independent consultant.
He's a consultant or he's a tax attorney or he's a CPA? What is he?
I don't know.
You'd have to ask him.
He's not an employee.
Well, you were tasked with learning the net worth of a company.
Yes.
And some random person came in and started telling you stuff and you didn't vet what his credentials were?
No, I wasn't responsible for retaining him, so he was retained by the company.
I didn't vet him myself, if that's the question, but he had already been hired.
So Free Speech Systems retained Mr. Rowe?
Yes, as a consultant.
A consultant for what?
These cases?
Just to make clear, he originally was retained by PQPR. How do you know?
Just based on my conversations with him, he worked for PQPR. And then at some point in time, that ended.
And then he was subsequently retained as a consultant by free speech.
But originally, he was retained by PQPR. That's the discussion we had earlier about the lawyer for PQPR who had retained Mr. Rao.
Okay, so you've got a company that has a dormant debt of over $50 million.
You've got some sort of, I don't even know if you can call it a financial consultant, tax consultant.
What kind of consultant?
I don't know how to describe it.
He's just a consultant.
So somebody can just walk into you as a corporate representative preparing for a deposition and say, hey, I'm a consultant, and you just believe in every word they say?
No, he was already retained by the company.
Prior to me coming there, Mr. Jones indicated to me this was the person that was going to help me understand the financial documents.
And so did I trust Mr. Jones' representation as to Mr. Jones?
Mr. Rowe, then yes, that's accurate.
But no, a random person didn't just walk in.
So Mr. Jones vouched for Mr. Rowe.
That's your testimony?
He indicated to me this was the person that would help me understand the documents.
Okay.
Do you understand these documents?
I am not an accountant and I am not good with numbers, so I'm doing my best here.
If Mr. Rowe is a consultant, wouldn't he be a person that should have been designated for this topic?
Um, I don't...
I think that I can answer your questions adequately.
Well, you just said you're not an accountant.
You're not a financial person.
I'm not.
Okay.
And you don't know what my questions are going to be?
No, I don't.
Yet, your testimony to the jury under oath is that you can answer them.
I think I understand enough about it to be able to answer the questions.
Instead of wasting time talking with Mr. Rowe about this topic, Don't you think it would have been more efficient to let you have less topics and less preparation and focus on the other stuff and then let Mr. Rowe discuss all the things that he's been doing?
Unfortunately, that is above my pay grade.
I don't make such decisions.
Would Mr. Rowe be more qualified to talk on this subject than you?
I don't know because I don't know the questions you're going to ask me.
Well, let's say this.
In preparing for today, Mr. Rowe gave you the information you needed, correct?
Not all of it.
So the profit loss statement, as I said earlier, I received this from Melinda.
And this was in amongst the materials that I had access to, although Mr. Rowe went through with me.
Who owns PQPR? PQPR is owned 20% by Dr. and Mrs. Jones and 80% by PLJRALC. David Jones, what was his wife's name?
20% by David Jones and who?
And his wife.
I'm sorry, her name is escaping me right now.
And Mrs. Jones.
Carol, I think, right?
Oh yes, that sounds right.
Carol Jones.
Okay.
And then PLJR? PLJR owns 80% of PQPR. Okay.
And who owns PLJR? PLJR is owned 10% by Carol Jones, so Mrs. Jones, Alex's mother.
And 90% by the AEJ Trust 2018. Okay.
When did the trust begin?
So I think the trust was finalized in 2018. That's why it says AEJ Trust.
But as I said earlier, Mr. Jones had actively been engaged in estate planning prior to that.
But I think it was officially formed in that year.
Okay.
So...
Yeah, I've got a JLJR as well.
You know what?
I'm not sure about that one.
I know PLJR is the one that owns PQPR.
Okay.
So Free Speech Systems gets into litigation early 2018, and the trust is executed that same year through and the trust is executed that same year through PLJRALC. LLC.
correct?
ALC or LLC? LLC, excuse me.
Yeah, LLC. So like I said, I think that the trust was executed in that year, but the estate planning for the trust had begun prior to that.
That's fine.
My question was just PLJR. And who is the trustee for this trust?
Trustee.
You know, I'm not sure who the trustee is.
I know who the beneficiaries are.
Who are the beneficiaries?
So the beneficiaries are of the corpus of the trust, are his children.
So they're in the trust are, you know, whatever money is in there.
And Alex is a remainder man.
And then the income going into the trust is paid to Alex.
Okay, so Mr. Jones's income comes from the profits of the trust.
But ultimately, I didn't ask a question, Ms. Paz.
Can I ask when we're referring to Mr. Jones, we articulate which Mr. Jones we are referring to?
Oh, you mean whether it's Dr. Jones or Alex Jones?
Okay.
So there's no confusion in the record.
The income goes to the remainderman, Mr. Alex Jones, correct?
The income is paid to Mr. Jones, but with the caveat, which is what I was trying to say before, that there is another entity, AEJ Holdings, that owns Alex's interest in PQPR. So total Alex's interest is like 72%.
Say that again, AL. A-E-J Holdings, LLC. Do you know Alex Jones' middle name?
I don't.
I'm so sorry.
Bet it starts with an E though, huh?
So that ownership interest in PEQPR, he owns about a...
If you divide it amongst his parents and their percentages, he owns a 72% interest.
So he sold his interest in that...
To AEJ Holdings and there's a $25.9 million note on that.
Okay.
Where's that come from?
What do you mean where does it come from?
Where's the $29 million note come from?
Or I guess 29.9.
Where's the $30 million node come from?
So I thought I had seen the node.
It represents the value of Mr. Jones's interest in PQPR, such as it were, because it's about 72%.
And then the money that is paid principal and interest Off of that note is paid to Alex Jones.
And I don't need you to, you know, kind of be shooting from the hip guessing on the numbers.
If you need to refer back to your notes, that's fine.
No, I believe that that's accurate.
It's 25.9.
Okay.
Did you take notes when you met with Mr. Rowe?
I don't believe so, aside from looking at the documents.
Okay, so Mr. Rowe just broke down 20% to David Jones.
80% to PLJR LLC, who PLJR is 10% Carol, 90% AEJ Trust, which has Mr. Jones' children as beneficiaries, Mr. Jones as a remainderman, and the income due to the remainderman goes to AEJ Holdings, which is 72% of the interest, which was roughly $29.9 million.
That's correct?
72% of his interest, which represents his interest in PQPR, not of the interest, but his interest in that company.
Okay, and you just can do all of that.
You learned all of that from Mr. Rowe with no financial background without taking any notes.
That's just what I want to make clear for the record.
I have a decent memory.
Okay.
I noticed you pulled your yellow pad out.
I have some notes.
Let's mark that as Exhibit 18. I don't think I took any notes.
I don't know if there's any other information in there about my other clients.
Okay, well, it's been pulled out, and you said that you got notes in it, so by the rules of taxes procedure, I can mark it as an exhibit, and it's going to be admitted into the depositions record, and you'll get a copy back after she gives some copies to scan in.
I haven't reviewed the notebook, I'm just saying.
I haven't reviewed it.
Can I see that?
Sure.
Thank you.
These are the notes that were transcribed and provided to you.
They were?
I... Because I don't remember these notes on here.
This note's with a conversation with Bob.
It's right in there.
I got $70 million sales.
Looks like...
What is that under there?
260D? What is that?
Divided by 260 days.
Okay.
Those are business days.
And then also in Exhibit 18, you've got this no way to determine...
Which...
Which?
I'm sorry, I can't read my own handwriting.
Blank generated checks.
No, I don't...
Wait, generated?
Generated, that is generated, yes.
What was that one?
I'm not sure.
Okay, so...
But I think...
And then it says here, no spoliation letter.
Then it talks about deplatforming.
What do you mean, no spoliation letter?
No.
I asked when or if he knew or if anybody at the company knew whether we had received a spoliation letter for the Sandy Hook litigation.
Okay.
It says chain of title in parentheses.
Tell me about the chain of title you and Bob talked about.
That's what I just went over regarding free speech and the ownership and who owns what and what percentages.
But ultimately, I did talk to Melinda about that, too.
Are these two words right here?
What does that say?
Bill Love files tax returns.
Okay.
Who's Bill Love?
I believe he's the company's tax attorney.
Okay.
Just let me interrupt a minute.
Are there any notes in there about conversations you and I had?
There might be.
That's why I'm saying I haven't reviewed it.
That's why I'm saying I think that I should review it first.
Ms. Blott, the witness pulled this out to rely on it in answering my questions.
I did not look at that to answer your question, sir.
Okay.
Well, we can go back to the video if you'd like, and I watched you start doing this.
I didn't look at anything in there.
Ms. Blott and I can handle this.
Ms. Blott, how would you like to proceed?
I would like to look at it such that to the extent And only to the extent that she took any notes regarding conversations she had with me, they'd be redacted.
The entirety of anything else that she has in there, fair game.
Well, just to put this on the record as Mr. Bankston, we'd have to bring a motion on that because if a witness was using this notepad to refresh her memories, then regardless if it contained information, we're retired to see it.
So we'd have to bring a motion on that.
And so that's what we'd want to know is if you want to take this from us right now...
Yes, I do.
And because, just to clarify, She transcribed those notes and they were provided to you and are in...
It kind of sounds like you're testifying about what that is.
That sounds weird to me.
Well, I don't give a shit.
Anyway, she transcribed the notes.
They were in her binder.
Ms. Blott, let's slow down.
Let's slow down, Ms. Blott.
You took her binder and she pulled out the notebook because she does not have her transcribed notes.
Okay, Ms. Blott.
Let me just back up.
One, I am one who admires, you know, zealous advocacy of a client.
But let's watch our language on the record, just out of respect for the court.
Okay?
Second.
If not for me.
Second of all, if these were transcribed, then there should be no problem with me reading them.
No, but...
And your witness is the one who made the decision to bring them and then take them out.
I disagree.
I'm going to...
Disagree with what?
Her bringing it or taking it out?
I disagree with the position that you're taking.
When she transcribed those notes, she would have omitted conversations with me.
Okay.
Because she does not have her transcribed notes.
If you would like to go through, and I'm not going to read, I just want to see how deep into it.
Okay, so it's pretty deep.
If you would like to go into this and redact, or I guess just what are you going to do, pull them out?
No, to the extent that they're in the middle of the page with something else, I'm going to redact it.
I'd like to have photocopies made of that before you do that.
Of what?
That you need to make sure that there's secure photocopies of what is under...
Yeah, before you just redact...
How are you going to redact this?
How are you going to redact this?
Like, the actual process of covering the information, how are you going to do it?
Okay, here's what I suggest.
I will scan them in so that the original is preserved.
And then I will use a Copy and save the documents and redact any information as it relates to conversations with me.
Okay.
How are we going to do that and allow me to ask questions about the notes here right now?
Well, he's the one that just said he wants to preserve it in his original form.
I agree.
So what do you propose?
I agree.
We can go off the record, run them through a copy machine.
I can take the originals.
If we want to do that, I think we can have Sonia do a quick photocopy.
And I'll let you...
Go through it.
I'm trying to hurry.
It's 2...
I understand.
...18, and I'm trying to get this pause out of here by 4 o'clock, so...
Hang on one second.
Yeah, you know what might work best is if you were to, and I see you are reviewing now, if you review and determine if you even need to review.
If you do, then I will make sure that this office scans it for you and you're able to have a copy.
This entire page needs to be redacted.
Well, yeah.
Okay, well why don't you just make arrangements with the office staff here to have that scan so you can have an electronic copy and then you can make whatever redactions you believe you need to make and we can bring our motion.
We can go off the record.
I see.
I just realized you were pounding away on that thing.
We are off the record at 219. We are back on the record at 228. We're back from a small break where Ms. Blott and Ms. Paz were able to go through the notes that Ms. Paz took out mid-deposition and it's plaintiff's position that those
notes in their entirety should be able to be marked as an exhibit and added as an exhibit to this deposition However, I believe Ms. Blott has taken issue with that position.
I'm not sure what the basis is, but I will say one more point before I hand it over to Ms. Blott, that a witness pulling out notes, conversations with an attorney or not, are not privileged and would be akin to An attorney sitting there whispering into the witness's ear, which would also be completely allowed to be produced and should be produced to us.
Do you have a quote for me?
Yeah, if I can just read it.
To the record really quick.
And I'd just like to make a citation to the Kearns case.
And that's just something I've pulled off the top here.
But in Kearns, the court agreed...
That if materials that were otherwise claimed as attorney-client privilege could be protected, but when the witness relies on such documents to provide deposition testimony, it presented, quote, a conflict between the liberal interpretation required under our own rules of discovery and the liberal construction in favor of the exercise of the attorney-client privilege.
Therefore, the court had decided that any privileges were waived once the witness relied on that document to provide testimony.
The court said it would be unconscionable to prevent the adverse party from seeing and obtaining copies of them.
We have now been told that we will be prevented from seeing and obtaining copies of them.
We object and we will move to compel.
Thank you, Mark.
Ms. Blott, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much.
The legal pad that Ms. Paws pulled out is the handwritten notes of the transcribed notes that she provided to Council yesterday.
When she transcribed those notes, she did not obviously include the confidential communications with the Council for Free Speech Systems, Inc.
And because she did not have her transcribed notes with her today, She pulled out the legal pad and did not have those notes through no fault of her own.
She pulled out the legal pad and has not And we will have to check the videotape.
I don't think that she has referred to it.
However, that being said, I have offered to take those portions of the tablet that are subject to the attorney-client privilege and redact them.
And my understanding is that your position is that that attorney-client privilege has been waived.
My position is yes, it's been waived.
Okay.
For the sake of efficiency, How many pages do you need to redact?
Two.
Okay.
If you'd like to pull that yellow piece of paper off and stick it over the page that those are in, we can go through them with this witness.
We don't all have to come back.
It's expense for everybody.
And then we can have that given to the court reporter so that she can preserve the original and we can brief whether or not we're entitled to the two redacted pages.
And just to be clear, the two pages you're referring to are attorney work product or are they attorney-client privilege?
Attorney-client privilege.
Okay.
And the bigger question is, privilege or not?
What is it?
Are they like bad for you guys or what?
No, not at all.
Okay.
I get caught up too.
Sometimes I argue just to argue.
I was just curious.
Do you want me to pull these out and photocopy them and give the originals to her?
Is that what you suggested?
No, wouldn't we be fine?
I just said, we can have the court reporter withhold the exhibit, the unredacted version, and she'll have a copy of it, and then you can get that from her, send it to the court, and then we can have our motion.
Well, just to be perfectly clear, I don't have a problem with you having copies of her notes, except to the extent of the pages that contain The good part about it is, when I go through that, other than those two pages you're talking about, I bet they're verbatim.
I hope that they are.
Do you mean my notes?
Mm-hmm.
Print, yeah.
The top part of the page.
Okay.
So I thought I just wanted to make sure.
Oh, okay.
This makes me wish my handwriting was better.
What?
Wait, we're still on the record.
Everybody's going to think you're a surgeon.
Thank you.
No problem.
While I'm skimming through this, actually Mark, you want to take a gander?
Yeah.
Exhibit 16?
Maybe 17. 17. Okay.
Okay.
Have you ever seen that before?
I don't remember.
Okay.
Do you know what a UCC-1 is?
Kind of.
Like I said, I'm not an accountant, so kind of.
Okay.
You understand that this goes directly to free speech systems assets and or liabilities, correct?
Yes.
What's your understanding of what a UCC1 does?
Honestly, I don't think I could tell you with any specificity.
It's fine.
You said that you had a general understanding of what it was.
I just want to know what you believe it is.
I think it's a financing statement for the company.
What do you mean by financing statement?
I think that it's a statement on the company's finances to the government.
Okay.
What about the company's finances?
I don't know.
Like I said, I don't recall.
I don't know whether I've seen this.
Okay.
So that's fine.
I don't know if I've spoken to anybody about it.
Based on those two answers, I'm going to go ahead and assume.
You don't really know what this document is, correct?
Right.
Okay.
Because you said it's a financing statement, which just says UCC financing statement at the top.
Basically.
You're just kind of reading it.
So, when it comes to liabilities of the company, are any of them secured?
Secured by, what do you mean by, secured by a note?
Do you know what a secured debt is?
I'm sorry, I don't know how to answer that and I'm not sure what the answer is.
When coming to evaluate the company's net worth, you had to look at liabilities and you had to look at assets, right?
Right, yes.
Okay.
Do you know what the difference is on a secured liability versus an unsecured liability?
I don't know the difference.
Okay.
So as you sit here today, you are in no position to testify as to whether or not any of the company's net worth is in a secured debtor's hands or if any of it has been secured whatsoever.
True?
I don't know.
That's right.
Okay.
Do you...
You remember you talked to Bob?
Yeah, I spoke to Bob.
And that's Bob Rowe?
Yes.
Okay.
And Mr. Rowe, he gave you kind of a presentation, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Do you know what company he works for?
Acuity.
Okay.
You see the name on this file at the top left corner?
Yes.
Okay.
Do you know if Acuity...
Do you know when...
Bob Rowe became a consultant for Free Speech Systems and stopped his relationship with PQPR Holdings Limited.
I don't know the exact date.
When I asked Bob about it, he said it was a couple of years ago.
Okay.
But I don't know the exact date.
Because right here we've got a UCC1 statement that was filed on November 18, 2020, correct?
That's what it says.
By Bob Rose Company, correct?
I see that.
On behalf of Free Speech Systems as the debtor, correct?
That's correct.
And as the secured party in paragraph 3, it lists PQPR, correct?
That's right.
Would that be a conflict of interest?
I can't say.
Does it sound like a conflict of interest?
I don't know.
Have you ever seen a company secure a $53 million debt nine months after a lawsuit is filed on a debt that no one has any idea how old it is or why it's so big?
Well, I have an idea as to why it's so big, but I can't answer your primary question, which is, in my experience, have I ever seen that?
Because, as I said, I don't have that kind of experience.
I don't think I'm qualified to answer it.
Why is it so big?
As I testified earlier, there had been a significant period of time where the The product that was being purchased and sold by PQPR on Infowars' website was not being paid to PQPR. And so that money represents the amount that is due and owing to PQPR for those
sales.
Just for the benefit of the jury, you would agree that The spiderweb of trusts and secured beneficiaries for different subsidiaries or holding companies is just a way for free speech systems to protect its money from people that file lawsuits against them.
No, I don't agree.
Okay.
Why'd they set it up this way?
I don't know why it was set up this way.
Okay, but you definitely don't agree that it was set up to protect the assets of Mr. Jones?
I don't know why it was set up.
I don't think it was in relationship to this lawsuit.
As I testified earlier, the trust and that structure of the companies was in motion prior to the lawsuit.
And you got that from Robert Rowe.
Mr. Rowe, Mr. Jones, that's correct.
Okay, so the individual who worked for one company, switched over, worked for another, and secured debt to one another, with the sole proprietor being a 72% beneficiary, three parent holding companies down, You trusted him and you trusted Mr. Jones,
the sole proprietor of a company that is the subject of a number of defamation lawsuits involving parents who lost children in a school shooting who he, for years, then went on to say that it didn't happen or it did, but there was a government conspiracy and all of this other stuff.
Those are the two people you trusted, correct?
Those are the people with the information, so yes.
You think it's odd that they picked somebody for this topic that has zero financial background?
I can't answer that.
I don't know.
Were you surprised when they said, you're going to be talking about our finances and net worth?
I wasn't surprised.
I had seen the notice of deposition.
Were you surprised when people started having to make charts and breakdowns of the different subsidiaries?
Who owned them and how many percents?
No, not necessarily.
I'm aware that businesses own shares through LLCs, through other LLCs, so I don't think it's necessarily odd.
No, you're completely right.
But are all of the holding LLCs typically going to be a sole proprietor's parents or children or themselves?
Oh, like I said, I don't know.
I'm not qualified to answer that.
What's a Spithrift Trust?
I don't know if that's what this type of trust is, and honestly, I don't have a background in trusts and estates either, so I can't answer that.
So throughout this, no one even told you that the AEJ trust is a spin thrift?
Nobody even told you that?
I don't know what type of trust it is, no.
You didn't ask either, right?
I know what the trust does, but...
I didn't ask you that.
No, I didn't ask what type of trust it was.
Okay.
Why not?
Other than you didn't know to ask.
Well, I didn't know to ask, but I think that they tried to give me the information that I needed to testify on the topic.
You said that you think they tried to give you the information you needed, or could it also be that you accepted as true the answers that they wanted you to accept?
No, I think also the problem is that I'm a corporate rep for free speech.
I'm not a corporate rep for PQPR or PLJR, so I don't think that I need to necessarily have all the nitty-gritty information on other companies that are not free speech.
Okay.
Based on this balance sheet, how is Mr. Jones covering his bills every month?
Excuse me, how is free speech systems covering their bills every month?
So there is income that free speech makes off of the relationship with PQPR via the sales.
PQPR also pays money to free speech for advertising on the website.
That includes the banners and such.
And so essentially the way that the business makes money is those two primary ways.
Okay.
Let's look at the balance sheet that was provided.
It's exhibit 15, I believe.
Okay.
That one.
Yeah.
So the balance sheet is for all of 2020, correct?
You understand that?
That's what it says.
Okay.
And can you tell me where...
the income is that InfoWars makes from PQPR for advertising. - I don't know if this is not a specific line item.
I know that there are line items that would give this more specificity, but there's no way to tell from looking at this.
Do you know what the gap is?
What do you mean the gap?
Do you know what gap means in this context that you're testifying about?
I don't know what you mean by gap.
I'm going to represent to you.
It's not a store at the mall.
I didn't think it was.
General Accepted Accounting Principles.
Do you know any of them?
I'm not an accountant, so no.
On a balance sheet, you use the term line item.
What's a line item?
A line item is more specific information on these numbers.
Okay, so if there's not a specific line item, there would still be a broader category that would encompass that income.
Can you tell me which one?
And if you don't know, I understand.
I don't know if it's redacted here under assets, so it may be in this redacted, but like I said, I don't know because it's redacted.
Okay, but your best guess is that redacted line item would be your interest made from PQPR. I don't know.
Like I said, I don't see the specific line item here for that.
I have a question.
Sure.
PQPR is owed $53 million, according to you, right?
About, yes.
Why are they paying InfoWars for advertising when they could just...
I think that the answer that I got when I spoke to Mr. Rowe and Mr. Jones was the efforts that have been made to make sure the two companies are Are not so financially entangled.
So it's easier to have them pay out the marketing and then have us reimburse them than it is to just say, oh, just take it off what I owe you.
It makes for cleaner tracking.
Okay, so for the first time in the history of this case, we have something in the business from free speech that's cleaner tracking.
This is where they decided they wanted to be clean?
This only happened, like I said, within the last few months.
Okay.
Before that, what was happening?
As I testified earlier, there really was no set schedule to repay this debt or any set schedule to make payments to pay QPR for the cost of the products.
So there really wasn't anything clean about it.
Okay.
The...
At any point since 2018 to today, has Infowars transferred any assets without an exchange of goods or services?
I don't know what you mean.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
You know what goods and services are?
Yes, paying somebody in response to a good or service that you received.
Do you know what transfer means?
Transfer of money.
Do you know what assets are?
Assets could be money, it could be other items including money.
Has Free Speech Systems transferred any assets without an exchange of goods and services from the time this lawsuit was filed to now?
That's a really broad question, and I don't know how to answer it.
Well, it's a very broad question, so it should be easy to answer.
There could be a bunch, but if there's not very many at all, then it wouldn't be hard at all either.
Honestly, I didn't ask that question, so I don't know how to answer it.
So the broadness of the question doesn't matter.
You just don't know one way or the other, no matter how specific I get.
True?
True.
I don't know specifically what you're referring to, but I didn't ask that specific question.
Okay.
So I don't know the answer to it.
You reviewed the interrogatory, Exhibit 13. Okay, yes.
Okay, so you see B? I'm sorry, what page are you on?
Is this page 4?
Page 4, yeah.
Okay.
Part B listed in it.
It asks for all assets transferred in any manner.
Okay.
Okay.
So, with that said, were any of these transfers done without an exchange, a fair exchange of goods and services?
What transfers are you referring to?
Any at all.
They didn't itemize them and that's why you're sitting in the chair to answer that specific question.
What do you mean itemized transfer?
I don't see any transfers listed here.
They're not itemized.
And the reason I'm asking you for the itemized information is because you're tasked with telling us what this means.
I guess I don't understand the question and I'm sorry that might just be because I don't have a background in this but it says a list of all assets transferred and there is a list of what assets the company possesses but I don't see where you're referring to that there are transfers.
Can you point me to that?
No, I can't because this answer doesn't give them, which is why I'm asking you to give them to me now.
Well, the answer here as I read it, it doesn't seem to be responsive to me at all.
It doesn't say that there's any transfers.
You are completely right, which is why I'm asking.
I guess my question is you're assuming that there are transfers, but you're not sure, and that is your question to me as to whether there are transfers.
Are there any transfers?
I don't know.
Did you ask?
I did not ask.
You'd agree with me.
That's a pretty bad fact.
A bad fact as to what?
That you didn't ask.
I did not ask.
I can read these words.
I understand all of these words in this order.
You're sitting here to answer the questions that these answers don't provide, and you can't.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the same individuals that have everything to lose in this case gave you these numbers and answers and said, that's what it is.
Well, I didn't do any independent analysis of it.
I don't have a background in accounting, so I don't think I'm in a position to verify the accuracy of these numbers.
I asked for them, and I think that I did what I could in the time that was available to me, and testifying as best as I can on it.
So you'd say currently, as you sit there, you are disseminating information that is unverified.
Does that sound familiar with regard to the defendant you're sitting in that chair for?
I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.
Sure.
Free Speech Systems, they put out a bunch of information that's completely unverified.
Some of it just made up.
And you're sitting here today and everything that you're giving us, you didn't verify.
I didn't independently verify these now.
You didn't even ask why Robert Rowe, a consultant that does not work for the company, had full access to the company's books to the point where a year and, I don't know, four months after the year was over, was able to go in and change numbers.
You didn't ask why, did you?
No, I asked why, and I gave you my answer as to why.
I don't know if you don't understand why.
But as far as verifying, I mean, like I said, I didn't check these numbers myself, but I did see the tax return forms, the Schedule Cs.
These numbers are the same as the numbers that are on the Schedule Cs.
Let's stop there.
Ms. Blott, this witness now for the second time has given me information that in preparation for her testimony today relied on tax records that have not been produced.
What are we going to do about it?
It's like a revolving door at this point.
It is not a complete tax return.
I don't care what it is.
Whatever she had, I want.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Are you going to let me finish?
If it starts with that, go ahead.
Just file your motion.
I'm giving you a chance right here to try and tread water a little longer.
The Schedule C that she reviewed, not the complete tax return, is not a finalized Schedule C and has not been filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
But the witness relied on it for her testimony right now.
I don't understand where the miscommunication is on my end.
I don't know why she's testifying that she relied on it.
It has the same numbers as what she's looking at now.
How do you know?
Have you seen it?
Yeah.
Okay.
Why hasn't it been produced?
Why are we not producing it right now at this very second?
Yeah.
Do you want to continue with the deposition?
Wow.
I'm literally giving you, you know, A lifeline here to try and just fix it.
If you have it, hand it over.
We can cure it now.
But if your response is, file your motion, or would you like to continue, then I will.
Well, here is my explanation.
It's an explanation.
It's not an excuse.
Since the day I got on this case, I have been working around the clock to Verify that the documents you have been provided with are full and complete documents.
As an example, I realized when I saw the profit and loss in the balance sheet that it had not been produced because of differences in opinions on the definition of financial statement.
Brad Reeves says you're not telling the truth, by the way.
I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
I said, oh gee, surprise, surprise.
Oh, so, okay, so I just want to make sure we're clear on the record.
We're just going to go ahead and make the assertion that it's not surprising that Brad Reeves said something that you think is false, because I guess the implication is Brad Reeves is a liar or has a propensity for lying, and I certainly didn't find that from Brad Reeves.
Okay.
Let's just do this.
I think...
With where we're at now on this impasse, it doesn't seem like there's very much more we can do.
If I don't have the document, I'm not really hearing from you that you're going to give it to me.
I am going to give it to you.
Do I physically have it?
Have I had physical possession of it?
No.
How'd you see it?
On a screen.
It's just like the Bates labeling, or excuse me, the financial documents.
I received those on Friday.
I'm questioning Ms. Paz on net worth.
I understand that.
When were you going to give it to me?
After the depot?
So what do you want to do?
I don't know much more I can do.
I mean, this is, every time I turn the corner, I've got something new or something, I mean, Okay.
I think at this point we should suspend the depot so that we can brief this to the court because the court in the hearing was very clear that if there are any issues to bring them to her attention and she will act swiftly so that the trial date is not interrupted.
Okay.
Do you have a solution different to that?
No.
Okay, then we'll suspend the deposition.
Okay, we won't suspend.
Let's take a five-minute break.
You're not leaving with that notebook in your hand outside of my presence.
Can we go off the record?
Yes, we are off the record at 2.57.
We are back on the record at 3.04.
We took a break.
I think that at this point it is the safest decision for all parties to suspend any more testimony on net worth until we can get a complete set of documents and kind of have a Understanding of what direction this is even going to go in.
But I do have a couple of follow-ups.
One, two, three.
Okay, and this is exhibit...
I think it's already marked.
I know, but I was going to make it 18A and B so it's clean.
18A, 18B.
Should have been a court reporter.
I just have less gray in my hair.
Okay.
I have marked a couple pages out of your notes, and I want to ask you about it.
We'll start with page, what's marked as 18A, out of Exhibit 18. Do you see your notes there?
Yes.
Okay.
Where did these notes come from?
Which interviewer?
Who were you talking to?
Can I flip back?
This was a conversation I had with Mr. Jones.
Okay.
And it says here at the top, perfect place to post disinfo hyphen 4chan underlined.
You see that?
Yes.
What did he think that means?
Why did you write that?
So this was a conversation I had with Mr. Jones about using 4chan.
I'm sorry, that's my father.
So, this was a conversation I had with Mr. Jones about using 4chan for material from which to draw.
And Mr. Jones's, he, as you see after that, I talked a lot about Pizzagate and operatives on 4chan, and it's Mr. Jones's opinions that 4chan is...
That people purposefully sometimes post information on there for the purpose of misleading.
And he used Pizzagate as an example, but his position was he didn't realize that at the time.
But after Pizzagate, Mr. Jones realized 4chan was not reliable.
Well, not that it wasn't reliable, but that I think he thinks that people are...
people associated with certain entities are posting things on there to try to...
like a breadcrumb to get him to pick up on bait.
So I think that that was the sum and substance of that part of our conversation.
What entities?
The Democratic Party, people in the government...
Any other people that he thinks are trying to spread misinformation.
Okay.
And did Mr. Jones, after Pizzagate, come out and definitively tell his staff that 4chan is not a reliable source to be using?
Well, I think my note here says I told them not to do it.
So I think at some point he, you know, he did convey to them that if you're, I know you're looking at it, but if you're going to see something on there, make sure that there's other sources.
In this case, the other source was a Twitter post, correct?
I think that's what Mr. Daniels says in his answer, but yes, that he had seen it on social media.
That's correct.
And I'll ask him about it the day after tomorrow.
Sure.
But it is unquestionable, you know, there's not really any doubt in this case that what Kid Daniels did was just wrong, right?
It was inaccurate, that's correct.
I don't think there's any dispute that the photograph was not of the shooter.
I don't think there's a dispute.
And has anybody during your preparation told you what Mr. Fontaine's gone through?
Has he gone through?
I mean, I read through the materials as far as what was posted on the internet and in various comments on the internet.
And I said I read that letter from his therapist, so I have some idea of what he's been through, yes.
Do you know that Mr. Fontaine suffers from some mental health issues?
Pre this post, yes, I am aware of that.
And also post this post.
I don't know about that.
Like I said, I read in the document that there weren't a lot of issues post.
What do you know about his mental health pre this incident?
You want me to testify as to the diagnosis that I'm aware of?
Nope.
I want you to tell us what you know.
Based on that material that I read that I just referenced, his psychological, it's not a psych record, it would more adequately be characterized as a letter from his psychologist.
It summarizes his history pre-contact with Mr. Fontaine and it does diagnose him with Asperger's.
Okay.
Anything else that you know about Mr. Fontaine?
Apart from what's in that letter, no.
Do you know anything about Asperger's?
I don't have any personal knowledge of what Asperger's is, no.
Okay.
I'll tell you, it's on the spectrum of autism.
Okay.
And people that suffer from it are generally very, have a lot of social issues in their development and in their ongoing adult lives.
Did you know that?
Like I said, I don't have any personal knowledge about Asperger's and I'm not really qualified to say what it is or what the symptoms are.
Okay.
Well, you were tasked with the knowledge of Mr. Fontaine and when you saw what it was, you didn't do anything and take any steps to figure out what that meant, correct?
Well, I was tasked with what was in the company's knowledge of Mr. Fontaine, which was what was in that letter.
The definition of Asperger's is not contained in that material, so...
I'm just asking you as a person.
As a person, I did not do any independent research as to what Asperger's is.
Do you have any personal feelings about what happened in this case?
I don't have any personal feelings, no.
What about the Sanyo case?
I think I was asked that question yesterday.
Okay.
I don't have any personal feelings, no.
Is it your position as the company today to sit here and say that Marcel Fontaine did not suffer any injuries or damages as a result of being misidentified by Infowars as the Parkland shooter?
I don't know the extent to his damages.
I didn't say he didn't suffer damages.
I don't know the extent of his damages.
Okay, but we can agree that he did suffer damages.
I don't know.
Has anybody at InfoWars told you that people contacted Marcel privately through messaging and made threats?
I did not see any private communications in the material that I reviewed directly to Mr. Fontaine.
And I want you to understand that the reason I'm asking these questions is I think with this case specifically all of the documents and all of the sanctions and all of the moving parts that you had to deal with Bob Rowe and Dustin Wittenberg and Ms. Blott and Mr. Jones and Mr. Pattis and everyone else that you had to go through to get to this point.
I want you to know that there's a real person on the other side.
Okay.
I'll go to the next one.
One follow-up.
With the 4chan when Mr. Jones said, Not to do it?
You didn't ask him when he said that, right?
Just based on my notes and just what I remember of my notes, I'm not sure when.
He was referencing in relation to Pizzagate, but I'm not sure.
With...
With regard to what's marked as 18B, bottom right corner it says InfoWars LLC and then it says Jacobson circled.
Mm-hmm.
Why?
Those two things are not connected.
Why are they in the same box?
I was doodling.
Okay.
Why do you have arrows pointing towards it?
I was doodling.
Do you remember testifying yesterday?
I did testify yesterday.
Do you remember when you said you'd never heard of affiliated relations?
Yes.
You want to take a look a little bit higher than the first box that I pointed you to?
What's that same quotations in your notes?
That was when you referenced it to me on the record.
These are my notes from yesterday's deposition.
And so I made a note because you asked me the questions regarding that and I didn't know the answer.
Okay, so you wrote this yesterday during the depot?
Yes.
Those are my notes from yesterday.
Well, I wouldn't call them notes.
Most of them are doodles, but those are from yesterday.
Okay.
This is probably the same thing.
Do you remember which document Bradley Reeves never produced?
We're talking about an 18C. This is today's notes.
It's dated.
This is the note of your discussion with Attorney Blott about the financial document that wasn't produced and the discussion back and forth about whether it should have been produced or not.
Okay.
With how this depot's gone, how do you think you did it?
I think I did pretty good, depending, just not how, obviously I can't have all of the information about everything under the sun, but given the task, I think I did okay.
You had eight topics, right?
Yes.
You realize that you were not prepared to discuss five, three of them.
Okay.
Okay, so you still think that's a passing score?
Do you want me to give myself a rate from zero to 100?
If you want to.
I'm sorry?
I said if you would like to.
I'm asking what you would like for me and my answer.
I was just asking if you thought you, now that we are at this point in the depot having to suspend the last topic for a number of reasons, if you thought, if you still thought now, like you did at the beginning, which is that you were prepared.
I think I did a decent job given all the other circumstances involved.
And I think the depot is being suspended just because you don't have documents.
I don't think that really relates to my testimony.
Okay, then I'll clear that up just so there's no confusion.
Tell me the information that's in the Schedule C that you reviewed in preparing for your testimony.
Oh, I can't say to it as I sit here.
You don't have it memorized?
I do not have it memorized.
So you're not prepared to talk about it if you don't have the document in front of you?
I can't talk about it if it's not in front of me.
Okay, that's why we're going to go ahead and go off record.
We'll suspend there.
Okay, I have...
Off the record?
Oh, you want to go?
Oh, well, stay on.
Ms. Blott would like to make a record.
Ms. Paz, you testified that you did not read the court's order with respect to the motion to compel and for sanctions on the corporate court. you testified that you did not read the court's order I'll object to leading.
Yes, I did.
Did you see the order?
Same objection.
The order regarding the sanctions?
I don't know that I saw it.
I think we talked about it.
Objective, not responsive.
I don't remember seeing it.
Did you have conversations with anyone about the judge's expectations?
I did have conversations with counsel.
Was it your understanding that you were trying to determine the viewership based on the judge's ruling?
Yes.
Was it your understanding that the judge gave instructions on specific things that could be done to determine that?
Object to leading.
Yes.
What was your understanding of what was suggested by the judge to be done?
As I said, I didn't read the order, but based on my conversation with counsel, the judge had suggested that we try to determine the number of orders that were placed on the days that those broadcasts were aired.
And I believe that we did that.
Okay.
And did you speak with someone at Infowars about doing that?
The number of orders?
Yes, I spoke to somebody at the warehouse.
Well, I don't think she works for Infowars.
I think she might work for PQPR. With respect to the documents that you reviewed in preparation for your testimony in the Sandy Hook cases, were those documents separated between the two cases, meaning Sandy Hook and Fontaine?
There was a Fontaine folder with production in that specific case, but otherwise most of the documents were just Sandy Hook documents.
Were the documents in the Sandy Hook folder equally pertinent to Fontaine in some instances as it relates to the Notice of Deposition?
In some instances, yes.
We'll be here a while.
Did you have any conversations with employees regarding editorial conversations?
I asked employees.
Specifically, I spoke to Adan, to Mr. Jones, to Mr. Daniels, Regarding whether or not they had editorial discussions and that would include, I guess, personal discussions and I confirm that they didn't have any editorial discussions.
The only discussion That Mr. Salazar recalled, I think we talked about this yesterday, in connection with Mr. Jacobson.
That wasn't regarding the Fontaine case, though.
That was regarding the Sandy Hook case.
But other than that...
Do you know the distinction between how electronic data is printed in hard form versus web pages?
How it's printed versus how it appears on a web page?
Yes.
You mean, is there a difference between how it appears?
Yes.
I mean, I don't have any technical knowledge on that, no.
And you made references several times to posts.
Were there times that you were referring to actual posts on the internet versus posts that were produced as hard copies?
Because I was confused about that.
Objectively leading.
I don't understand the question.
Okay.
That's the witness.
All right.
I got quite a bit of follow-ups now that we did that.
First of all, you said that there was a Fontaine folder.
Oh, no, I'm still got it.
Fontaine folder, correct?
There was, on the Dropbox, there was a folder labeled Fontaine on it, yes.
Who labeled it?
I didn't label it.
I don't know who labeled it.
Who sent it to you?
It was on the Dropbox.
It wasn't sent to me.
Was the Dropbox protected?
What do you mean, is it protected?
Does it require a password or does it require an invite or is it public?
It required an invite, yes.
Who invited you?
It was our consultant at the time.
I don't think he's our consultant anymore.
What's his name?
Chris Latronica.
Chris Latronica.
Just laughing when I write that name because there's no way me or the court reporter are getting that one right now.
It's L-A-T-R-O-N-I-C-A.
Oh, I nailed it.
Oh, got that tied up.
Okay, and Mr. Latronica is a criminal defense attorney in Brooklyn, New York.
I believe so, yes.
Okay, so you're electronic consultant to criminal defense attorney in Brooklyn.
When was he brought on as your consultant?
I don't know.
I know he's been involved in the case longer than I have.
Okay.
So I don't know.
So as far as preservation and issues with document production and possibly altered or corrupted documents, he would be a person that we would want to talk to, correct?
I don't think that's accurate.
I think all he did was organize the folders.
I don't think he had any responsibility in production of any documents.
When did he organize the folders?
I don't know when he did it.
Before you came on?
Before and probably during.
They were actively being reorganized.
Oh, Carl.
The, what files were in the Fontaine folder that Chris Latronica put together for you?
Those would be whatever we had regarding what we produced, and as I indicated, there were also files in there that the plaintiffs produced that had your Bates numbers on it.
Did you ask if that was a complete set of all files produced by plaintiffs and defendants?
I don't know if it's a complete set.
The judge tasked you with reading every single document produced, right?
Yes, but I don't know.
Like I said earlier, there's been an issue with me seeing what's been produced in each and every case and whether I had the complete production.
So I don't know, as I sit here, if it was complete.
Okay.
You said that there was a number of documents that were pertinent during the Sandy Hook doc review that were pertinent to the Fontaine case.
Sure.
Okay, which ones?
So I think the financials documents, there were overlap.
I think that this issue of editorial discussions, there are overlap.
I think that the issue of sourcing of materials, there's overlap.
Why were the financial documents in Sandy Hook pertinent to Fontaine?
They're the same financial statements from the company, whether it's Fontaine or Sandy Hook.
Yeah, but you weren't tasked and did not testify on the financial issues with the company in the Sandy Hook deposition yesterday.
No, I wasn't asked questions about it.
So why did you spend time prepping?
I spent one amount of time prepping for the financials.
I didn't prep once for one deposition for the financials and a second time for a second deposition, if that's your question.
Financials weren't a topic yesterday, were they?
I wasn't asked about it, no.
Yet you still prepared?
I prepared on the financials.
Okay.
Well, it sounds like you prepared for the financials for Sandy Hook and for Fontaine.
I prepared to speak on the financials and I thought I would be asked them at yesterday's deposition.
What made you think that?
That was my impression, but apparently it was inaccurate.
Did you read the depo notices?
I did.
They weren't identical.
You understand that, right?
I understand they're not identical.
Nothing in the deposition topics you were tasked with being prepared for yesterday had anything to do with the financials, correct?
Okay.
Correct?
I don't remember, as I sit here today.
Okay, yet the last two weeks you've been going through financial docs for, you know, for the Sandy Hook case, it seems.
No, I think what I testified to was when I got here, I was talking to people about the financials.
I didn't have the financial materials prior to arriving here, so it hasn't been two weeks, no.
Well, you prepped for the financial stuff just for Fontaine.
True.
Sure.
Otherwise, you wasted a bunch of time doing it for the Sandy Hook depots because you weren't asked, you weren't tasked with it in the topics.
I mean, I'm completely lost.
Sir, there's no separate preparation that would have been required.
So the way you're phrasing your question is that I would have prepped it once for Sandy Hook and then I would have prepped it a second time for Fontaine.
No.
And that's not what I'm testifying to.
I'm saying that I've reviewed materials regarding financials For both, you know, just for the depositions, and I was under the impression you were going to ask them about it yesterday, but you didn't.
And so that was my error, but I didn't make two separate preparations for one case versus the other.
I don't think you understood my question, but I think you ended up getting the answer kind of right eventually.
Other than the financials, which I'm still not sure how they are pertinent in any way to the Sandy Hook topics that you were tasked with, what other documents were in the Sandy Hook folders and not in the Fontaine ones that you found pertinent to the Fontaine case?
I think I just said the issues regarding the sourcing and the...
I forgot what my answer was.
Sourcing and one other thing I said.
Okay, so the documents about sourcing, and the sourcing had a little bit of overlap maybe, but the Fontaine topics were very specific.
You would agree?
Sure.
The Sandy Hook ones were more broad.
Sure.
Other than that, what other topics did you find pertinent to Ms. Blott's question as far as stuff you looked at in the Sandy Hook folders also was pertinent to the Fontaine preparation?
I forgot what I said in addition to sourcing.
I did too, so we can just move on.
Sure.
You also said that there is no such thing as editorial discussions in response to Ms. Blatt's questioning.
You remember that?
Right.
I think this was a topic we spoke about yesterday as well.
Can you think of one editorial discussion that you came across in your preparation for today?
Well, I think, and I said this yesterday, my problem was with the term editorial discussion, just assuming that it happens on a regular basis.
But it sounds to me like, in connection with Fontaine, when I spoke to Mr. Salazar, there may have been some discussion about Mr. Fontaine about this particular case.
I don't know to the extent that was conveyed to Mr. Daniels.
But as I said, Mr. Salazar and the three individuals, they sit together generally and they pass around their articles.
So I suppose you could term that an editorial discussion, although I don't think it's formally an editorial discussion.
Well, an editorial discussion would be as if Mr. Daniels and Adan and a couple other writers got together about a post and after having the editorial discussion decided to take it down, right?
If that happened, because I'm not sure that that's what happened.
When I talked to Adan, he told me that he thought that he spoke to everybody, but I don't know that that was conveyed to Kit.
Did you ever -- I understand that you had some issues with the definition of editorial Is that fair?
That's fair.
Okay.
Did you relay that to Ms. Blott?
That I had an issue with it?
That you didn't know exactly what it was or what qualified or constituted an editorial discussion.
That's not what my problem is with the term.
What's your problem with the term?
The problem is I don't think that what is happening here could be termed an editorial discussion.
And I think I raised that issue yesterday.
What's an editorial discussion?
Not what you think.
What is an editorial discussion?
An editorial discussion would be a conversation amongst people about what should or shouldn't be published, whether or not the articles are grammatically correct, whether they are being...
The sources are written in there appropriately.
I think that's an editorial discussion.
How did you come to that understanding of that being an editorial discussion?
That's just based on my conversations.
It's not a definition anybody provided to me.
Okay.
If the judge...
It was very clear on what she expected the corporate representative deposition to be.
Sorry, let me back up here.
If Judge Garrett Gamble, on the record, clearly defined what an editorial discussion was to both myself, Mr. Bankston, and Ms. Blot, Would that definition, what she expected you to be prepared to do, would that be important to you in preparing for today?
Sure.
As I said, I didn't read the exact order, but I did have a conversation with Attorney Blot about it.
Okay, but you said that how much of your definition of editorial discussion came from Ms. Blot?
I am aware that the judge wanted me to also find out whether there were any hallway conversations.
I don't know if that was the exact term.
But as I said, when I asked these people those questions, there were no such discussions.
What did you ask them?
What did I ask or who?
What.
What questions were you asking these people?
I asked Adan and Kit and I believe I asked Daria as well whether they had any discussions and at any point in time with anybody about these cases and the answer was no with the caveat of what I've already testified to.