No, you can have a phone you can have a phone call.
- Yeah, that's pretty good.
You know what I want to do?
please *Squeak* Yes.
We are hearing the same rumor then?
Yes, from inside the park.
I don't know what the origin is.
I don't know what the origin is.
I don't know what the origin is.
Good kid. Good kid. Good kid.
Good kid.
Good kid.
where are you?
I just jumped in the other bar and you can't see it.
I just jumped in the other side.
I'm at 15 minutes, babe.
I had it when I put a Yankee, but no.
Come on.
Give me some salt.
Some love.
A little salt.
Come on.
I'm worthy.
I am worthy.
Yeah, I...
of course it really good.
Come on.
It's really good.
I was just focusing on you, Martin.
I was just focusing on you.
Mark, that's a Cuomo, Mark.
Don't worry.
The light's shifting right there so much.
I agree, Mark.
You're right?
Yeah, that's right.
Addison's assistant.
- Yes, walked it down. - Worked out. - Yeah, it's gotta be behind the scenes Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
- It's a lot.
This is a blue bottom.
Alex, Alex, is this about the money for you?
You guys want to do a press conference on the other question is I'd like to make a short statement though I'll be happy to answer your question The judiciary has been weaponized and is on trial here The judge has found me guilty despite the fact that I've been turned over all the discovery They didn't have a case that had to default It's now ordered me to not say I'm innocent And ordered me to say that I have not profited from Sandy Hook That's ordering me to purge myself I will not perjure myself under the orders of a judge.
This has never before been done in U.S. history.
It's a struggle session right out of Communist China or South Africa.
This is serious tyranny, regardless what you think about me or how the media has twisted what I've said over the years.
I've apologized for past things I've said that hurt people's feelings.
But I wasn't the first person to question Sandy Hook, and I apologized years ago.
They have misrepresented what I've said and done.
There's a whole industry of lawyers around these families that have sued Remington and won $73 million and won all these other lawsuits, and they simply now are not just coming for the Second Amendment, but the First Amendment.
This is a travesty of justice, and this judge is a tyrant.
This judge is ordering me to say that I'm guilty and to say that I'm a liar.
None of that's true.
I was not wrong about Sandy Hook on purpose.
I questioned it, just like Jesse Smolin, just like WMDs in Iraq, just like Gulf of Tonkin.
There have been a lot of staged events.
In history, like WMDs in Iraq, and I question every major event that we see.
And so, I'm being put in an impossible position inside of this courthouse where I'm being ordered to say I'm guilty.
Has anybody ever heard of someone being ordered to say they're guilty?
Even in a criminal trial where they found somebody with dead bodies.
If the guilty person wants to get up and say they're innocent, they're allowed to.
Okay?
But I'm being told, I'm going to say I'm guilty because they've already defaulted me and say I'm guilty.
This is the murder.
Of American justice.
This is extremely dangerous.
And this is the judicial system on trial.
They are using these families for this.
They've misrepresented what I've said and done.
And they have continued to use my name to fundraise for their gun control organizations.
Now they're openly launching an anti-free speech operation.
So, I want to thank you all for being here.
here do you have any questions that you were that you can you just tell us *Marky856*
*Marky856* *Marky856*
*Marky856* *Marky856* *Marky856* Well, stay real fly.
I just can't have you stopped right here.
either side of the stand.
I'll be back.
Wait a minute.
I like to.
Are you going to stay here?
I'll go.
I'll go.
Keep jerking me around and that's fine.
It's just that I'm here to testify, and I'm here to tell the truth.
And I told the truth.
I apologized on Joe Rogan four years ago, episode 1255, for 30 minutes before I was ever sued.
Hold on, let me add one more thing.
I don't want to be the Sandy Hook man.
It was a very small part of what I recovered and did.
And I followed a lot of the stuff being reported by 4chan that tried to be wrong.
I believe the children died.
I've said that over and over again.
In my last trial in Texas, when I apologized to the parents and said, I believe your children died, AP and others ran the headline for the first time ever, Alex Jones says it happened and apologized.
That's a lie.
I've been apologizing for six years.
Four years ago on Joe Rogan, three years ago on Steven Crowder, there's hundreds of apologies.
But now when I go on shows, they say, do you want to apologize?
I go, no.
I've apologized over a hundred times.
I'm not the guy that started questioning Sandy Hook.
I did for a while believe it might have been staged.
I thought Jussie Smollett was staged.
Turned out I was right.
I thought WMDs in Iraq were staged.
Turned out I was right.
But I did not premeditatedly create this whole story to, quote, make money.
It's hurt me over the last ten years.
I had employees basically quitting stuff over ten years ago or eight years ago when I first started questioning it for a few years.
And so I'm not the Sandy Hook guy.
I'm the guy that exposed the Iraq war being wronged.
I'm the guy that exposed the fact that we had major corruption in America.
I had a lot of really great things I did.
And so I have apologized over and over again.
And I've tried to get these people off my back.
And not the families, but the lawyers.
And it's the same lawyers now going after other people's free speech.
And they've said the case they're running against me, they plan on using against other people's free speech as well.
They have an unfair trade practices suit in here.
I'm claiming that because I sell supplements, it has something to do with stories I report.
They have no connection to each other.
So this is all a larger plan to shut down the independent free press because the old dinosaur corporate media has been discredited.
So that's what's happening.
How do you think you should be held responsible?
Sir, I've already been deplatformed over Sandy Hook.
I've already been sued.
I've been, quote, held responsible.
How's the New York Times been held responsible for premeditatedly lying about WMDs in Iraq on record?
Or the New York Times lying about babies being killed by Saddam Hussein in Kuwait to start the 1991 Iraq war that killed over a million people by starvation later?
Madeleine Albright went on 60 Minutes and was asked a half a million...
Children in Iraq have died from the sanctions that Bill Clinton tripled over what George Herbert Walker Bush said.
She said, is a half million kids a good price to pay?
She said, yes, it's a good price to pay.
She killed a half million children with her policies.
I haven't killed any children.
Nobody knows Adam Lance's name.
People, when they think about Sandy Hook, they think about me.
Okay, I didn't kill the children.
I am not Adam Lanza.
I did not buy the gun like his mother did.
I did not do that.
We all thought it was hard to believe back when it happened that somebody could go around killing kids.
But now we see it happen more and more because America has a sickness of evil inside some of its young, and it's a mental illness.
It's not the guns doing it.
In fact, we need guns to protect ourselves from people like Adam Lanza.
But the truth is, ladies and gentlemen, They really want to take me out because I've been exposing the Great Reset and Klaus Schwab and the UN and the big corporations.
Look up The Great Reset and The War for the World, the number one book in the world.
I'll be back whenever they call me.
Good luck and God bless.
Alex, is this Kangaroo Court?
Buddy, it's all kangaroos and railroads.
You're damn right.
Alex, did they tell you you're not messifying the tweets?
Alex, you didn't saw my rope for you.
Alex, drop us right again.
You guys went on the floor.
Love you guys.
Bye, Alex.
That's one goddamn question I didn't answer.
Did they tell you you're not?
Yeah, I know.
Alright, nice.
That's the end of that thing.
I'm going back.
Please be seated.
And for the record, we are on week two, day five of our trial in Lafferty versus Jones.
If Council could please identify themselves for the record.
Yes, good morning, Your Honor.
Chris Maddy on behalf of the plaintiffs, joined by my colleagues, Alan Restreling and Josh Kowsko.
Morning, Morning.
Morning, Honor.
Norm Edis on behalf of Alex Jones and the Free Speed Services.
Judge Mr. Raynell is not counsel of record, not admitted in Connecticut.
I don't know if he was supposed to sit before or behind the bar.
Not at counsel table, but he can sit where he is.
That's right.
That's fine.
Good morning, Attorney General.
Hope everyone had a nice weekend.
So any issues before we resume?
Your Honor, I think the one issue that we'd like to argue if the court is prepared to resolve it is the issue of political motivation, which I think both parties now agree has been briefed.
And Attorney Sterling will handle that.
And I've read everything.
Thank you for filing it on time.
Whenever you're ready.
I'm sorry, I'm already interrupting you.
I just want to announce, in accordance with judicial branch policy, there can be no unauthorized recording, whether it's by cell phone or Apple Watch or any other device, video recording, audio recording, or photographs.
If you do so, your device will be confiscated and you will be removed from the courtroom, if not the courthouse.
And I'm sure the Marshal's already said it.
I do the same thing.
please turn your Apple Watch or whatever device you have either off or to a silent mode, please.
There's one other issue after this, Judge.
I received this morning at 7 o'clock a list of amended exhibits purporting to amend certain things that are already admitted.
I've made a chance to review them today.
I'd like a chance to discuss them with the council before I take a position on them.
But I would object, I think, at this point to the removal of any exhibits that's in full already.
I don't believe that that's what you've done.
As I told Attorney Patis earlier, I believe that what we've done is amended the exhibit list to reflect what happened last week in terms of new exhibits.
But I want to have a fulsome conversation with him and I'm sure it'll work out.
Perfect.
Okay.
So whenever you're ready.
Good morning again.
So this is docket number 985, which is our motion to enforce the en limine rulings and limit question and argument regarding the plaintiff's supposed political motivations.
The opposition brief is at docket number 987, and our reply brief is at docket number 992. And, Your Honor, what we are asking for In this motion is for the Court to enforce its in limine rulings and also to preclude any further questioning regarding the plaintiff's supposed political biases.
And the reason for that, Your Honor, is because those arguments regarding the plaintiff's supposed political biases Are essentially clickbait for InfoWars.
That's the first reason and that's something that the court really needs to be aware of and I don't think I need to do more than point the court to page six of our reply memorandum where we took a screen grab from InfoWars of Bill Aldenberg's trial video.
Yeah, I saw that.
Here's the thing.
The code of evidence is the code of evidence and if it turns out to be Good for headlines or clickbait.
That's not what I'm driven by.
So I think that we need to focus on what's admissible under our code and under our case law.
Your Honor, that's understood.
On the other hand, we do need to point out to the court that this lawsuit is being used to continue to harass our plaintiffs by and for worse.
So in terms of turning to the code of evidence, These are jury nullification arguments.
They have absolutely no relevance to the issues before the court in this hearing and damages.
You know, in cases where politics is directly an issue, a very, very limited examination may be made.
But this is not a case where politics is an issue at all.
This is a hearing and damages.
Where the wrongful conduct has been established and the only remaining question is the nature of the plaintiff's damages.
So for that reason – Well, that's really two separate issues, right?
There's the issues of politics, Trump, Clinton, all that, who funded – allegedly funded the lawsuits, why the lawsuits were filed at a certain point.
That's one issue.
But then there's the other.
And the point that Attorney Pattis makes about possible bias or prejudice.
So obviously they are, the defendants are permitted to address the extent of the damages.
They don't have to roll over on that.
And as I'm understanding, and of course Attorney Pattis will articulate it better, as I'm understanding it, their position or one of their positions is that The injuries claimed are exaggerated and partly because of bias or prejudice or whatever you want to call it that the plaintiffs might have towards the defendant because of the issue of guns.
Your Honor, no.
That absolutely cannot come into evidence in this case.
And the reason why is, first of all, This is intended to open the door on the SOTO issues.
That's absolutely where this is headed.
Well, that door is closed, and it's not going to be reopened, and it's not going to be re-argued or will be done.
But the just cross on the issue of – limited cross on the issue of guns, why would that not be appropriate?
Because it's not a gun case, Your Honor.
It's not a gun case.
It's a case about a wrongful course of conduct and the damages that resulted from it.
But why can't Attorney Pattis explore, not by extrinsic evidence, just by cross-examination, whether or not, based on what is filed here, whether or not the plaintiffs are exaggerating their injuries because they have such Opposite views on guns,
And given the underlying nature of the tragedy, which involved guns, why would he not be permitted some limited inquiry along those lines?
Just one minute.
understanding in the brief to exaggerate their injuries.
That's really what I'm focused on.
I mean, essentially, you know, although not evidence, the opening was, you know, the plaintiffs wanted to stop Alex Jones because of the lies and the damage that he inflicted and that shouldn't happen to the next family.
I imagine that, you know, the defendant's position is It's different that they believe that the lawsuit is brought because the plaintiffs don't like Mr. Jones' positions and politics on guns.
So why not some brief cross-examination on that?
Because, again, and I am repeating myself, but it's because I do think it is so clear.
Because there is a course of wrongdoing that is established in this case that has to do with lives.
It is established that the plaintiffs are damaged.
And so, now I understand the court's point.
Reasons for them to exaggerate.
I'm not talking about making this into a gun case by any means, but no extrinsic, but why can't he briefly explore that issue?
It gets into collateral issues very rapidly, Your Honor.
That's one major problem with it.
And the other reason is because the plaintiff's interest in However they feel about guns, I mean, that doesn't go to a bias about damages and what their testimony would be about damages.
It's like in a malpractice case, you wouldn't allow, or a car wreck case, you wouldn't allow someone to cross-examine on bias against the defendant in connection with their damages.
It's just, it's beyond the scope of what a normal damages inquiry would look like.
And there is an interest in injecting politics into this case.
There is an interest in expanding this case into political theater, but that's not what it is.
It needs to stay confined to the facts and the evidence.
Attorney Tattis?
Is there not jury nullification arguments?
You'll note in the request of charge, I made a request to argue nullification at the end of the paragraph of the first, second, sixth quality case right now is not that I'm not permitted.
I get it.
I think that as a matter of right, I have always permitted any defendant in any case to inquire and motive bias and interest in the outcome.
And to abridge that as reversible error, I do concede the court has power to limit its scope within its discretion.
And what I've heard the court inquire of Attorney Sterling is what would be wrong with that.
The answer is it's an attempt to get at Soto v. Bushmaster.
Your ruling could not be clear that that's not coming in the evidence.
I don't intend to open that door.
If it's opened, I know what procedure it has to speak to you outside the presence of the jury and do so.
I note, however, an anomaly in the case that I think the court needs to resolve at some level.
And that is during war here and at various points in sidebar communications, there have been discussions about the practical consequence of the default on the complaint.
The plaintiffs at various times have even admitted that every allegation in the complaint is an admission case.
They want to transform the complaint into what to admit.
That injects politics and I believe Soto v. Bushmaster into the case because it's in their complaint.
And so on a default, if I take their view, then the court has a rule yet there, so I don't know what the court's going to say.
But if every fact in the complaint is admitted, then everything they complain about is going to be...
So my whatever rulings that I've entered on motions in limine or other rulings, Trump's everything else.
So, of course, as Bushmaster, there's no need to ever say those words again, because it's done.
right or wrong, it's done.
I may be Alex Jones' lawyer, but I'm still in a certain court, and I think I understand the rules.
This isn't my first rodeo.
I'm not going there, and I'm tired of being mischaracterized, not by you, but by my adversaries.
I think I'm entitled to ask whether the only issue for this jury is the extent of the damages, and I think the case law is clear.
Fault has been determined by the court.
The causation of something has been caused.
The extent of it is up to the plaintiffs to prove.
My view is if they seek to elect, if they're that concerned about guns and whatnot in this case, don't call the plaintiffs.
Submit it to the jury, but then they don't get what they want, which is millions.
If they're going to seek millions, they have to earn millions, and I think as a matter of right, I am permitted to inquire and promote it to exaggerate, and that's the extent.
And just can you give me, if you can, some idea of what you're looking to do.
Asking about their activities?
Yes, activities, statements, views, and judgments.
I couldn't hear that.
- Activities, statements, and their views of Jones.
- Activities, statements, views of Jones was what I just heard.
That's what I heard.
Okay.
So I'm not hearing how those are limited to guns, Your Honor.
I'm frankly just not understanding where the proposed limitation would lie.
Well, I think my question, unless I didn't get it out right, was meant to be along the issues of their positions on guns.
Correct.
And I understood the answer to be their activities, their statements, and their opinions on Mr. Jones.
So, Your Honor, again, I think that that is an expansive inquiry.
It's going to be way beyond the scope of what their damages evidence is.
But this is cross-examination of a witness, and parties, whether it's a hearing of damages or not, Have a right to explore bias and motive and prejudice.
That's my understanding.
Your Honor, is there a way, I understand the court's inclination.
I do think that one thing that is really important as we move forward is to have some very clear direction about what's permitted and what's not.
There was a representation, this would be a very limited inquiry.
As I said, you know, activities, statements, and view of Jones regarding guns sounds quite expansive.
I don't think so.
Listen, I remember pretty clearly when Mr. Pattis was even talking about his cross-examiner of the plaintiff.
I believe the words were something along the lines of very short, if at all.
So I can't imagine that it's going to be expansive given that representation.
But listen, I think That is the ruling, and I don't think Mr. Patis will exceed that, and if he does, you'll object.
So I think that is proper fodder for cross-examination on those issues.
Thank you, Your Honor.
We understand your ruling.
Anything else?
No?
No, Judge.
Your Honor, let me just check back through the relief that we had requested and see if there's anything else.
The other issues really had to do with the enforcement of the court's existing orders.
So, I mean, obviously, I understand the court wouldn't issue new orders, but we did want to raise those.
Okay.
All right, so I think we're ready for the jury.
- Thank you. - Thank you very much.
- Thank you.
- Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you.
- Judge, do you want to turn your pause on the stand?
It's just funny that it didn't mean that it was not a good last time.
I just want to do that.
It's not a good last time.
It's not a good last time.
It's fine.
It was a problem.
It's fine.
Good morning, everyone. everyone.
Welcome back.
Good morning, good morning.
Hope everyone had a nice long weekend.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Welcome back.
Ron will hand you back your notepad, which we kept secure.
Please be seated.
And council will stipulate that the entire panel has returned.
I do.
Yes, Your Honor.
So I know we had a long weekend.
I know you all understand your obligations and the court's orders on the rules of juror conduct.
Mr. Farrow did not give me any note from any of the jurors indicating that they were unable to avoid any media exposure or that they were concerned about improper activity.
So that's a good thing.
So I would just, of course, continue to remind you.
I know it's not easy, but you'll continue to obey your obligations.
But if something does happen, you'll just give on a note and we will deal with it.
Okay?
So Ms. Haas remains under oath.
And Attorney Maddie, you may continue whenever you are ready.
Thank you and good morning Your Honor.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
Good morning Ms. Paz.
Good morning.
Ms. Paz, when we left off on Friday, you and I were looking over an organizational chart.
Do you remember that?
I do, yes.
Did you do any additional preparation of the weekend then?
No.
Okay.
So getting back to your role here, I take it that if we wanted to know about whether free speech systems maintained an organizational I'm not aware of that, no.
Okay.
Well, as we talked about at the very beginning, Free Speech Systems has about 70 employees, is that right?
Right.
Several of them have served as corporate representatives for Free Speech Systems, right?
At various points, yes.
Right.
And several of them have been employed by Free Speech Systems for a long time, even going back to 2009 and earlier, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
And so there are people within your Objection asked and answered.
Overruled.
I don't have any information to suggest that anybody had that information.
Okay.
But what you do know is that you certainly had no idea there was an organization.
I had never seen that before.
Correct.
Right.
And that's because nobody gave it to you, correct?
Correct.
Okay.
And if Free Speech Systems wanted to present somebody to this jury who could testify about Google Analytics, we saw the emails where Tim Fruget was sending around Google Analytics, right?
Yeah, I remember them.
We saw Lydia involved in those emails, right?
Some of them.
Lydia, you'll remember, was Lydia Hernandez was the Accounting Director for Free Speech Systems, correct?
At one point, yes.
Okay.
And one of those emails that Mr. Frugier sent was to Adan Salazar, correct?
Remember that?
I do remember that.
And one was to a gentleman named Rob at InfoWars.com, correct?
I remember that, yes.
So if Free Speech Systems wanted to present anybody to testify about the Google Analytics that were attached to those emails, they could have done that, correct?
I believe we did talk about those emails and the Google Analytics in the emails.
Right, but you had never seen them before.
There were some Google Analytics that I did review in connection with the documents that were provided to me.
Just see if you can answer the question that I asked you.
The question I asked you is you'd never reviewed those emails before I showed them to you during this trial, right?
Those specific emails about the social media attachments.
Is that the one you're referring to?
Have you reviewed any of the emails I showed you done with my own links?
I think I had seen, because some of them were discussed in Blake's deposition, so I had seen a couple of what had been attached in that deposition, but aside from that, I don't think I had seen any other ones.
so I'm not sure which ones you're referring to.
That sounds like a difference from what you testified last week, Ms. Paz.
Are you testifying now that you reviewed Blake Roddy's deposition that was taken here in Connecticut?
I think I said that already, that I reviewed Mr. Roddy's deposition and I had talked to him about it.
Okay, hold on one second.
You reviewed his deposition transcript?
I did.
Okay.
He discussed Google Analytics in his deposition.
That's your recollection?
I believe he did.
You then had a meeting with him where he told you that...
Free Speech Systems doesn't use Google Analytics.
I had a phone call with him, yes.
A phone call with him.
Right.
Where he said Free Speech Systems doesn't use Google Analytics, right?
Right.
That's what you told this jury.
Correct.
Okay.
And my question to you is, had Free Speech Systems wanted to present somebody to this jury who could actually talk about those emails, they could present I mean, Tim Fruget is available to subpoena, so he could testify, sure.
Well, Tim Fruget is, when you say available to subpoena, Ms. Paz, you know that they could have asked Tim Fruget to testify on behalf of free speech systems, correct?
I don't think he was willing to do that.
So, Ms. Paz, really?
The question is, could they have?
No.
So we're going to stop.
Just listen to the question that's asked and answer that question, please.
Could they have no, because he was not willing.
Thank you.
Your Honor asked if the answer was stricken.
So ordered.
Have you spoken to Tim Fruget?
I believe I had a phone call with him.
Mr. Fruget you know is deposed in this case, correct?
Yes.
You know that he still has an ongoing business relationship with Mr. Jones, correct?
I don't believe he works there anymore, but I don't know what the nature of their current business relationship is.
I don't know.
relationship with Mr. Jones?
Correct.
So you're not aware that he, Mr. Jones sent him out to set up a website called freeworldoutlet.com?
No.
And you're not aware, and you don't know what freeworldoutlet.com is?
I do not, no.
And you have no idea if Free Speech Systems has a financial interest in that, correct?
No.
Even though you're Free Speech Systems corporate representative here right now?
I was not briefed on that, so no, I don't know.
Because nobody told you?
Correct.
Okay.
Now the only lawyer in Connecticut that you've dealt with in this case is Mr. Pappas, correct?
Yes.
And his office.
Yes, since I was retained in January, correct.
Right.
And in February, you asked Attorney Patis to share with you all of the depositions that were given in Connecticut, correct?
All of the Connecticut materials, so not just the depositions, but all of the Connecticut materials.
So let's just start with depositions.
Sure.
You asked him to share with you all of the Connecticut depositions, correct?
Yes.
And he did not do that, correct?
I don't think I received all of the Connecticut depositions.
So the answer is correct.
Correct.
He did not do that.
I don't have them.
All.
Because he didn't give them to you?
Correct.
Okay.
And in addition to the Connecticut material, in addition to the depositions, you asked him to share all of the documents that free speech systems have produced in Connecticut, correct?
Yes.
And he didn't give you access to those, correct?
I think there was an issue with that, but yes.
Okay.
The issue is he didn't give you access to them, right?
Correct.
I didn't have access to it, so...
Because he didn't give you access to it.
Whoever was in charge of it didn't give me access, so I don't know who was in charge of it, but I did not get it.
The person you asked is Mr. Pattis, yes?
I asked Mr. Pattis' office.
Okay, you asked Mr. Pattis, and in fact you repeated that request since February to have access to the Connecticut depositions and the documents that were produced here, correct?
I've asked more than once.
Right, and they've never been given to you, correct?
I have not had access to any of the Connecticut materials.
You asked as recently as last week before this trial, you asked Mr. Pattis to give you that material, correct?
Last week what I asked for specifically was my depositions in the Connecticut cases in the past week.
And even giving to you?
I received two out of four of the days.
When?
Not last week, but the week before.
You still haven't seen Alex Jones' deposition, right?
The most recent one?
No.
Meaning you haven't seen the deposition that he gave in Connecticut?
Correct.
Right.
The one he gave in, I want to say, June.
Okay.
I'm sure that you asked when you were obtained in this case to see an organizational chart, right?
I asked if organizational charts existed.
Who did you ask that?
I think I had asked, I had those conversations with counsel at the time in Texas when I went and I traveled there, so I asked Attorney Blott.
Okay.
Did you ever ask Attorney Pettis?
I don't know that he and I had ever had that conversation.
Okay, so the answer is you don't know if you ever asked him?
I don't think I ever specifically asked him.
Okay.
But you wanted to see an organizational chart because that lays out the relationships between people who work at the company, right?
Sure.
You didn't know anything about the company when you first started?
No, I mean I sought to try to find out as time progressed.
Right.
And an organizational chart tells you who reports to whom, correct?
Such that they do report to somebody, yes.
Who's in charge, yes?
If there is somebody in charge, yes.
Right.
Who works in which departments, right?
Yes.
And which departments may exist?
Yes.
Okay.
And you were told that one didn't exist, correct?
I was not given any, so I don't know if they answered me and said there are none, but I was not given one.
Let's try this.
Let's just try this.
Right.
I don't think that that's an attorney-client communication for the person seeking the question.
I don't think so.
You asked Attorney Blatt, right?
Yes.
She represented Free Speech Systems.
At the time, yes.
Attorney Patz, could you in touch with her?
Yes.
She said what to you in response?
Same objection.
I don't recall if she said that there was none or she didn't know whether there was one, and I want to be fair to her.
So I'm not sure if it was that there was none or she was not aware whether there was one.
And you didn't follow up, right?
Not with her, no.
But one of the first questions that Attorney Patis asked you here last week was whether there was an organizational chart, correct?
Um, I think that's what his question was.
And you said there isn't one, correct?
Well, as far as I was aware, there wasn't one.
That's what you testified?
Correct, as far as I was aware.
And that was false, correct?
Well, I don't know what that was and when it was prepared, so I can't really answer as to information concerning that chart.
Did I show you an info word?
And I showed you a Bates number that you acknowledged meant that it had been produced by InfoWars to us in this case, correct?
I saw the Bates number, yes.
And so your testimony that there wasn't an organizational chart was false, correct?
Reaction argumentative.
Sustained.
Was it inaccurate?
I don't know anything about that chart, so I can't answer anything about the chart.
Okay, well, why don't we bring it up?
Did you know whether Mr. Pattis knew anything about the chart when he asked you?
All right.
Well, let's bring it up.
And for the record, this, Your Honor, was admitted last week.
Number 480, counsel.
Number 480. You've worked with spreadsheets before, ma'am?
Minimally, but yes.
Okay.
And you know that there, in documents in Native Forman, have what's called metadata?
Yes?
I'm not that technologically savvy, but I'll accept your presentation.
You know that metadata is basically data embedded within a document that tells you a little bit about it.
Yes?
Sure.
Okay.
Well, why don't we go to the About page of this document.
Okay.
And I want you to look at the right-hand side, and do you see related dates there?
Do you see that in your spreadsheet, ma'am?
I see it, yes.
And do you see created?
Yes, I see a date there.
What's the date there?
11-6-2011.
Okay.
And do you see the last printed?
Do you see that?
Yes.
And what date is that?
6-19-2017.
And who's the author?
It says Lydia Hernandez.
Okay.
That's the former accountant, right?
Yes, at one point.
All right.
Did you review the testimony of Daria Karpova that she gave in this case?
Yes, I did.
In Connecticut?
I believe I did.
I definitely read her deposition.
Was this her corporate rep deposition?
No, it wasn't.
So I'm not sure if I read that one.
Okay.
I definitely read her corporate representative deposition.
Okay.
She didn't serve as a corporate representative in Connecticut?
No, I don't believe she did.
Okay.
And so you don't know if you read her deposition here?
I'm not sure.
All right.
May I approach you?
This has been marked as exhibit 350.
And why don't you just take a look at that and see if you can identify that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It looks like Daria's deposition remotely on August 6, 2021. Okay.
And you're a lawyer, you've worked with depositions before, right?
And if I paint you to page 3 here, who conducted the examination on behalf of Free Speech Systems?
Attorney Pattis.
Okay.
And what I'm going to do now is turn to page 55. Oh, before I do that, in the table of contents you'll see here Exhibit 4 is described as what?
It says Excel spreadsheet.
Okay.
And you know an exhibit, when it's presented at a deposition, is similar to the way it's presented here.
You ask the witness about it, right?
right?
Sure.
And if we go to page 55, I'm sorry, 56.
You see the question here?
Wait a minute, I'm going to read it.
I'll read it to you.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, I'm going to move to the next tab, which is 2015. You can keep the spreadsheet up.
I'm going to move to the next tab, which is 2015. One sec.
Okay.
I've moved to the next tab of 20th Exhibit 4, which is marked 2015. And this appears to be an organizational chart for Free Speech Systems, LLC, as well.
And what's her answer?
Okay.
And then the question is, and if you look on the right side of the document, below production, on the radio show producers, it has your name there as well.
Answer.
I see it, yes.
Okay, and then the question is, why does it have your name there as a producer in 2015?
And who speaks next?
Attorney Patis has an objection.
Okay, thank you.
And so, when Attorney Patis asked you last week, does Free Speech Systems have An organizational chart.
Am I correct that he was at this deposition where this exhibit was shown?
It appears so.
Okay.
Assuming that's the same Excel spreadsheet we're talking about.
And you said it does not, correct?
It does not have an organizational chart.
Well, as far as I was aware.
Right.
And he didn't correct that testimony, did he?
I don't recall that he did.
Okay.
So if we go to 2015 here, and let's zoom out so everybody can see it just for a Okay, so this is the 2015 tab, Free Speech Systems LLC, Alex Jones at the very top, right?
Right.
And to the left is Dr. Jones, right?
I see that, yes.
That's David Jones, yes?
Right, his father.
And do you see his title there?
HR Consultant.
Right.
And last week, Attorney Patis, do you remember them asking you whether there's anybody who did an HR function at Free Speech Systems?
I think he asked, right, and I had answered...
Do you remember him asking that question?
I do, yes.
Okay, and you said nobody has that title, but Melinda Flores does some of that.
Right.
Well, according to what I believed based on what I had seen.
Right.
Well, okay.
And so nobody told you that Dr. Jones actually had an HR function, right?
Nobody conveyed anything like that to me during the course of my investigation here.
Right, and you actually asked to speak to David Jones, right?
I don't think I asked to speak to Dr. Jones, no.
You didn't?
Okay.
No.
You know that as part of his HR role, Dr. Jones in Free Speech Systems requires all of its employees to sign a non-disclosure agreement?
Did you know that?
I do know that now.
They do now.
They do now?
Yes.
When did that start?
I'm sorry, I can't recall the date.
Okay.
Let's go to 2017. Alright, so this is 2017 and you see an Alex Jones at the very top, right?
Yes.
Dr. Jones there still listed, yes.
I see that, yes.
And he's right below Alex Jones and then also on the other side is Tim Fruget, right?
Right.
And the department listed for Tim Fruget is Sales, New Product and Advertising, correct?
Yes, that's what it does.
Okay.
And if you go further down, We're going to go to the departments now.
The organization was broken up into one, two, three, four, five, six, seven departments, yes?
We'll start from the left.
Procurement and inventory.
And that's the function basically over at the warehouse you talked about where they're ordering new supplement products, they're inventorying them, and they're preparing them to be shipped, right?
That's what that would mean to me, yes.
Okay, and you see there they have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, or thereabouts, employees in that department, yes?
That's what it looks like, yes.
Okay, and then the next department is operations, and Tim Fruget was running that in addition to the sales department that we saw earlier, yes?
Yes.
I'm not sure what operations means, but yes.
Okay, let's see if we can tell from the sub-departments.
One is security, correct?
That's what it says, yes.
Okay, there's a lot of security at Free Speech Systems offices, correct?
I mean, there is a security system there, yes.
You have to swipe in to get into the building.
Correct.
And then you have to swipe to get into different parts of the building.
Correct.
Okay.
And Mr. Jones himself has a security team, correct?
I believe he does, yes.
Okay.
And then there's customer service and online stores, right?
That's what it says, yes.
The online stores is making sure that, you know, the online retail platforms are functioning properly.
Right.
Transacting business.
Right.
And customer service.
Anybody calls up, say, hey, I didn't get my shipment of DNA Force Plus.
These people are here to respond.
Right.
Okay.
And then there's an IT department, right?
Yes, I see that.
IT, you know, obviously just like any business, you know, you got a bunch of computers, correct?
Sure.
You have a server, correct?
Sure.
You have printers that need to be troubleshot and all that stuff, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
And then there's a programmer there that's Timothy Thrift, right?
That's what it says, yes.
He helps write computer code for free speech systems to help their online Platforms work properly, correct?
I believe so, yes.
And then you have graphics design.
And graphics design, they design kind of the ad copy that they put up for things like DNA Force Plus and iodine and things like that.
Yeah, I'm sure they design the ads and design other things associated with the website.
Okay, and then over here you have the writers and editors.
And writers and editors, those are the folks who basically write the stuff that comes up on Infowars.com, right?
Right, the articles.
Right.
Newswars.com.
Correct.
Kit Daniels supervises that, right?
I don't know if he supervised it at this time period.
I know he became a supervisor at some point.
I'm just not sure what time period he became a supervisor, but he was a writer there at this time period.
Adonis Alazar still in there?
Correct.
And then you have the production side of things, and this is what happens in the studio, right?
Putting on the Alex Jones show, right?
Correct.
The War Room is another show they have.
Correct.
The American Journal is the show they have in the morning.
Yeah?
Yes.
And here you have, we talked about Nico Acosta last night.
He's there.
He's in charge of the radio show.
That's the Alex Jones show, yeah?
Right.
He was one of the producers, yes.
And over here, the Nightly News, that's Rob Du.
He's in charge of that, and all those people are kind of part of the production team.
Yeah?
Sure.
That's what it says in that column.
Last week and today, this is the first time you've ever seen this.
Yes.
You also were asked about Google Analytics on your cross-examination, right?
I think so.
Okay.
Now, did you review the deposition that Michael Zimmerman gave in Connecticut?
I...
Thank you.
I definitely reviewed a deposition by Michael Zimmerman, but I'm not sure if it was in Connecticut or in Texas.
It might have been the one where he was designated as a corporate rep, so it might not have been the Connecticut one.
Okay, I'm not gonna...
If you're not sure, I won't waste everybody's time.
In addition to Google Analytics, you talked about Quantcast Analytics, right?
Yes, that was in some of the emails that we saw.
Right, but you've never been presented with Quantcast data yourself, right?
No, I've not seen anything like that.
Okay, and you've never even heard of something called Sprout Social, correct?
You mean as I sit here today?
Have I ever heard of it?
That does not sound familiar to me.
Okay, you have no idea if Bullwars had a Sprout Files containing sales reports.
I don't recall the exact line of questioning you're referring to.
Okay.
You know that free speech systems produce what they claim to be sales reports in this case?
Daily sales reports?
Yes.
And you produce those in connection with your deposition, right?
You never saw any sales reports of Infowars life, right?
I didn't get a question, Judge.
I'm sorry.
You never saw any sales reports for Infowars Life, right?
I don't recall seeing anything for Infowars Life.
Right.
And I think you just testified that you have no idea what freeworldoutlet.com is, right?
No.
Okay.
You have no idea what preparetoday.com is?
No.
Okay.
You've never heard of the website preparewithalex.com?
No.
And you've never heard of the website 50percentoff.com?
- No. - Okay, so you have no idea if any of those websites are also online retail platforms for InfoWars, correct? - No. - So let's just talk about correct? - No. - So let's just talk about all the things that Free Speech Systems does, okay?
So they manage payroll for about 70 employees, right?
Sure.
They have a payroll process or ADP, correct?
Sure.
They install and manage security at their office, correct?
Yes.
They broadcast to millions and millions of people every day, right?
Yes.
That requires them to have a production staff that can do three live shows, including the Alex Jones show, correct?
Yes, we have a production staff.
The War Room, correct?
Yes.
Staff that maintain relationships with all of their radio affiliates, correct?
Right, there is somebody that performs that function.
They're able to manage all of their multiple websites, correct?
Yes.
They have writers posting content every day?
Yes.
They're soliciting advertisers, yes?
At various points, yes.
And they have to manage those relationships, correct?
I don't know what they do to manage them, but I'm sure that they have to do something.
Right.
And they manage dozens of social media platforms, correct?
Yes, we have many platforms.
And they have to have people pumping out content every day to those social media platforms, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
They edit their videos and they post their videos.
Somebody has to do that?
Right.
They manage thousands of units of inventory.
Those are the supplements, correct?
You mean at the warehouse?
Yes.
At a facility that you, I think, said was about three and a half football fields big?
It was very big, yes.
So they have heavy equipment there as well?
Like forklifts and stuff to lift everything?
Yes.
They have to manage accounting and all their books, yes?
Sure.
They have to manage their facilities, right?
Sure.
And all of this, and I think your testimony is that over the past 10 years, this whole organization has generated up to about a billion dollars in revenue, although you don't know the precise amount, correct?
Well, I said I wasn't sure what the exact number is, but...
Right.
You put a range out of $100 million to a billy, correct?
Well, I think that was your range.
I just said I wasn't sure what the number was.
Okay.
Well, I think the jury will remember that to some point.
Objection.
Would you strike?
And Alex Jones owns and manages all of this, correct?
He owns free speech so yes and he's at the top he's the person that to whom everybody reports.
Right but he only met with you for about an hour and a half?
About.
Okay and and they do all of these things but they they wouldn't email you any depositions that you want right?
I'm sorry I don't understand the question.
They do all of these things we've just been talking about, but when you asked for deposition transcripts, you didn't get them, right?
I didn't get what I requested.
And when you asked to see documents, they didn't give them to you, right?
I didn't get what I requested.
Nothing further here on us.
Any thoughts?
Alex Jones owned and manages all this, right?
To the extent the word manages means something.
Why do you say to the extent the word management means something?
Objection, Your Honor?
I think like a lot of people that own and run a business, Alex is just really focused on being on the air and Alex doesn't take a real big interest on the day-to-day interaction or responsibilities of the running of the company.
You're aware that the plaintiffs took more than 50 depositions in this case?
I'm aware there were a lot of depositions, yes.
That they've marked for the jury's consideration portions of each one to show them during trial?
Yes, Your Honor.
Are you aware of that?
That's the basis of the jury.
That's not the basis.
You're aware of that?
I'm aware that there have been many of those marked, yes.
Do you think there's some reason that you should read what they're going to show the jury or do you think that the jury can read it for itself?
Objection error?
You testified that Rob Dewitt served as a corporate rep.
At one point, yes.
Daria Karkova served as a corporate rep?
Yes.
Mike Zimmerman served as a corporate rep?
Yes.
You testified that none were willing to at this point.
Objection, Your Honor?
Based on hearsay, then beyond the scope.
It's within the scope.
You testified that none were willing to?
They were not willing to do it again.
That's correct.
You heard Mr. Mattian directly attack me a number of times in his cross-examination.
Yes.
Do you think those kind of attacks have something to do with why they weren't willing to serve as corporate reps here?
Objection.
Sustained.
How many thousand, how many documents were you shown in this case?
Thousands.
Can you estimate tens of thousands?
Probably tens of thousands.
Do you know how many that were produced?
um between connecticut and texas i don't know how many were produced but many tens of thousands of documents you had an hour and a half with mr jones about thereabouts you got informed impressions of his organizational ability of his ability yes i did if you spent 10 more hours with him would it have mattered You
you may call your next witness thank you your honor uh yes clint watts take your time and one more
good morning just watch your step you may stand and raise your right hand solemnly swear sincerely referring that the evidence you shall get concerning this case shall be the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth to helping god or upon penalty of purpose i do thank you you may be seated i just need you to state your name
go ahead and sit down that i need you to state your name slowly spelling your last name for the record and the town in which clinton watts last name w-a-t-t-s hometown cold spring new york
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Watts.
You just heard that Free Speech Systems is a structured organization of about 70 or so employees.
Is that right?
Correct.
You are not one of them?
No.
You also understand that there are 15 plaintiffs in this case, and you are not a plaintiff or a member of their family, correct?
Correct.
And you had no dealings in the factional matters themselves as they were occurring in this case?
No.
So that leaves you with a defined role here and that would be as an expert witness?
Correct.
And just to give a big overview, your field of expertise, how would you say that in its most general terms?
It's identifying analytics and analysis around social media, the internet, and how it influences people's behavior.
And is this grounded in decades of understanding how human beings, organizations, terrorist networks, governments influence human behavior?
Yes, the last two at least.
What were the last two?
I forgot.
I think it's a long list.
2002, the president.
Okay.
And so...
Why don't we provide, at this point, I'd like to provide the jury with your background as an expert in this case.
And if you could indulge me, first of all, where were you born and raised, sir?
O'Fallon, Missouri.
Sorry?
O'Fallon, Missouri.
O'Fallon?
Yes.
Big town?
Not too big when I was there.
Okay.
Did it grow?
Massively.
And so that's what we call Yes.
And why don't we take it up?
You graduated from high school?
Yes.
And you went to college at some point?
I did.
And can you tell the jury where you went to college?
I went to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Okay.
West Point is where?
West Point, New York.
Okay.
As an institution, can you just describe to the jury what West Point is?
Yeah, West Point is designed to train the next generation of officers for the United States Army through a four-year liberal arts degree.
Okay.
And how does somebody get into West Point?
It's two parts.
First, you apply to the institution, just like you would a normal college, but you also have to be, in the second part, nominated by a congressman, vice president, and president.
Okay.
And so, you checked both those boxes?
I did.
And is West Point, upon graduation, it's a four-year program?
Sorry.
Yes.
And upon graduating from West Point, what did you do next?
I went into the U.S. Army and served as an infantry officer.
I served at the 101st Airborne Division in Kentucky, U.S. Forces Korea, and then came back to 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington.
Sorry, I didn't catch you.
What was the last one?
2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington.
Lewis.
Okay, sorry.
By the way, I know you have, we're going to get into your many things that you've done over the decades, but one thing, have you ever testified in court before?
I have not.
Okay.
So this is your first time?
Yes.
Okay.
And during that, so how long were you in the armed forces?
A little over seven years.
All right.
And can you just give us, you said an airborne division?
Yes, I was an infantry officer and went to airborne and ranger school and then all of the infantry courses so that I could lead troops as a platoon leader and later an infantry company commander.
Okay.
And the military has different ranks, right?
Correct.
And over the course of, you say, seven years?
Yes.
Over the course of the seven years, did you, what's the first rank?
Second lieutenant.
Is that where you ended up?
No, I finished as a captain.
Okay.
And so you, what do you call it, you left the military after seven years?
Yes.
And what did you do next?
I went to the FBI Academy and then the FBI as a special agent on a joint terrorism task force in Portland, Oregon.
Wait, so the FBI, you said, is a special agent.
Do you just walk into the FBI and become a special agent?
No, you have to be qualified at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia.
Okay.
Is Quantico home base for the FBI? Between there and headquarters in Washington, D.C., yes.
Okay, so if you could just maybe just slow down a little bit.
Maybe I'm the only one having a hard time.
Catching all the words.
So, after seven years in the armed services, you left with the designation of captain and you went to join the FBI what?
As a special agent.
Okay, and that started with some stint at Quantico?
Yes, a little over four months.
Okay, just give us a general flavor of how you break into something like that.
It was after a September 11th attacks.
The FBI was recruiting more agents into counterterrorism.
I had been in the military and went through the interview process and was selected.
Then upon training, you go, you receive legal training on search, search warrants, some sort of internet-based training, which is kind of where I've got my start in cyber-related activity.
Then you go through the full gamut of how to actually investigate a case.
And when you say, in a generic way, when you say investigate a case, what generically does that entail?
That essentially is going through the procedures of evidence, how to gather data, then how to apply that to the law in terms of bringing up evidence so that it can be used in terms of different levels of searches, essentially gathering the evidence to support the prosecution of a crime.
And you started your career in this area back around 2005?
2002. You said in the aftermath of 9-11, correct?
Yes.
I might be losing track of time, but back in 2002, was the internet really up and running?
It was up and running, but it still was in its, what I would say, first decade.
It was still just becoming part of everything that was going on in the world, and since then it's grown.
Okay.
And so an investigation, even from your early days in 2002, would involve understanding what about the Internet and the relationship to what you're investigating?
How the internet works.
Also, most importantly, how people communicate on the internet, particularly in the early era.
And that was the start of understanding how, in that case, in the cases that I was working on, terrorists, you know, affiliated with different organizations would try and recruit or communicate with each other using the internet.
Okay.
All right.
And, um...
And you did, how long did you last in that capacity with, I don't say last, I mean, how long did you serve in that capacity?
Yeah, less than a year the first time working for the FBI. Alright, what happened?
Did they fire you?
No, I chose to left.
I left on my own.
I went to graduate school.
Alright, and can you tell the jury where you went to graduate school?
At the time, it was called Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Now it's called the Middlebury Institute.
It's since been acquired by Middlebury.
Okay.
And you earned a master's in something called specialization in international security and development.
Correct.
All right.
And following that, did you continue?
What did you do next after that?
I went to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, where I served as the executive officer.
So I would lead research projects on different terrorist groups.
Al-Qaeda was the group that we focused on at that time.
In particular, we were looking at and examining their move to the internet as their way of surviving at a time when they were being hunted around the world.
And then their migration to social media applications.
The first one that I looked at was YouTube.
So your career at this time involved deep dives on how organizations, networks like terrorist networks communicate with other I have a question thrown in the garbage.
Did this involve deep dives on internet relationships with potential...
Objection, leading...
Tell us what this involves the term, if anything, involving Yes.
So we would look at how different terror groups use the internet to network.
So in the beginning, it was how they would communicate and organize and then plan operations.
Later, with the advent of social media, it moved.
And in that movement, it was then how do they radicalize, how do they recruit, how do they reach out to other people that normally would not be exposed to their content to try and bring them into the organization.
Okay.
And did you become familiar with the tools by which an organization more broadly can influence and manipulate its audience?
Yes.
Principally, during the period of Iraq, we were looking at how al-Qaeda in Iraq used YouTube to reach out to large audiences by filming videos of what they were doing on different battlefields vis-a-vis U.S. soldiers, and then how they used that for promotional material to reach out to others to try and join the ranks.
Okay.
Just to hit a couple of other points of your background.
You served at the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Can you just describe what that is?
Yes.
During the period with the Combating Terrorism Center and even after, I work on different projects for U.S. Special Operations Command overseas.
Same jobs that would be occurring during that time.
I would try and identify different terror networks that are operating on different social media platforms to figure out what they were trying to do, who they were trying to recruit, and then if they were being recruited, why they had an affinity essentially to believe in that cause.
Okay.
And have you, is that, have you brought in that Specialization beyond terrorist networks?
Yes.
Into commercial networks?
Yes.
At different times, that's been for financial institutions trying to understand how hackers might try and penetrate banks or how they might try and organize to go after customers of different companies.
At other times it's been based on foreign nations, namely Russia, Iran, and China, how they use social media to try and infiltrate foreign countries to mobilize people to do things they would not otherwise do by being somebody that they are not when they're in the online space.
Did you say mobilize people to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do?
That's correct.
Under false pretenses are based on the idea that they might be part of a country.
So they masquerade or impersonate people in another country and then they try and get them to go and do something in that country.
Let's say the United States, they try and get them to mobilize to a place to do some sort of act.
Okay, and you're a consultant for research trainer for Boston in Boston.
Have you been in consulting essentially since leaving the military?
No.
So I first went to the FBI, then I went to the Combating Terrorism Center.
From that period forward, I again worked at FBI headquarters.
I served in the Counterterrorism Division, working on how to build intelligence programs, very similar to what I was talking about in terms of social media.
Then also worked to help build training programs for counterterrorism in the FBI. The last time I was there was 2012. And you founded a, is it a company called Milf, how do you pronounce it, Miburo?
Miburo.
Miburo Solutions.
You can just describe to the jury, give us a flavor of what Miburo Solutions did.
I understand it was recently acquired, is it right?
Correct.
So, yeah, Maburro essentially brought together analysts of a variety of disciplines.
And the goal at Maburro was always to try and spot and assess and then disrupt any sort of what we call malign influence.
That means a foreign nation trying to meddle in the United States using a social media platform like any of us would use to try and get people to do things they wouldn't normally do or try and convince them that things weren't true.
Okay.
And when you say convince them the things that weren't true, is that what you said?
Yes.
What do you mean by that?
For example, election defense is a big part of what we do against Russia, Iran, and China.
We're trying to identify foreign actors trying to masquerade as Americans to try and confuse them about election, how it's conducted, who voted, how did they vote, those sorts of things.
And your company described it as a consulting company providing custom training and research insights to the financial industry, the U.S. Department of Defense, federal, state, and local law enforcement, and the intelligence community, implementing enterprise-wide solutions for organizations.
He's reading from a document, not an evidence leading...
It's a background.
It's a CV. I'll sustain the...
Well, I wonder, why not just admit the CV? We're not, Attorney Patterson.
I sustained the rejection.
You're right.
You're right.
I will – I would gladly – I'm sorry.
Why don't we just move to the next question?
Actually – so I just – I was actually – I'm glad because I wanted to ask you what is that – give me a – give us a flavor of all those different things, Department of Defense and financial industry, a little bit about that.
Yeah, sure.
So sometimes they want us to do an investigation.
So we'll look at principally two things.
One, what language are people communicating in around the world and how does that transcend to the United States or another democracy?
Second, we do a lot of data analytics, essentially taking in tremendous amounts of data, trying to find those anomalies in there that don't look natural so we can understand what they're trying to do.
Can you describe what, if any, role the detection of threat or malign influence has played in your career?
Yes.
So at the time when we were hunting essentially al-Qaeda and Islamic State ISIS members in Iraq and Syria, we came across a network that was operated by Russia.
We then tracked that entity all the way into the election in 2016, trying to identify how that sort of influence was confusing Americans about the election.
And now when you say we, let's be clear, you're not a one-man shop.
No, no.
Just tell the jury who we are.
Yeah, so McBurro has about two dozen analysts at any given time.
We speak up to a dozen or more languages, depending on what the mix of actors that we're trying to track.
And so we're looking in foreign audiences to see what kind of information is being shared that's any tip or lead to understand about false information or, in many cases, hacked materials.
Citizens being targeted, their information being stolen, and then it being dumped out on the Internet.
Okay, we just keep saying hacked and stolen material on the Internet.
Does all your work generally involve some exploration of the Internet and its connections with Yes.
All right.
And you have specialists who are data analysts and things like that?
Correct.
And did there come a time when we asked you, when I say we, our law firm asked you to review certain materials to determine whether or not you could be of help in helping us understand the Alex Jones Network?
Yes, January of this year.
And did there come a time when you were asked to help us understand how Alex Jones and Infowars influences customers to purchase goods, for example?
Correct.
And how they message their audience in a way that subjects potentially innocent people to harm?
Objection.
Sustained.
What else were you asked to look at?
You said you talked about being involved in harm prevention, is that right?
Correct.
So what other things did we ask you to do?
You asked us to look at what would the effect be of false content over time as posted by Free Speech Systems, LLC, and Alex Jones, and what the effect would be on the audience.
How might that change their behavior or their perceptions around reality?
And we're going to get into that in some detail.
Well, just a general question.
And did you, with the help of your team, reach certain conclusions based on the information you were provided and based on your education, training, and Yes.
Okay.
And in terms of what you were provided, were you provided with voluminous materials to review?
Yes.
And tens of thousands of pages of various information?
Yes.
And did you and your team review those in detail?
We did.
And were you provided with depositions, for example, depositions of Alex Jones?
Correct, yes.
And those were three volumes of depositions, is that right?
Yes.
And did you and your team review those in detail?
We did.
And other depositions, like depositions of Tim Fruget and others at InfoWars?
Yes.
Okay.
And did you also conduct extensive research on your own to help fill in blanks from the material provided?
We had to.
Can you explain to the jury what you mean by that?
We didn't have all of the data in terms of what was asked for, but also in terms of what was available from different social media platforms.
So as best we could, we had to recreate data that was available on the open web.
And did that effort take quite a bit of time between you and your team?
Tremendous.
Okay.
And you racked up A bill for this?
Sorry to put it so bluntly.
Yes.
And so can you tell the jury about, approximate, how much all this costs?
As of the last month, I believe it was $158,000, roughly.
All right.
And so did you have to spend an extensive amount of time trying to recreate documents that were not available from him?
Yes.
We had to use what is known as the Wayback Machine.
The Wayback Machine, you may have heard of it in other testimony, is a system where you can go back and look at an archive of what was available on the website.
It takes quite a bit of time to go back and look at each one of those archives and then compile all of the data into one place.
And so if InfoWars and Alex Jones had provided the full gamut of information, your charges would be substantially less, is that right?
Yes.
How would, let me rephrase it.
How would the failure of InfoWars to provide the full gamut of its documents have reflected in your charges?
Our charges are based on time.
The more time it takes to aggregate the data, the more it will cost.
If the data is provided up front, we would require much less time to do all of that work.
now you talked about uh oh by the way have you in addition to uh consulting with various uh governmental and private organizations have you also been called on to educate the next generation of what would you call fbi fbi gents and others yes can you describe to the jury about how many uh i call it fbi gents but is it the broader much broader yeah can you just describe that the nature of those that you've educated over the decades Yeah,
since 2005, if I wasn't doing the analysis myself, oftentimes I and some of my colleagues would do training, and training was principally for law enforcement.
I've trained tens of thousands of law enforcement officers.
Many were FBI agents, but many were state and local law enforcement.
I worked for LAPD, Los Angeles Police Department at one time, New Jersey State Police, have briefed Many dozen times at different police departments around the country.
And then the other part is the military and the U.S. intelligence community.
I've acted as an instructor at the FBI Academy.
I've also acted as an instructor for the U.S. intelligence community and many times thousands of soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors over the years I've done training for.
Okay, and can you just give us a category by category what types of things you train on?
Yes, usually one of, you know, three distinct kind of parts.
In the, especially in the beginning, during the mid-2000s, it would be on terrorists and terrorist organizations and then counterterrorism processes for investigation.
Through that, there usually was a great deal of intelligence and investigation training.
That was kind of the second component, which is how do you actually evaluate a network, how do you understand an organization, how do you understand the motives, the financing, the operations of different illicit organizations, all the way from criminal groups to extremist groups, and then nation states.
And then the third has been really over the last decade, which is about social media.
As the rise of social media has occurred, all bad actors of all categories have gone to social media to do their activity.
And by doing that, we're always trying to not only just understand, but train different people to understand how to understand what a network is doing on social media.
So to understand that somebody needs to have the technological ability to understand the connections, is that right?
Yes.
We do two versions of it.
One, sort of the bare bones, just understanding the principles of the technology.
The other is how to actually use the technology.
Okay.
And do some of these presentations last for days?
Many days.
Full weeks sometimes.
Okay, so why don't we do the, we'll do the shorter.
Yes.
So, and by the way, is there a methodology that you and your, well, let's keep it to you, that you have employed over the years in helping to figure out the four corners of how an organization operates?
Yes.
We use several different ones, you know, in terms of groups, but in terms of social media, I think relevant to here is how to advance an information campaign, which is called the 4Ms.
Okay.
So if you don't mind, I'd like you to take us through these four M's.
And Your Honor, I'd ask the witness to step down.
- I think it's the commission. - Attorney Patis to be able to see it too. - That's, if Attorney Patis could move over there, he could get a shot at this, but if I move it way back there, it's not gonna be useful.
- Well, what would you like to do, Attorney Patis?
Do you want to remain seated?
Sure.
Or we could take the morning recess now and figure it out.
I think that's a good idea.
So why don't we do that?
We'll take our coffee break, our morning recess.
Ron will be in charge of your notepads.
We'll continue to obey the rules of juror conduct, and we will resume at 11.32.
All right, take a recess.
All right, I think we're ready for our jury.
Yes, Your Honor.
Thank you.
As long as you're comfortable, you worked it out, good.
All right.
Doing my count to ten.
Council stipulates that our entire panel has returned.
Yes.
Please be seated.
Attorney Koskoff, whenever you're ready sir.
Thank you Your Honor.
You had explained something about the four M's to the jury, do you recall that?
Correct.
And the four M's, and we're going to go over them in a second, does this methodology apply to an evaluation of commercial purchases, goods, things like that?
Correct.
And these principles apply to organizations and government actors who may not be acting That's correct.
I use it to diagnose in either situation.
Okay, so they're broadly applicable, is that right?
Yes.
All right, so let's talk about these four M's and YPF would help, but I know we've got this set up.
If you wouldn't mind stepping down, I'll try to not incur the wrath of the court recorder here.
Good.
And so, first of all, can you talk about, make sure Drew can see you here.
You can turn it back to me.
And so, what are the four M's that we were discussing?
Yeah, generally we're looking for four M's to try and diagnose essentially what the information is that's coming from a person or an organization.
The four are first, the message.
So, what is the message?
What is it doing to try and engage with the audience?
Is it exciting?
Is it enraging?
And if you're trying to enrage an audience to get them to mobilize or move or shift their belief, you tend to focus on things like fear, Directing that energy, that emotion, in a way that it focuses on a specific entity or a target.
The second part is the messenger.
Hang on.
Oh, sorry.
You want to talk messaging?
Well, I do.
Sure.
I'll lay them out.
Okay.
The next is the messenger.
A messenger is what makes a message move.
Can they connect in an emotional way, in an exciting way, in an engaging way with the audience?
What are the things that they do?
So things that you look for is does the messenger create an outsized audience and how do they do that?
Do they connect by being exciting in some cases?
Charismatic or bombastic?
Do they communicate in a way that brings the audience in?
Through emotion.
This could be jumping up and down with excitement.
It could be crying or panting.
It's communicating or essentially bringing the idea of the emotion to the audience and connecting it with the message.
The next part we try to evaluate is the medium.
By medium, It is essentially the type of communication.
You might think of print for newspapers, audio for radio broadcasts, video for any sort of television broadcast, or even video on the internet.
Video is king.
Video is king because it communicates emotion in a much more dramatic way.
You can do it with others, but if you can do video and you can do it at a very high quality, Then you can essentially communicate with the audience in a repetitive way.
That's why you'll see whether it's television shows, news broadcasts, whatever it might be, they try and use a consistent format.
The format is everything from colors and logos.
Quick cutaways.
Graphics and embeds, meaning you take audio or visual from interviews, cutaways, charts, any sort of discussion that might be out of there and you can cut that in.
The medium matters because it differentiates anybody with their phone from somebody who can reach a wide audience.
The last part that we look at is the method.
Anyone can communicate one video one time in an emotional way on an emotional topic, but to do it over and over again, it's about just a few things.
One is infrastructure.
Repeating the process over and over, doing it on scale so that you hit a wide audience every day, that requires infrastructure.
The next is a process.
How do they get that information out there?
Do they just host it on one single website?
Do they use lots of websites?
Do they use lots of websites with social media?
And do they use that with other entities?
And then the last part of method that is maybe the most important is analytics.
Can the organization or entity evaluate the content that they're putting out and know whether it travels in the audience space?
If they know what travels in the audience space, then it helps them build an idea about how to repeat it.
Okay, and thank you.
By the way, what about algorithms?
Is that something?
Yes, so when I talk about analytics, analytics are essentially trying to understand the algorithms that are moving content around social media.
So, for example, in the social media space or even on the internet website, You can go through the analytics.
You'll know who touches the content in terms of their demographics.
That could be their age.
That could be their sex.
That could be, in some cases, their race or ethnicity.
You can understand where they're located geographically.
You can understand what time of day that they engage with that content.
So it helps you understand when people use that information to then go ahead and create more information like it.
Most importantly, particularly for businesses, analytics help them figure out how to sell more things.
They can see the conversion from someone engaging with a piece of content, whatever it might be, and going ahead and doing what we call a behavior change.
Changing the way they act, meaning they do something based on the information they're consuming.
It changes their belief and perception.
It could be around a product.
It could be around an idea.
And then they convert that to actual action.
In this case, with a business, it might be selling things.
If it's for a cause, it could be showing up to participate in something.
Or in the worst cases, when we look at violent groups that I've looked at over the last 20 years, it's a mobilization to violence.
That's what we look for over time.
Okay.
And so let's talk about, let's drill down a little bit on the message part of the equation.
Can you give us an example of messages that promote something like fear or anger?
Any examples that could help us understand the relationship between that and potential threats or harm?
Yeah, and a recent example over the last six months that I've worked on quite a bit, it's Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
So they use messages of fear to excite people.
When you're afraid, you tend to believe things sometimes that you would not normally believe.
It raises your survival instincts.
So in the case of Russia, they threaten nuclear war, chemical war.
Next, in terms of anger, they'll make false allegations of the Ukrainians.
Ukrainians did this, when actually maybe they did, that is to make people enraged at home in the case of Russia.
And that comes to demonization, which is, it's not just good enough to raise people's fears, it's not just good enough to make them angry, you have to direct that.
So they will make false claims about Ukrainians and package this all in one message.
Is that what you've observed recently?
Yes, last six months.
Okay, can you give us an example of a false claim that demonizes a more specific individual or individuals?
Sure.
I think in terms of the one that we're here for today, that's a large reason why we're here, which is if you demonize an individual under false pretenses, for example, if you say that they're acting or that an event didn't really occur, you anger them that they have been betrayed.
This is under false pretenses, but it makes the audience angry.
And then you strike fear in them, that it's an existential threat is what we say.
If this threat is not dealt with, Then, you as an individual will not survive.
It's a direct threat to your rights, your beliefs, whatever it might be in this cause.
I think that's why we're here today.
Well, I want to stay now more general in these general principles.
And I know you haven't done this before, but we'll get to that after we do this part of it.
But are there examples, for example, outside of general examples that you've encountered on this idea of a false narrative stirring up these kinds of motions?
Yeah, I think in the case of Ukraine, they claim that the Ukrainians are Nazis.
That stirs up emotions of World War II, for example, in Germany, which is where Russia and Germany battled during World War II. Ukraine was one of those places.
They'll claim that the Ukrainians are Nazis.
This falls apart upon inspection because they actually have a president of Jewish descent.
It is really about trying to create this conspiracy that an entire country should be demonized, really to make them angry around why they should go and support this war.
Okay.
And have they made more specific false narratives regarding citizens of Ukraine to stir up Yeah, they make false stories about children being killed.
Any time you make targeted stories about children being killed, it tends to strike at emotions.
They've done that in Ukraine repeatedly.
False stories about children being killed by Ukrainian drones.
False stories about the Ukrainians killing people as a false flag or a stunt to try and provoke the Russian aggression.
Okay.
And so you and your team will look at the message when evaluating a situation, whether it's an organization or a private company or other motives.
Were you looking for some of these motives or operations?
Correct.
We're trying to understand what's the objective of the message.
What are they trying to achieve?
Okay.
And now let's talk about the messenger.
Does the personality of the messenger matter in these analysis?
Absolutely.
In many cases, particularly in the social media era, the messenger is more important than the message oftentimes.
If you have an audience that comes to you for a message over and over again, you'll be able to push many messages because they have developed a very tight relationship with that messenger.
If they are exciting and charismatic, or if they speak in a way that communicates to the target audience, and they can do that in a repeated way, the audience will come back to them to try and ascertain what the truth might be.
Is building trust a part of an effective messenger with their audience?
Yes.
As a messenger, you want to build trust with the audience.
If you're wanting to sell a product, you need to have the trust of the audience in order to convince them to buy a product.
Or if you want to shape what they believe, you need to build trust with them as well so that they will take your version of the truth as a messenger into that audience space.
And does the degree to which a messenger builds trust with a messenger's audience, no matter how many millions of people those are, factor into the effectiveness of, for example, selling products?
Absolutely.
That's why you'll see oftentimes that if a company is trying to sell a product, they will have testimonials from messengers or people that have used the product.
That is trying to build a trusted relationship.
Or they'll do it for experts of various different types that might relate to a product.
So if it's a healthcare product, they might have a doctor.
If it's a car mechanic, they'll probably be talking about auto parts.
And just going back to demonization, you talked about talking about an example of Russia.
We're telling false narratives about mothers killing children or something like that?
Yes.
Does that have...
Your Honor, if there's an objection...
- Yes. - We're done with the chart.
Can I get back to my date?
No, I'm not done with the chart.
I don't think it's appropriate to have to understand this sort of lecture people for 20, 30, 40 minutes.
Well, I'd prefer to be in my seat, but I'm not going to make an issue of humility at a trial.
I'm not going to do that.
I've used charts for $25.
I know, just the configuration of the corner.
So how long do you think he'll be?
10 minutes?
No case says he can't do it.
I'd prefer to get back to it.
I know.
It's easier.
Well, how about this?
As soon as you're running, have him set.
Yeah, I know.
No problem.
Is your right?
I'm going to do it.
I'll make do it.
I'll make do it.
Okay.
Thank you for bearing with us with the sidebars.
It really is so much quicker than having to Okay, so we were getting back to where we were.
We were talking about demonization.
When somebody's demonized, a person or a group of people, have you studied and do you have expertise in how that exposes that person to potential harassment, threats, and physical harm?
Yes.
Can you describe that to the jury?
Yeah, I think the reference that is most applicable in this case is a terrorist named Amwar al-Aki.
He was really the first of al-Qaeda's leaders to go to the social media space in a very large way.
He was able to demonize Americans, but he also communicated with the audience, and he would not only just say these are his beliefs, but he would try and communicate to the audience about what they might do, which we call a call to action.
Something you should consider doing.
Amwar al-Aki would say, rather than coming and joining Al-Qaeda, you should stay at home in the United States and attack other Americans at home.
What the result was is this messenger, by building that communication and that connection with the American audience, was able to, what we would say, recruit people at a distance.
He planted the seed.
Others would see that.
They would try and communicate back with him as the leader, seeking guidance or targeting specifics.
Then he would either condone or say, "Yes, this is something that you might pursue." That's a lot of information.
How do you ...
First of all, the gentleman's name again?
Anwar Aliki.
Aliki.
Okay.
Is this something you have personal experience with evaluating?
Yes.
Can you just tell the jury about it?
Yes.
I would evaluate the videos that would be out in the online environment.
This is something anybody can see from their home at the time.
And then I would evaluate what the audience response to that would be.
So how much does that message show up out in the information space?
How much does the audience take that message and then re-amplify it in the audience space?
And then how many people actually call, comment, or say, we should do something as he is instructed, or this is a signal for me to do something.
Aleki.
Aleki, he was affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Yes.
And tell me if you can't tell me this.
Yeah.
But did you study this organization?
Yes I studied it but this was Al-Qaeda writ large during my different stints at the FBI but also on separate projects which were totally unclassified and open source things that you could see from your house as well.
Now, do successful television personalities also carry characteristics of being effective messengers?
They have to.
You will not be successful in television if you're not an effective messenger.
And you'll oftentimes even hear the phrase, you know, meant for television or meant for radio, meaning that they have some sort of characteristic about how they communicate that makes them particularly good at communicating in whatever that medium might be.
So in this case, so there are ways in which effective messengers use their platform in a way that doesn't promote harm or manipulation of others?
That's correct.
Okay.
And doesn't promote exploitation of customers by certain means?
Correct.
Products?
Okay.
And so now let's talk a little bit about media.
You talked about video.
I think you said video is king.
Describe that to the jury.
If you want to communicate with an audience, particularly in the social media era, video gets seen more often than things get read.
It's much more easy for an audience to come onto video content and consume it.
Second, it's a much more immersive experience.
If you watch a video, you can understand all of the dimensions of it as opposed to just simply reading or just simply listening.
You can do all of those things.
You can sense a motion.
You can see a motion.
You can see hand gestures.
You can see the contours of people's faces.
This also allows you to do other things like cutaways or speeding up or slowing down video or cutting away to different graphics.
So think of a radio show where they're trying to describe something that they see.
It's much more difficult, but if you're an audience member consuming video, you can see what the person is talking about.
You can see what they're pointing to.
Much like now, this is much tougher for me to communicate to you if you can't actually see this chart.
And so video is effective in influencing behavior.
Yes, it's all the non-verbal cues that you can see.
And can a manipulation of a video also trigger fear, anger, demonization of human beings?
Yes, it allows for demonization for you to actually pick the target and show what the target is.
In terms of anger, if you can change or manipulate video or cut it short or extend it long, slow the speed down, or even change the way that it's framed, all of that can change your understanding or make you more angry than what the video might actually be.
So for example, slowing down into slow motion, very slow motion, So, for example, slowing down in very slow motion the speech or the address of a grieving father in the aftermath of his son's death, that can be used to promote a false narrative.
Is that right?
Correct.
It can change what the context of the event is.
Understand what actually happened.
And that can be done for, and what is the, is that sometimes then done to stoke fear, anger, demonization of the target?
Correct.
You can use any of those techniques in video to change the context of people's understanding, their perception of what actually occurred.
And when you are using these emotions, fear, anger, demonization against a target, does that expose the target to increased risk of harm?
It does.
If they have used information to change people's beliefs or perceptions, it will lead them at times to pursue harms against a target.
If someone's been demonized, they could be the target of something under circumstances where the factual understanding, the real reality of what actually happened is changed, which leads them to do things they might not already consider, meaning they heard a call to action They were told that something occurred because of a reason that is false.
They may undertake an action because of that.
And have you observed and examined how these types of narratives lead to harassment in an online community?
Absolutely.
The range is everything from, you know, harms against children.
It can be involved in terms of criminal activity, mobilizing people to target an individual under false pretenses.
Governments, foreign governments against the United States have used it to actually try and convince people of things that aren't true, to build anger within a population.
And then I think the one over, consistently through my career, is extremist.
Meaning that terrorist groups use this sort of information manipulation and make people angry to pursue things as a target.
So now we got message, messenger, media.
So as far as these three are concerned, can you tell us whether the more powerful and the message is conveying fear, anger, demonization?
The more exciting, charismatic, bombastic, emotionally driven, the messenger, and the more effective the medium, video, the branding, what does that say?
Graphics.
Cutaways.
Graphics, cutaways, and embedding of other media inside.
Okay.
And the more that saturates the public, the greater the potential for things like harassment, threats?
Correct.
Okay.
And in terms of method, can you tell us about method?
Yeah, method is what distinguishes those with outside influence from those that just have a message one time, or a messenger one time.
So you can think through any organization that communicates in the media on any given day.
They have infrastructure, they have the tools, and they have the manpower to actually build the content.
Not only build the content, but host it.
Not only host the content, but to disseminate it to a wide audience.
Separately, they have a process for doing that, which increases the speed at which they can communicate.
So if you wanted to react, let's say, to an incident, and you wanted to do it in video, and you were by yourself, and you had to do all of those parts, content creation, editing, Hosting.
Hosting, sharing, and distribution.
That's very difficult to do without a dedicated process and a team to do it.
And the last part is analytics.
If you want to be prolific over time and sustain your audience engagement, you have to understand what your audience likes.
You'll remember over the many decades of television, they have ratings.
Ratings determine what kind of content that different television programs or networks would want to host.
Based on those ratings, that's the shows that stay and endure, and poor ratings lead to shows that don't stay on and don't endure.
And can you just spend a little more time on what you mean by, I think you said, proliferation over time.
What role does that play in evaluating the efficacy of a structure like this?
Yeah, so if you want to change someone's belief or sell products and services over time, there are really three factors.
Do you want to flip it over?
Sure.
It's solid, so I can write it at the top.
I'm pretty strong.
Not that strong.
So when I'm evaluating with a team how prolific a network would be, I'm looking for three One is volume.
Volume is nothing more than the total amount of content created by a messenger or the organization that's working with the messenger.
Next is reach.
Reach is about the audience, as in how many people actually saw the content.
So I'll just jot a note here.
Reach is about audience.
Volume is about content creator.
And the last one is time.
And what is the role of time here as you're using it?
Time is important for changing people's perceptions or beliefs or selling large volumes of whatever your product might be.
Because if you can do it over time, your results will be that more dramatic.
People tend to believe that which they see the most, meaning that which is created by a content creator in high volumes, that which they're exposed to in high volumes, and that which occurs over the largest period of time.
In terms of influencing human behavior, so time works, what does that mean in terms of that part of it?
So time is essentially the longer you hear about something, the more likely you are to believe that you need to buy it, lease it, rent it, if it's a product, or that it changes your perceptions about reality.
If you're hearing it over and over again, audiences tend to challenge and ask themselves, well, if I keep hearing it, then it must be true.
It creates the inverse.
This has long been part of advertising, which is how much advertising do you do, how much do people see it, and how long do you endure with your campaign?
So if somebody puts out one statement, or let's say somebody puts out one false narrative at one point in time, can that do significant harm in and of itself?
It can, but it has to reach a large audience.
Okay.
And if somebody repeats that over time, as an expert in this, does that increase the risk exponentially?
Yes.
Okay.
Does that also increase the efficacy of, for example, sales exponentially?
Correct.
Okay.
So, I just, there's another part to this.
I just want to get this done.
Judge, thank you.
I'm sorry, I was just going to, maybe just another bit of time here with a chart and we'll get you back on the stand.
So, we've got to talk, can you just now talk about social media, the internet?
Yes.
Some people call it interwebs, the whole, and what their role is and what your experience is with that.
So, the internet, Just at a high level, has really undergone two generations.
The first generation is, I'll just call it the World Wide Web, which came about in the 1990s and really extended to about the mid-2000s.
The World Wide Web was a pull system, meaning you had to pull content.
You had to find it.
And that's why you'll see oftentimes a magnifying glass when you go to the internet to search because you're trying to find content and then pull it to you.
This was largely just internet websites that posted content there.
Users would go, they either went direct to the website and typed it into the The search bar, or they went to a search engine that you might be familiar with.
Google, Bing, Yahoo, different search engines which then help you find the content so that you can pull that to you.
The next era, which is really the second decade of the internet, is social media.
Social media, as I mentioned earlier, which I started focusing on it, really started in the mid-2000s.
I like to use 2005. That was when I started being exposed to social media in terms of YouTube.
And that was different because now you had internet websites, which I'll draw here, where users can still pull content.
But now we had new social media websites that started up.
I'll just name some of them.
There are many of them now.
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter.
There are many others.
When this occurred, it allowed all of us as Internet users to create our own persona, our own identity on the Internet.
And that changed how everything worked.
Because instead of just pulling We could then subscribe to content, and internet websites could post their content on each of these platforms.
And when they do, your friends, your followers, your coworkers, everybody you know on a social media site, everyone that you friend, they can now push content to you, which is different.
So as a consumer, you can Have content pushed to you.
You can then also go and pull content from websites here, and then they can then repurpose, regenerate, and create content.
The key parts of social media are, one, it's a push system where content gets delivered to you, but not always by the creator of the content.
It could be somebody that you know.
In this period, you find the content.
in the social media era the content finds you and has the social media you were in the trenches so to speak in this area of evaluating networks Networks and the advent of social media.
When social media was coming to its current state, right?
Correct.
And can you tell us what, if anything, that is done to the ability to disrupt disinformation and demonization and fear and anger and those kinds of things?
It makes it much harder.
If you had just an internet website, just the internet, think of it as your home address in the digital world, people had to come to it to get things.
To pull it.
Nowadays, in the social media era, people can push it to each other.
So even if this part went away, it's still hosted on those social media platforms.
The social media platforms can then be subscribed to or viewed.
It becomes much, much harder because the content creation becomes exponential, meaning it's not just one to one, one piece of content, one share.
Now it's one to hundreds.
It can take off on a life of its own.
You or I as users can take that content, clip it out, screenshot it, talk about it.
We can send that to other people that we know.
That creates an additional and just massive amount of distribution of content over time.
So if an individual or an organization Or a corporation, for example, like Infowars, had effective messaging, an effective messenger, an effective medium, and an infrastructure, an effective method.
Does social media help those types of organizations expand exponentially their message?
Absolutely.
If it's an effective message that engages with the audience, in the second era, when the social media era came to bank, the audience can then be a redistributor of that content.
And so the audience becomes effectively a second messenger?
That's right.
You can enlist the audience as additional messengers.
Over time, if you wanted to use the 4Ms and you were trying to reach a wider and wider audience, for whatever your reason might be, you want to engage your audience in such a way that they also redistribute your content.
They recruit other messengers that support what you are saying, whether it's about a product or it's about a belief system.
Above that, you can receive information, tips and leads, or even donations or sales to help propel your infrastructure and your organization.
All of those things help you sustain over time, and the more you can sustain, the more you can grow your audience.
The more you grow your audience, the more you can challenge them and push your belief system on them.
The more they change their beliefs, the more likely they are to undertake actions in the real world.
And so can you trace certain false narratives?
Is there a ground zero?
If there was an effective message, effective messenger, and effective medium with an infrastructure of deep roots going back to, say, 9-11 and tens of millions of listeners, that individual can affect secondary, tertiary, and what's for?
Four.
It can infect everything down the line, correct?
Correct.
And but for that All these things, that narrative may never take hold, correct?
Correct.
This is what distinguishes an outsized influence, a messenger with enormous reach and enormous volume from just you or I or anybody who just holds up their phone and disseminates a message.
Anyone can say a message, but does anyone hear it?
Anyone can be a messenger, but does anyone pay attention?
Anyone can produce content, but if it's not done well, if it's not done in a gripping and emotional way with video, it's probably not going to go very far.
Just ask yourself, how many videos do you watch compared to how much you read?
And last, if you can't repeat it over and over again, if you don't have the method down in terms of content creation, distribution, assessing what the effectiveness of it is, you won't endure over time.
You'll largely be forgotten in the modern information space.
And in peddling a false narrative, do effective messengers utilize others, for example, for roles as experts or anything like that?
Yes.
Whether it's a true or false piece of information and you're trying to expand the reach of that audience over time, or you want to lend credibility or presume credibility to a false message, you would enlist other messengers.
What would you look for?
You would look for descriptors that would help add credence to it.
So maybe it's a school safety officer or somebody who worked as a professor or an institution.
You would add those messengers there because they seem to have some sort of context related to whatever the message is.
And just one more question before I ask you to resume the stand, which is, can you tell us and the jury what role, if any, building loyalty and trust between a messenger and an audience of potentially tens of millions plays in this whole scheme?
If you are pushing false information into an information system, if there is no rebuttal, meaning the audience comes directly to that messenger and they believe everything is truth, if there is no rebuttal, then there's nowhere For the truth to creep into the audience.
Meaning it's impossible for them to consider an alternative explanation for something if they can't see it whatsoever.
And once a person's developed a belief in something, even if it's false, what do you know of anything about whether or not people can be moved off even false beliefs?
What do you know of anything?
I think it goes to his...
Sorry.
Yeah, you talked about rebuttal.
Like, what do you know, if anything, about how if somebody believes something, really believes something, that no matter, are there any facts?
I mean, does that make it hard?
Oof!
Let me start this again.
Have you had experience in learning about how human behavior of people who fully believe something is false, and whether or not Rebuttal, contradictory facts, other evidence moves people off their original position?
No.
It's really about availability.
In terms of an audience, people tend to believe what they hear first, that's speed.
What they hear the most, that's really in terms of method and volume.
That which comes from a trusted messenger, which is building a loyal audience that comes back all the time and hearing no rebuttal or no challenge to that information.
So if that happens over and over again, even if there is a rebuttal, but it's only one, and meanwhile, there are 100 falsehoods spread about an individual, an entity, or an organization, people will have to waive the body of evidence of which they heard.
So 100 to 1, it's really about availability of information.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
You can resume the stand.
Thank you.
Thank you.
prior to December 14th.
2012. Okay?
Okay.
And you are familiar Through your extensive analysis of this case with that infrastructure?
Yes.
And you studied how many infrastructures of different organizations over the years?
Dozens.
OK. And can you tell the jury about, in general terms, just about the infrastructure of InfoWars?
Give us some scale and context.
Infowars is what we would call an ecosystem, which includes the internet and social media.
Over the course of what we reviewed, it involved several different websites, Infowars.com being the principal one that draws the largest amount of traffic, PrisonPlanet.tv being another one that drew sizable amounts of traffic, and it hosted content in nearly all forms, video, audio, and print.
Separately, over the course of all of this period that we evaluate.
Just to be clear, we're just talking about prior to December 14, 2012. Correct.
And the reason that I'm just asking, you talked about how infrastructure plays a role in influence in this whole analysis The greater, more secure the infrastructure, the more effective the message and the influence?
Yes.
Okay.
And so, we're just talking now before 2012, you know, what was the, how entrenched, what was the soil of the infrastructure at Alex Jones Enterprises?
It was a website with a select group or a few social media handles.
Principally, they had YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Now, YouTube and Facebook and Twitter weren't always available, is that right?
Correct.
So can you tell us a little bit about Infowars and Alex Jones prior to the advent of the social media platform?
I would say the first decade of Infowars, it was about Infowars, the website Infowars.com.
And did they use video?
Granted, it may not have been as technologically feasible, but did they use video to promote narratives?
Correct.
Okay.
And over the course of over a decade, did InfoWars and Alex Jones build a dedicated loyal following?
Which decade, Judge?
The decade before?
The 2000s.
Yeah, sorry.
The decade before the Sandy Hook shooting.
Yes.
By the time they're standing shooting, InfoWars built an audience of tens of millions?
Yes.
Okay, and how do you know that?
I reviewed the Google Analytics data that was provided.
I looked at past iterations in Alexa ranks that were offered from the materials turnover as part of the case.
Okay, so you did receive some Google Analytics.
Correct.
Okay.
And from what you could ascertain, you could say that Infoysa developed an audience of tens of millions?
Yes.
Okay.
And so in terms of infrastructure and the efficacy of a message and a campaign, what role does that play?
It sets up a stage where they can repeat the development of content in an ongoing way, which continues to bring consumers of that information day after day.
And is that, would it matter then if the first day that Alex Jones went on the air was on December 14, 2012, would it have been an effective, how would that have affected?
Yeah, his message would not have been heard because he wouldn't have had time to build an audience.
That's that time factor?
Yes.
And does it take time to build trust in an audience?
Yes.
Okay.
And in terms of the, we'll just show what this looks like in numbers.
We talked about learning some information from Google Analytics to the extent that it was available, correct?
Correct.
Okay, so let's just show the jury in numbers what we're talking about.
Oh, that's small.
That's, well, that's the, you know.
Just for setting the record, Judge, we're looking at 120.
Yeah, so this is the front page.
I guess this is rec, this is exhibit 120.
Is that a full exhibit?
120 is a full exhibit, Your Honor.
Thank you.
2010 must be another great exhibit.
But can we go to Google Analytics and show the jury the analytics from 2012?
So, there we go.
And if you could just sort of maybe blow up the year totals.
Oops.
Oh, now I can do columns.
Okay, so let's go to the top to orient on the columns first.
So Sessions, is it some measurement of how well they're doing with their audience or engaging their audience?
Yes, that's the number of times a user comes to the website.
All right.
I'm going to need this.
All right.
So we're on 2012.
Sorry, Judge, I turned my back on.
No, I'm worried about Attorney Patis, not myself.
You're okay with that, Attorney Patis?
Not yet.
You know, if we're reading Patterson, I can just move it all over there.
There you go.
Is that good?
It is.
Okay.
I'm going to try to, I'll write large ears.
I'm fine.
2012 sessions, Okay,
So sessions in 2012, 119,107, of course everybody can read it, but 107,058, right?
Is that correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Now we have something called users, and that is 49,029.
Correct.
313. And then we have page views.
And that is 286 million.
I'm just going to round it up because I'm running out of space.
Is that that right?
Yes.
Okay.
Now, this was, for the most part, this is the infrastructure that was in place At the time of the Sandy Hook shooting on December 14, 2012, is that correct?
Yes.
Okay.
So, can you just, as somebody who's studied networks and spheres of influence, It's extremely large.
Compared to other organizations or entities that I've looked at, to achieve...
I think the middle number is the one to focus on the 49 million.
To achieve 49 million users in any given year is a massive audience.
Was there anybody operating in Alex Jones' sphere of influence, to your knowledge, having studied this, that came remotely close?
No.
I'm sure there was what would be mainstream sort of television channels or something that might have that.
ESPN would have many more, for example, I would guess.
But no, I'm not familiar with others.
Okay.
And in certain fact, we'll look at media kits.
You used to review media kits?
Yes.
And you've seen how he, Alex Jones, compares to what was presented as his competition.
Correct.
And he was on top by far, correct?
He was.
All right, now, in terms of, so this is now, is it, does this, did these numbers primarily capture what the 2000, primarily capture the audience prior to Sandy Hook, given that Sandy Hook happened in the last two weeks of December?
Yes.
Okay.
Now let's go to 2013. A hundred and seventy-nine, 324, 958, right?
Yes.
How are your math?
I went to West Point.
I can do it.
And can you give us a ballpark of that increase?
Over one year that would be roughly 70,000 divided by 17, so a sizable number.
You're talking about a sizable increase in audience, more than 50%.
It would be more than 50% audience share.
And then users goes from 49,000, sorry, 49 million to 73,237,164?
Correct.
Another approximate bottom of 50%?
About 50%, yes.
Okay.
And then page views, 427. That's actually another almost exactly 50%, right?
Correct.
It's slightly larger, but page views is the function of that multiple of pages per session, 2.39.
So prior to the city of shooting, you were telling us about how outsized an audience he had, right, how large his reach was.
Correct.
And how engaged they were with his presence online.
Yes.
And did that already sizable audience increase by approximately 50% according to Google Analytics?
Yes.
In the year after?
In one year.
Yes.
50%.
Now, I'm not sure.
Now, the jury has seen some videos of Alex Jones.
We're not going to show all of these videos.
So, first of all, to your knowledge, does this first of all, to your knowledge, does this cover the entire operation of Alex Jones Incorporated, or is it specifically limited to Infowars?
It's, the way I understand this chart, based on looking at it here, it's just based on Infowars, the website.
So, this doesn't capture Facebook?
No.
It doesn't capture YouTube or Twitter or Reddit or?
No.
It might capture, potentially redirects off of those, but it doesn't capture all the views of that content on other platforms.
Okay.
But the 2012 numbers and the 2013 numbers, those are apples to apples, infowars to infowars?
Correct.
Okay.
So it would be reasonable to say that the corresponding platforms also increased the situation.
Okay, so in terms of the video, I do want to show you It's
one that may have been edited.
I've not had a chance to see it.
It's the same.
It's just a different...
I can take a five minute break.
Would you like that?
Because I need five minutes.
It's an order.
It's an order.
All right.
So we are going to take a five minute break.
And Ron will bring you back.
And I'll see you in five minutes.
One more time.
Which is fine.
You need a little more time?
No, not on the issue here.
You sure?
Sure.
Sir, do you need more?
No, I'm good.
That's what we just had.
Yes, that's it.
So you save those first.
If I just save it.
If you're 2.0.
Yeah, no, I know.
I've done.
So why don't you just consider.
I think we've got an agreement, Judge.
Very well.
So we're ready for the jury?
Let me just make sure we're ready.
Okay.
Okay.
Ron.
So what happens?
So we have one.
Yes.
You remind me about the call.
So if they say yes, let me know that.
We're going to have one.
Yes.
So they have it.
Yes.
Yes.
They have the link it for them.
Correct.
Correct.
And they have the link that was there.
Okay.
We need to have that. - Yes.
We'll make sure.
Okay.
Here.
All right.
I think the issue was the 2.0 group.
I didn't know if this was new material.
It turns out to be simply an excerpt from something already admitted.
Is it all queued up?
Are you ready for them to come out, or do you need another minute?
Yes.
My apologies for confusing things, Judge.
Yes, we need another minute or yes, we're ready to...
Oh, sorry.
Speaking of...
I think we're good.
Yay.
Good?
Okay.
Thanks, Ron.
Whose phone is this?
Still just want to go to one o'clock, remember?
not with standing in the bridge we just said.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our entire panel is back.
Please be seated and whenever you're ready to turn across.
Thank you very much, Your Honor.
Mr. Watts, I'd like to show the jury and you a video that the jury's actually already seen, but ask you some questions about it.
And just to set it up, your understanding that the Sandy Hook shooting began at around 9.30, ended around 9.35, something like that?
Correct.
Okay.
And...
I want you to assume that Alex Jones, within three hours, had put together a show for Infowars that day, okay?
Yes.
And aired it then?
Yes.
All right, and the jury's seen this, but I want to show it to you.
Hang on one second.
Okay, 1E.
This is the first video by Alex Jones following the shooting.
They have hit the ground running in a buildup.
And I said, this is the attack.
Look, people have to find the clips the last two months.
I said, they are launching attacks.
They're getting ready.
I can see them warming up with Obama.
They've got a bigger majority in the Congress now in the Senate.
They are going to come after our guns, look for mass shootings.
And then magically it happens.
They are coming.
They are coming.
They are coming. - Thanks.
You see that video before?
Yes.
I want to ask you about When you're teaching other agents and investigators how to look into networks, tell me about message.
Can you tell us what, if anything, Alex Jones is employing here that is in furtherance of what you've described in the jury?
It's fear over loss of weapons, which he uses as the justification.
He stokes anger by repeating that it was some sort of a plot, and he uses demonization by picking the target for his message, as in what the perpetrator is, or an existential threat to what they are behind, which in this case he says is taking weapons.
And in your career in intelligence and counterterrorism and the investigation of financial institutions, is this something you've seen before?
Yes.
He talks about they.
They are coming, they are coming, they are coming.
What, if anything, what is the significance of that, if anything, in terms of its influence on an audience?
It characterizes the situation as two parties, us versus them, and that there is some sort of pending or current conflict that's underway.
And is it, he doesn't, does he, in this case, identify who they were, is that right?
Correct.
He mentioned political figures at different times, but they is amorphous in the grand scheme of the video.
And what is the value of anything about designating they versus being more specific about who a message Using broad-based terms like they allows over time, if you're going to message over time, to encapsulate a larger audience under that pronoun.
And does it help stoke division, demonization, and anger and fear?
Yes, it communicates to the audience that it's you or us versus them or they.
And does it help cement the bond between...
This is all leading, Judge.
What, if anything, does it do to the relationship between the messenger, in this case, Alex Jones, and his tens of millions of an audience?
When communicated, particularly on social media, it creates a community around this identity.
Okay.
And in any way does that affect the efficacy of, for example, pitching products?
If you can identify with a product or a service or it's part of what you believe your larger community or social circle is with, you're more enticed to actually acquire that product.
Okay.
And I'd like to now show the rest of...
Oh, let me ask you a couple more questions.
Well, actually, let's show you the rest of the clip first.
They've already taken over healthcare.
The premiums are doubling.
They're bankrupting that.
They already shipped GM to China.
They are gonna gut this country.
They're gonna shut down the power plants.
They're gonna bankrupt us.
They are re-educating us.
Just like we were Ukrainians, and they're Russians.
They want us bankrupt.
They want the counties, and the cities bankrupted and federalized.
Defends themselves run by globalists.
What does the new magazine say?
You can get it by subscribing.
You can get 12 issues.
This man wants your guns.
And I break down here, they're declaring war on the Second Amendment period.
They are declaring war on the Second Amendment period.
They are coming after our Second Amendment.
It is happening.
They want to kill America in 2013.
That is their goal.
That is what they want.
They are moving to do it.
Send your tips to Real Alex Jones on Twitter.
Tell me what you think.
Comment in the articles.
I'll be reading what you're saying.
We'll have more reports Sunday, 4 to 6, and more reports tonight on 9 to 7 o'clock, PrisonPlanet.tv.
Okay, so in terms of the they again, you piece of they, are we any more clear about who the they are?
No.
And what are globalists?
It's basically a large broad-based term that there is some sort of a global empire.
It's never well defined and oftentimes characters move in and out of what is seen as globalist or belief in a global system.
Okay, and this would have been within about two or three hours of the shooting and is Alex Jones selling a product here as well?
Yes, he offers subscriptions to the magazine during the broadcast.
And what if any is the significance of him offering something for sale and for profit as he is sending a message of they are coming and they're going to take your guns and so forth?
He's communicating that if you want to understand the phenomenon which he's talking about, it's a fear-based message based on anger and resentment and demonizing a population, them.
The way to understand that is through his subscription.
Okay.
And he says, Colin, with your tips or something, did I introduce you?
Correct.
And can you describe what that does in this ecosystem of influence?
If you rely on your audience to also provide you tips, it allows for them to become part of what's going on.
They become part of the production.
It also at times can lead to rewards.
Sometimes it's fame.
They can be elevated in terms of status in their community.
They could be put on air with Alex Jones or interviewed.
Or they could receive things in terms of even a job or monetary compensation potentially.
And is that one of the ways in which Commercial enterprises might engage somebody to make a purchase they might not otherwise make?
Yes.
Okay.
And what, if anything, does that do to the relationship between the messenger and the audience?
It creates a system where there's some sort of incentive to engage, meaning that if there's a call out there to provide tips or to do something, a call to action, it enables the audience to become part of the story or, in some cases, to become part of the infrastructure.
And from time to time, through your evaluation of the evidence in this case, does Alex Jones take those tips and promote them to his tens of millions of listeners?
Yes, it increases the messages and the messengers.
Okay.
And does Alex Jones operate as a kind of a hub for promoting...
Never mind.
All right, so...
We were talking about the importance of reach.
Do you remember that?
And volume.
Yes.
And I want to show you some information.
One of the things that you were provided, weren't you, were something called media kits?
Correct.
And if we could pull up 216. It is a full exhibit.
but the jury's seen parts of this and what is a media kit a media kit is something you would distribute to potential advertisers or or entities that might want to do sales you know buy with or through your website your platform
Now, if we could turn to, and this was a media kit that was put out, sorry, by, if you go up to upper left, Alex Jones Infowars Free Speech Systems, correct?
Correct.
And if you go to the first page, it's page 1286. There we go.
Go ahead of me.
That's Alex Jones in a pensive shot.
Is that right?
It appears so.
Okay.
And if you back up to see the headline, it says, the house that Truth built, do you know whether that's a play on words on the house that Ruth built, Yankee Stadium?
Yes, it could be.
Sounds familiar.
About a Yankee fan.
All right.
And is borrowing from popular culture one of the things that influencers do like this to get their message out?
It is.
It helps the audience identify with the content.
Right.
Okay.
So a baseball fan who might know what this term would mean might be drawn more to this gentleman.
Objection, Judge?
I would try.
I would try.
This says that Meet Free Speech Systems, LLC owner, documentary filmmaker, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, Alex Towns, correct?
Yes.
Alright.
So, what if anything does promoting documentary film, what is the purpose of that?
It both spreads the message that a documentary filmmaker wants to make, and it also can increase sales if it's for sale.
And if I'm not mistaken, a feature film is a fictionalized account?
Yes.
And a documentary is...
What is a documentary?
It tries to account for something that happened in the real world.
Okay.
So it covers something that's true, actually happened?
Correct.
Okay.
And if we can go to the second page of that, or the bottom, sorry.
Excuse me.
And you've reviewed this media kit before?
Yes.
And this says, topping the charts, kings of their domains.
And what does that refer to?
It means, the way I understand it, that the platforms of free speech systems are at the top of the charts.
And in terms of domains, that's websites.
Domains usually refers to a website.
Okay.
And by the way, what is the purpose of a media kit like this?
It's to entice people to either broadcast or advertise.
If it's a radio show, you might want to increase your syndication.
If it's a website, it might be a way to re-host or sell products and services.
So this is something that's used for commercial purposes to make money?
Yes.
And to increase the bottom line?
Yes, it's promotional.
Okay.
And when it comes to promoting Infowars to advertisers, Infowars promoted their numbers, correct?
Correct.
And do you understand that those numbers came from...
Do you understand whether...
Sorry, I'll rephrase it.
Do you understand whether those numbers came from Google Analytics that they've told the court and jury that they didn't use?
Okay, let me rephrase that.
Do you understand whether those numbers come from Google Analytics that they claim not to have ever used?
Objection, compound, argumentative, leading.
Did I get it?
Why don't we rephrase the question?
Do you understand whether those numbers that they are using to promote their product to potential advertisers to increase their bottom line come from Google Analytics?
Based on what I'm reading, I believe those to be Google Analytics numbers at the top and Alexa ranks in terms of the rankings.
Okay.
So based on the evidence you've received, this would support To bring money in, InfoWars use Google Analytics?
Yes.
Okay.
Now, in terms of InfoWars' relationship to other, what do you call these things?
Websites, I guess, right?
Correct.
Okay.
And InfoWars and Prison Planet, what is Prison Planet to your understanding?
It's just another website from the network of websites that they run.
Okay, so it's like a sister website?
Yes.
It's also referred to as a mere sister website.
By the way, in terms of the infrastructure you're talking about and the reach, what does this tell you about that infrastructure as of the time of the San Diego shooting?
That they had redundancy in their system, meaning they could host content on one or more places, and they could host the same content in two different places or more.
Okay.
To what value is that of a for-profit company like InfoWars?
It creates redundancy.
Just like you would have a backup generator in your house for electricity, it allows you to have multiple websites so that if hosting went down on one website, you'd still have one that was up that people could access.
And does it provide a different doorway to the information?
It does.
You could create varied content, potentially for different audiences, depending on what the analytics were.
At the same point, it just gives you multiple domains that you can operate.
And Prison Planet, well, InfoWars, according to this chart, shows it standing out from the grass.
Is that right?
Yes.
And do you know why they put these particular networks up or websites up in this media kit?
I would imagine, although...
If you don't know, you don't know.
I don't know specifically.
I have thoughts.
That's fine.
And Prison Planet itself was comparable, it looks like, or actually beating out Rush Limbaugh.
Okay.
Let me rephrase it.
According to this chart, was Prison Planet beating Rush Limbaugh itself?
Yes.
Okay.
And we went through this the other day, but are you familiar with Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax, and WND? Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax, yes.
I've heard of WND. Okay.
And who is or was Rush Limbaugh?
He was a very successful conservative radio broadcaster.
And was he, in his day, very controversial?
He was controversial at times.
Okay.
And did you and your team evaluate whether or not Rush Limbaugh ever manufactured or passed any false narratives about these Sammy Huff families being actors?
Well, I did look, but no, I saw no evidence of that.
What about Glenn Breck?
Is he also a controversial, what do you call him, personality?
Yes, he was on television and he does radio and internet broadcasts.
He's sometimes known to be controversial.
Was Glenn Beck on the air within three hours talking about cover-ups and using staging and shooting to grab people's guns?
Not that I'm aware of.
Did Glenn Beck ever manufacture or give weight to any opinions of others that question or accuse these families of being actors?
No, not that I'm aware of.
How about Newsmax?
Newsmax, what is Newsmax?
It's a news website broadcasting.
Was Newsmax on the air within three hours questioning the motives of Sandy Hook?
Not that I'm aware.
Was Newsmax on the air within three hours questioning?
Not that I'm aware.
hours stoking fear, anger, and demonization?
No, not that I'm aware.
We can break here for lunch if that works.
Thank you, Your Honor.
Okay, so we will take our one-hour lunch break.
You'll continue, of course, to strictly obey those rules of juror conduct.
In particular, make sure you avoid any media, anyone associated with this case.
Ron will safeguard your notebooks.
And we will start promptly at 2 p.m., so please make sure you get back around five minutes up, okay?
Okay, take the recess.
- All right.
- Ron, do we need more water in the picture? - Is there water in that picture, sir?
There is.
I'm good.
Thank you.
Welcome back.
Hope everyone had a nice lunch break.
Thank you.
I feel like the paper caps are on at school.
All right.
Council stipulate that the entire panel has returned?
Yes.
Please be seated.
Put yourself situated there.
May inquire.
Turn the fast off whenever you're ready to resume.
Thank you, Judge Bellis.
You're welcome.
Good afternoon, Mr. Watts.
Continued afternoon.
So when we broke, we were going over some of the numbers.
Do you recall that?
Yes.
You told us that the reach, sorry, that the part of the methodology in assessing the influence of an operation like Infowars is measuring the reach, right?
Correct.
And the audience and the engagement in the audience, things like that, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
And media kits, I think you said, were a way to promote essentially why an advertiser should pay, in this case, Infowars money to advertise on their site, correct?
Correct.
Okay.
And so if we could pull up Media Kit, again, this is Exhibit 216, sorry, the 2014 Media Kit.
All right.
I think we talked about those.
Remember, we talked about kings of their domains topping the charts, and we went over numbers, at least as it relates to the other, you know, I guess this other websites, correct?
Correct.
Alright, and if we look at, on the upper left it says InfoWars, over 19 million visitors per month, correct?
Yes.
Let's just get that nice and big.
Oh, that's good.
How did it go smaller?
Oh there, that's good.
Over 19 million visitors per month, over 7 million unique visitors per month, and 40 million paid views per month, correct?
Correct.
And those were 2014 numbers?
Yes.
Can we back up?
And the jury will have this, I think I mentioned this is Exhibit 216. And this is their sister site, is that right?
Yes.
I think you said that the purpose of something like this was for redundancy?
It is often for redundancy, just that if one website were to have malfunctions or go down, you'd have different places where people can find your content.
And is creating a redundant website the kind of thing that a company It suggests sophistication in terms of its method,
which I talked about earlier, in terms of its infrastructure, the size and scale of its infrastructure, and also in terms of its process, how they go about uploading content to the Internet so that they can reach the widest audience potentially.
I think that's why you see the two different categories here in this document.
Okay.
Now let's go to just, we're giving a flavor of the reach and the audience and influence to 260, sorry, Media Kit 217. And this is the 2016 Media Kit, correct?
Correct.
Can we go to page one?
Still the house that Truth built, a different picture?
uh it is okay and uh and what is the significance of any of this withdrawn in your evaluation the evidence did you see uh info wars and how it promoted whether it was a news agency or whether or something else i think it was trying to demonstrate its reach by showing all of the outlets that you see there on the left okay and was is truth here expressed and sorry Okay, we'll go to this.
And what is...
Can you just back out to you guys?
Sorry.
And here, Alec, any value to the idea that...
What is the use of the word truth in Alex Jones' promotional material or how he uses it to his audience?
It's how he communicates to his audience what he is intending them to believe.
Okay.
And does he promote his news as the truth?
Yes.
Okay.
And if we can go to the next, the numbers here.
All right.
Let's blow up.
Yeah.
So let's do the numbers on top.
And this shows, does this show Alex Jones sort of sphere of influence, snapshot of his sphere of influence in 2016?
Yes, it does.
Okay, so this is 40 million monthly page views, 6.5 million unique visitors.
What's a unique visitor?
That means that it's an individual user that comes that doesn't double count.
Essentially, if you go to the website twice in a given month in this case, you're still only counted as one.
Got it.
Okay.
And if you go down to the bottom part of this, Let's get the numbers.
This is 2016, and this is Exhibit 217. So radio, 150-plus domestic affiliates, is that right?
Correct.
And as part of your review of this case, did you review data regarding Mr. Jones' radio arm of his network?
Some.
Not as in-depth as the internet-based, but yes.
Were you provided with information as to at least that as to whether or not Sandy Hook content was carried on the radio station on numerous occasions?
Yes.
Okay.
And this just repeats the 40 million pages.
YouTube is up to now a half a billion views.
Is that right?
Correct.
Audio stream.
What's an audio stream?
This would be a web-based broadcast, so instead of radio, it is a radio broadcast that goes through the internet, is a way to think of it.
Could be a podcast, could be direct from website, could take different forms.
Okay, you were talking about medium.
I think you said video is king, right?
Correct.
Does that mean that there's no value in the influence world to audio?
No.
In other words, if you have audio, does that take away from video, or?
No.
Video is just more engaging as a medium emotionally, but much can be achieved in terms of audio as well.
Okay.
And so he had an audio presence of 150 plus radio affiliates around the country.
He did streaming, he did broadcasting, correct?
Correct.
And then it talks about social media, 1.6 billion.
Do you know what that refers to?
Based on the media kit, it's difficult to ascertain because the words sometimes are different.
Based on your view?
It's 1.6 billion, essentially, views of content in one form or another.
1.6 billion.
I said people, but how many people are there in the world?
Right now, I don't have the exact number.
Somewhere between 6 and 7 billion would be my estimate.
And how many people in the U.S.? Roughly $350 million.
I don't have the exact numbers.
Does this give a fair snapshot of the evidence that you've seen concerning their reach, their influence, and their audience in their methodology in 2016?
Yes.
Let's go to 17A. And I'm going to show you something I want to ask you about it.
I believe the jury has seen this.
This is a video of 17A? 17A. Yes, Ron.
Thank you.
It's happening now.
It is a sign of the fate of humanity.
The time and true science has come.
We are the existence.
We are the end for the war.
So here's the headline.
School war shuts down conspiracy theorists.
Now they've shot footage of this.
And Wolfgang's making a documentary simple cinese.
First of all, I want to, just for the record, that's titled The Bombshell Sandy Hook Massacre Was an Illusion.
You've seen that video before, right?
Yes.
And just in terms of what you were talking about before You talk about like this, well, the message, first of all, that introductory to this Infowars News, what message is that sending that is significant to you as somebody who has experience in evaluating influence and manipulation?
It's fear-based, it's incitement, it's couching the current situation as a conflict, an existential threat, and centering this network and its broadcast is central to that conflict.
And when you say conflict, that war?
It is called a war in the broadcast.
OK.
And let's move on to-- I think I want to ask you about the production value, too.
You talked about logos, cutaways, graphics.
What does this tell you about the degree of professionalism of this organization, this news organization?
Extremely well done.
Integrated music and audio.
In terms of all the visual and graphics, it's dynamic graphics.
In terms of the logo, it redirects to the website, which builds a synergy between the different mediums and what they're trying to achieve.
Highly effective in terms of content production.
Not easily done by just anyone.
It usually takes an organization to do that.
I'd like to now go to exhibit 67, if we can.
67. This is the September 24, 2014 article.
The jury's seen this.
Exhibit 67. It is the full exhibit, Your Honor.
And if we could...
Now, this was an article that the jury was shown, I believe, the end of last week.
And this was, FBI says no one killed at San Diego.
See that?
Correct.
You've seen this article before?
Yes.
Is that right?
And do you know whether or not Infowars would have some type of a advanced preview of a big blockbuster news by issuing an article?
No, I would not.
Okay.
And in terms of this article, let's now show, in this article, does this article I mean, this article is clearly about the Sandy Hook shooting, right?
And I want you to assume, by the way, that Brittany Paws did testify that Free Speech Systems agrees that this was a false lie article, okay?
Yes, I understand.
And so, if we can now show 19J. That is a full exhibit, Your Honor.
Thank you.
September 25th.
This will be an accompanying program here.
Well, that's what tyrants always do.
They push a little too far and find out people weren't scared.
We were just preserved.
Then the boys from the men are separated and the thugs always fall.
SandyHookJustice.com.
Folks, get in there and help this investigation.
Find it.
Okay, we'll talk to you soon.
We can just talk as possible.
SandyHookJustice.
What is the value to you of him claiming justice in the relationship to Sandy Hook, to his audience?
Objection, who, Judge?
Alex Jones.
I'm sorry, could you say that again?
What is the significance of Alex Jones promoting justice for Sandy Hook to his audience?
And so doing that, he's saying that there was an injustice around Sandy Hook.
He's making that claim.
And what was his injustice that he was talking about?
He's saying that Sandy Hook did not occur.
Several different conspiracies that are bundled in there, that the parents were actors.
And in the case of Mr. Halbick there, who was up in that same video, he's also advancing similar conspiracies.
And that's what he's promoting to his audience as justice?
Yes.
And sandyhookjustice.org, is that a Wolfgang Halbig website?
Yes, as I understand it.
Okay.
Now, you talked about the messenger before, correct?
Correct.
Now, who is the head messenger?
Alex Jones.
Okay.
Now, you talked about how the messenger will sometimes engage others to help, what's the right word, to help advance the message or enhance it?
You'll see propagandists, when they're doing things like this or trying to spread false conspiracies, false information, they'll bring in other messengers, which tends to build a larger audience, number one, but it also tries to reinforce or provide additional evidence to support the false information.
Okay, and do you know whether or not Alex Jones was holding Wolfgang Halberg out as some kind of an expert?
He was, from the videos that I've watched.
Now, did Wolfgang Halbig have an audience of tens of millions of people?
No.
Did Wolfgang Halbig have a robust Facebook account that over a billion people would see?
No.
Okay.
So, what would you call the role of a Wolfgang Halbig type in this situation from the security standpoint or the influence standpoint?
How big reinforces the message of Alex Jones, which gives the appearance that there are multiple people that agree with the position that Alex Jones is referencing.
It also, at the same point, provides that incentive which I talked about before lunch, which is it incentivizes other people to Gain information, create information, or present things that they either can be on air, in terms of Alex Jones, or they can drive more traffic to their website.
In this case, he mentions Halbig's website.
Okay.
So we got...
So we've got 924.
All right.
Let me, well, I'm getting my pens in order.
Why don't we play the rest of this video?
Show minds and captions at infowars.com slash show.
We'll find links to all of our content there and a free 15-day trial for Pesant Planet TV.
More than 60 movies and documentaries all in one place at infowars.com slash show.
We're on fire.
My students are going to break down some exciting developments in the area of research concerning supplemental IDA. It's nothing less than phenomenal.
I began to get into iodine a few years ago because it was helping me and my family so much get healthy and detoxify.
And I used some of the mainline iodine supplements that upset my stomach and I had some issues with it.
Until I discovered a product being developed by Dr. Groot, who I was already interviewing as an expert on my radio show.
And I began taking the product before he actually rolled it out.
You now know it as survival shield, true nascent iodine that your body can really absorb.
You talked about activating the sort of emotional conflict war.
War, fear, conflict kind of situation and the production values.
And what is, do you have any, or did you draw any conclusions by how Mr. Jones uses these messages to sell products like iodine?
In this case, he's discussing Sandy Hook and trying to draw attention to it.
He's also elevating another messenger who's reinforcing his beliefs, but then quickly transitions to sales, in this case, trying to sell products.
So the idea is very straightforward with a media entity like this, which is try and bring more eyeballs, more viewers onto content, and then if you can bring more viewers onto content, you can bring them onto solicitations and ads such as this.
And you talked about the value of time in relationship to a message and its efficacy, right?
Correct.
And we showed earlier some previous coverage of Sandy Hook, right?
Yes.
And so, in your review, did you note that whether or not Mr. Jones repeatedly Repeatedly went back to Sandy Hook to draw listeners.
Yes, over many years he discussed Sandy Hook.
And do you know whether or not, as a matter of years, Mr. Jones tried to hawk products as a result of the Sandy Hook shooting in his store?
I'll withdraw it.
Do you know whether or not, do you draw any conclusions to whether Mr. Alex Jones used the Sandy Hook shooting to drive profit for his company?
If he was talking about Sandy Hook over and over to create engagement with his audience, that engagement was designed to bring more sales over time.
And in fact, when we show some evidence of that, if we can draw up the...
Oh, sorry, I tried to write down...
So we just showed the jury the 924-14 article, right?
Correct.
FBI says nobody killed at Sandy Hook, right?
Yes.
The 925 video we just saw, right?
Yes.
Promoting that same lie, correct?
Yes.
By the way, Mr. Jones, when Mr. Jones says that Sandy Hook didn't happen, nobody killed, is that true?
Could you say that again?
He said it is true, right?
But people did die at Sandy Hook.
Yes.
There were children who died at Sandy Hook, right?
Correct.
And it's not, there are different levels, are there different levels of lies, for example?
Objection.
Do you know, let me ask you, let me withdraw the question.
Are there different kind of levels of lies?
Objection.
Let me rephrase.
Are all lies the same?
Objection.
The expertise, I don't know if you want to hear it.
I'm setting it up.
I'm not.
I'll allow it.
Could you restate that?
I mean, were you taught when you were growing up not to lie?
Yes.
Okay.
Have you ever lied to a telemarketer who asked whether you're...
I'm going to allow it.
Have you ever lied to a telemarketer who calls and asks for you and says, that person's not here?
Yes.
Okay.
Is that on the same par as creating a false narrative that the parents of children who are killed No.
For money?
Sustained.
Right.
So ordered.
And can parent, do you know whether or not parents or tar, withdrawn?
You talk about targets, right?
Yes.
Who are the targets in this false narrative?
The false narrative promoted by Mr. Jones and stated by Mr. Jones.
Yes.
That would be the parents of the Sandy Hook victims.
Can those parents change the channel if they don't like what Mr. Jones says?
Not in a social media world.
Now, let's show, if we can, Plans Exhibit 135. Jury's seeing this.
It is.
Yes, Ron.
Okay.
No, just don't worry.
Sorry.
So the jury's seeing this, this is Exhibit 135, and let's just, this was just the, this was just an email that had an attachment of the Google, of some Google Analytics, is that if you understand it?
Correct.
Okay.
And in terms of these analytics, let's go to the next page.
OK, so I'm going to show-- we're going to show that just reorient the jury to these three pie charts, and then we're going to look at them side by side.
Okay.
Okay, so just to reorient, these Google Analytics, what do they show?
They show this is just the different means by which people are accessing the InfoWars content?
Yes.
Okay, so September 23rd.
And they're associated with numbers, is that right?
Yes.
Can we show the numbers, for example, September 23rd?
So these are the sessions and other data by direct, organic, social referral, correct?
Correct.
All right.
And is there a total?
No.
OK. Let's do math.
But let's go down to the 24th.
Is what we just showed the jury was when the article came out, right?
Yes.
Okay.
And this shows, does this show an increasing pie chart from the social media?
It does.
The difference is the colors, but the labels are different.
Okay.
And then let's go to the numbers here.
And does this show growth, how do you characterize the growth of the attention that was drawn on this day?
Significant and different from the previous day.
Okay.
And then if we go, and the jury will have this, it is Exhibit 135. And then if we go to the next day, 9.25, Now you have a significant...
Does this reflect a growth in the social media part percentage of the pie?
Yes.
The way people arrive at the content is more through social each day.
Social engagement, meaning social media.
- Okay.
Okay.
All right.
We're going to go to...
Now we're going to do this...
We'll pull up a side-by-side, all from Exhibit 135. Okay.
So, the social media, on the 23rd, let's see, social is in red, so that's 24%.
Correct.
The 24th social is in blue, 54%.
Yes.
And by the 25th, after the program, which said the FBI said no kids killed.
I'll read an objection.
Okay, I'll rephrase.
And what was the percentage on the 25th?
The 25th.
I can't read it here.
I can't.
You can zoom in on the 25th.
Okay.
66.3%.
And can we do the numbers?
I'm going to show you now.
Now I'm going to ask you about the numbers.
Okay, there's the top number.
Okay.
So, the top number on the 23rd is what?
543,688.
Hold on a second.
One more time.
543,688.
Okay, 924. 1,078,328.
Okay, and how about 925?
1,786,982.
So it went from 543,000 and change From before this story about the FBI saying nobody died standing up, correct?
Correct.
To 1.7 million, was 1.8 million two days later after the article ended in video coverage?
Yes.
And the pie, what does that tell us about how that spread?
It tells us that the message, in this case, spread due to the use of social media.
That over the difference between those numbers, the increase dramatically came from social media engagement.
People seeing content on social media and then redirecting back to this original source.
Now you used the word, I think, I think you used the word conversion earlier.
Yes.
A conversion would be the ability to put out content into social media and then get that to redirect back to your website.
So, for example, you have a website, you put up a piece of content, that content is shared out onto social media.
You're trying to convert people into users that come to the website.
And the goal in that would be also to convert people into sales if you're trying to sell something via that website.
And is there some principle, is there a relationship?
Are you familiar with any relationship between the amount of people coming to the website and it's resulting in a conversion to a sale?
The general rule is the more people that visit a website, the greater the odds that they will be converted into sales or click on any sort of advertising.
And by the way, those clips, the clips that we just saw where Mr. Jones is talking about Sandy Hook being a hoax, nobody died, and then he's selling this product.
Do you know whether or not those clips were made and packaged and put out on other social media networks or promoted in any other way?
Yes, the video clips were put out on many social media platforms, depending on the year.
During that time period, it was principally YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
Okay.
And Infowars site also has the clips?
Or do you know whether or not...
Yes.
Okay.
And I want to ask you about the money.
The money.
Can we pull up Exhibit 278?
I'm sorry, number sir?
Exhibit 278, thank you.
That is a full exhibit.
All right, so let's go to September 24th.
Sorry, why don't we do September 23rd.
On September 23rd, the site, at least this particular store did how much business?
$56,597.27.
And that corresponds with an audience, sorry, a count of $543,000?
Yes, traffic of $543,000 roughly.
Now on September 24th, what was that number?
$48,229.61.
And then on September 25th?
$232,825.10.
And we showed the jury that this was attached, this Google Analytics, which Infowars has claimed they don't use, was attached in email.
Is that correct?
Correct.
Okay.
And is that how you were provided with this information?
It was attached to an email?
That's how I came to this Google Analytics, yes.
Infowars never shared their data set, did they?
No.
Do you know whether or not you have access to Infowars' data set of Google Analytics?
I do not have all Google Analytics data from Infowars.
What is a data set?
That would include all of the data which could be downloaded into spreadsheets.
So you can receive reports.
That would be what we saw in that exhibit as a report, which is a snapshot.
The data from Google Analytics can also be downloaded or aggregated and used to do analysis as well.
And if you were doing a complete and thorough and rigorous forensic exam, do you want that data set?
Yes.
Can you explain why?
If I had the data, all of it, I'd be able to understand better the conversion, meaning what views, what sort of content led from one place to another on the website, and did that lead from more engagements on the website or views, impressions?
Did that lead to more clicks on sales?
Okay.
But you had enough information because they attach it to an email here to draw some relationship in this case?
Correct.
For three days.
Okay.
Now, were you in court earlier?
When Ms. Paz, the corporate representative that Free Speed Systems selected as the person most knowledgeable about the corporation, testified here, talked about trying to get information out of Alex Jones?
Yes.
Okay.
She said, basically she said she was having a hard time, right?
Yes, she illustrated through her conversation it was difficult to get all of the information.
Okay.
Do you know whether or not Alex Jones had any problem, or does the evidence show whether or not Alex Jones had any problem finding out exactly how much money they were making at any hour of the day in real life?
No.
Based on that spreadsheet, no.
Okay.
So let's bring up Exhibit 195. That is a full exhibit?
Yep.
These are, I think, just for the record, this is, I guess, a pile.
of text messages, but I want to particularly bring up page 25 from that exhibit.
And if we could highlight, this is a text exchange between Alex Jones and Tim Cruget, with the e-commerce manager at InfoWars. with the e-commerce manager at InfoWars.
What is e-commerce, by the way?
That would be through websites, electronic.
Okay.
And this is a text message sent.
TF would be Tim Fruget, the e-commerce director.
And can you just go up a little bit for Timo?
Okay.
So do you know whether or not this is Tim Fruget sharing up-to-the-minute reports on how Infobars was doing selling their products?
Yes, based on the times and the days that he's reporting in the text chain, yes.
By the way, there's an audio file.
Can you just go down?
Let's see.
AP is Alex P. Jones?
Do you know what AP is?
I don't, based on this.
Okay, sorry, free speech.
It's admitted that AP is Alex Jones.
Do we have the audio or not?
All right, but does this indicate that at any given time, at least at this time period, that Alex Jones, if you wanted to, could find out what the latest numbers were?
Yes, even by product.
Okay, by product.
But we heard Ms. Paz.
Now, Ms. Paz, you heard her testimony, I think, the other day.
It's a record.
The question was whether he heard it.
Yes, I heard it this morning.
And, you know, Ms. Paz was talking about how chaotic things were.
Do you know, what was your announcement?
I want you to assume that Ms. Paz shared the view that, or withdrawn.
I want you to assume that Ms. Paz discussed her difficulties getting information out of InfoWars and on cross-examination, direct examination by her own lawyer, presented a chaotic view of what was going on where nobody really knew what was happening at any given time.
Okay?
Correct.
That's what I heard this morning.
Does this evidence though, not the argument, does the evidence support that or not?
Objection.
Argumented.
Overruled.
This evidence here shows that he was very aware of the performance of the business.
And in fact, let's show now the next text, page 32.
Let's see what we've got here.
All right.
Now this is Tim Friget, e-commerce director.
We ended up about 800k yesterday.
It's going to take me a bit to calculate what percentage of that was food, but it's looking like about 650 to 7k in food sales.
We are already over 100k at 645 this morning.
Crazy emoji.
Oh, it says sent to Tim Fruget by Alex Jones, right?
- Correct. - Is that, it's an emoji? - Yes.
Yes.
That would be prayer and thumbs up.
Okay.
And then some ghost taking his tongue out.
But does this indicate that, is this evidence an operation that really has no idea what it's doing where everything is accidental?
I do not think so.
Now, just to Go back to some of the evidence, not what Ms. Baas presented, but the actual evidence here.
The David Jones...
I'll withdraw.
Okay, I'll withdraw.
I'd like to show and introduce testimony from Tim Frugier first, a clip from his deposition, sworn deposition on January 14th, 2022. And that,
I believe, is That's the number I have.
Okay, we'd like to play a short clip of Tim Frugier.
That is not a full exhibit.
That is not a full exhibit, so we can't yet.
So we would offer it as an admission of the parties.
Can I speak to Attorney Manny for a moment?
Sure.
We had an agreement on designations prior to the trial.
No objection.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, 3D card, just looking for a good job for you guys, and supporting the InfoWarsShop.com website.
Why create a whole different website?
Why not just have somebody else running to, you know, be the vendor that supports the website?
Well, I was one of two stores.
Alex wanted Redundancy.
In case the InfoWarsStore.com website or Magento they want, As it turns out, the website did work, but you kept it for shop.com as an additional source of revenue, correct?
There's redundancy in Alex's eyes.
So the Infowars shop, is that a different place to buy some of the products that Infowars sells than the other shops?
Yes, it's multiple, what they would say, landing pages.
Okay.
And to set up a separate shop, even online, is that an effort?
How much goes into that?
It depends on the scale of your development team, but it takes quite a bit of time, usually.
Okay.
Can that happen by accident?
No.
Okay.
And the numbers that we just went over, do you know whether or not those are only from InfoWars-- what is the name of the show? InfoWarsStore.com.
That's a different shop, right?
Correct.
So the numbers we just showed the jury in that three-day time period were for Infowarsstore.com, is that right?
As I understand it from the sheets.
Does Infowars also sell products on Amazon?
Yes, I've seen them sell on other platforms.
On eBay?
Yes.
And of course on Infowars Shop.
Correct.
And you don't have the information, do you?
Or do you?
No, I don't have it.
And in fact, did InfoWars, to your knowledge, turn over that information?
I did not have access to it.
And now, this is...
We all know by now that you've heard free speech system says they didn't use...
Well, we withdraw.
We withdraw.
Okay.
I'll withdraw.
Let's show the clip from David Jones.
And actually, can we show the org chart?
What exhibit?
Sorry, Your Honor.
I've got to show you.
I'm going to show the org chart first to establish.
480, org chart first.
Say it again?
Sorry.
Organization chart, leading organization chart.
First.
That's a full exhibit.
That's a full exhibit.
Okay, thank you.
Now, what is the opposite of disorganization?
No structure, no clear chain of command, no certainty in terms of who's in charge or what the process is.
You're from West Point, of course.
Is it an organization?
You said what is it-- What is the opposite of disorganization?
No.
What is there?
All meaning it's impromptu.
All right, so we'll just inject to one of the appropriate-- Can you tell the jury what is the opposite of disorganization of the word?
Organization.
Okay.
So if you were trying to present a company that was disorganized, would one way to do that to say you don't have an org chart?
Objection, argument.
If you didn't know people's roles and responsibilities, you didn't understand who they reported to, and you didn't have clear lineage lines marking out who goes to who and what the responsibilities are, that would be disorganization.
This chart here is very clearly a hierarchical organization.
So if a company wanted to deny its premeditation in terms of telling a false story, for example, one way to do that would be to say it happened by accident.
So an organizational chart shows the hierarchy of a company?
Yes.
And this has Alex Jones up top to my left, Dr. David Jones And Dr. David Jones, he was high up in the organization, in fact, second in command according to this chart.
Is that right?
It could be interpreted as that, yes.
Okay.
And so, do you know whether or not Dr. Jones knows more about how the organization works than the corporate representative, Brittany Apollos, who never worked there?
Objection, Judge.
Sustained.
Do you know whether or not, let me rephrase.
Does your, you saw, you know whether or not that, I'll just withdraw it.
Let me show Dr. Jones' testimony, also in this case, we'll admit it, and it is, It was depositioned, Your Honor, on May 16th, 2019. That's 336, but that is not affordability.
We'll offer it.
We agreed on designations.
Okay.
all the networks that are in the same region.
Is it fair that sales analytics as you used it would include data about the performance of certain products?
That is, which is all that's and which one is popular?
That's what we were trying to protect, that we felt like there didn't need to be known unless it remained an issue.
Okay.
Are you aware whether free speech systems collects data concerning when, during, in Alex Jones's broadcast it has the most sales activity?
Only in the sense that if there has been We had extraordinarily good sales.
Someone will say, what was Alex saying when that happened?
And so we'd like to emulate spike.
What was the last thing you said?
Emulate.
Was the last word spike?
Spike.
We like to emulate spike.
and so can we just play that last part one more time we like to emulate spike What is your interpretation of that as an expert who has reviewed this case?
Spike usually references the spikes that you would see in data, that you would see related to website or sales, whatever it might be.
Essentially a chart over time.
And we talked about earlier, just a few minutes ago, we talked about would you characterize what we talked about earlier as a spike in relationship Yes, both in terms of the audience numbers and then in terms of the sales.
And by the way, you assume Dr. Jones was telling the truth?
Yes.
So if we accept the testimony of Dr. Jones, would that be a motive to repeat The Sandy Hook story over time and years.
So what if anything does that statement by Dr. Jones about what his company does tell you about its incentive to repeat the Sandy Hook story over time and years?
Whatever the message was that was distributed, whatever the topic was that was discussed that day, that is something that increases engagement with the audience, meaning that people are responding to it.
They're coming there to view that content, and that's something that, if repeated, would be seemingly more likely to bring in audience engagement.
And is that an indication that a company, that free speech systems use Google Analytics in real life?
Objection.
Argumentative.
Let me rephrase it.
Do you know whether or not that is an indication as to whether or not that's an indication as to whether free speech systems use Google Analytics so that they can emulate the spike?
Objection.
Argumentative.
With analytics, in this case, we had two sets of that that we could observe.
Google Analytics is one, Sprout Social being the other.
That would tell you where there's increased engagement, which would then tell you what topics would likely bring increased engagement in the future.
Okay, and in fact, analytics It was one of those things you highlighted from the jury to the jury earlier about what makes it an effective, influential...
Rejection leading the end.
Okay, so we...
I'll withdraw it.
So just remind us now about the connection between the analytics and effective influencing on If you understand the performance of your content, the performance of your website, how traffic is moving on social media, and how it brings more viewers into your content, then you're able to estimate what your returns might be in terms of sales over time.
You can see with Google Analytics, Sprout Social, any of these measurement tools, what's the most effective content to bring people to your website, bring people to your social media posts, bring people to your advertisement, bring people in for sales.
Excuse me one second.
Take your turn.
Thank you.
Your Honor, we have a slightly early break.
I don't see why not.
All right, so we will take our afternoon 15-minute recess.
You'll continue to follow the rules of juror conduct, as I know you will.
and I will see you in 15 minutes.
Pull out a sidebar, please.
Thank you.
Pull out a sidebar.
Pull out a sidebar.
- I'm about to, yeah, this is gonna be on. - Are they gonna deal with that now? - I don't see anybody else.
I don't see the unrashable here yet.
- So two things, this is my birthday.
No, again.
- Sorry, hurry.
- Okay, just say what you have to say.
- I was on the clock, was it morning, what do you mean? - Go leading. - Leading.
Jesus, how many times after you say leading?
I don't know what he's talking about.
Okay.
No.
Yeah, no, you're good.
Sit.
Thank you.
Okay.
So that's going to happen now.
Oh, go ahead.
Okay.
So we're just going to have to see if I can show you that.
So that we don't have to mention.
Well, I don't know if they filled that picture up on.
Is there anything in there?
Okay.
I think we are ready for our panel now.
Okay.
I'm not a sieve.
And the record will reflect that the entire panel has returned.
Please take your seats, make yourselves comfortable.
Whenever you're ready, Attorney Cosco.
Thank you, Your Honors.
Mr. Watts, I want to turn now to asking you whether or not there came a time when we I asked you and your team to make your best efforts to determine the total reach of Alex Jones' Sandy Hook lies across all platforms.
Yes, you asked that, but I was not able to do that.
Okay.
And why were you not able to provide a reasonable estimate as to the total amount of The total reach of Alex Jones Sandy Hook lies across all platforms.
There were several categories of missing data.
The first one was Facebook.
We had no real Facebook data in terms of the postings that were there, so we couldn't see what the engagements were like.
An engagement would be individual discussing or reacting or resharing the content, meaning they share outside of Infowars social media handles.
So we were really blind to what was on Facebook, other than a couple samples from reports on Sprout Social.
You're going very fast.
We'll actually make the list and I'll come back.
Yeah, second was Twitter.
We were able to pull snapshots of Twitter, but we were not able to see all of the engagements, all of the posts, all of the content on Twitter.
That came only from the reports that were provided to us, which were some snapshots, but not all.
Next, in terms of Google Analytics, which we've discussed a few times today, we had reports, but we didn't have all of the data, so we don't know what all of the traffic is to the website.
So we don't really have an understanding of that, and we don't understand over the course of all Sandy Hill content what that traffic was like.
And then with relation to videos, whether it be YouTube videos, videos posted to YouTube, or even videos that are posted to Infowars, we don't have measurements around what that reach was in terms of the content.
Okay, I'm going to go back over this a little, just to clarify.
So, and by the way, let me clarify.
At the time, we asked you to project only from a six-year time period from 2012 to 2018. Is that right?
Correct.
Okay.
And let's start with the data.
The Facebook data, you said you had some but not the engagements?
Correct.
Explain the engagements and why that data is relevant or significant to your ability to provide a total projection across all platforms of its spreading of the lies.
When a piece of content goes on to Facebook, there are several things that you can learn.
One, you can learn how many people viewed it, or how many times was it seen potentially by someone who has a Facebook account.
That'd be known as impressions.
You'll see impressions in some of the charts, even from the reports.
Next, you don't see the degree to which people converse or discuss the content.
Or, even in some cases, it's possible to take the content that's initially put into Facebook Take it as your own and then resend it to other people, which would be additional layers of traffic in Facebook.
Okay.
And so whatever projections you made, they did not count the additional reach that you would have been able to ascertain by looking at the engagements?
Correct.
Okay.
By the way, just to ask you the other question, were you at least able to come up with a determination as to a minimal reach across certain platforms of Alex Jones' spreading of the Sandy Hook lies?
For Sandy Hook lies, we could do a bare minimum reach, meaning we could account for some travel in social media in terms of the reach just on platforms.
Just on social media?
Correct.
Okay.
Did you have, and so what you said, Facebook, you told us the limitations of Facebook data.
You said there was YouTube data.
Was there YouTube data?
There is YouTube data, some.
Was that provided by Free Speech Systems, or did you have?
Jackson Foundation hearsay.
Sustained.
You reviewed, did you have, did you yourself and your team have to dig up YouTube data?
We had to recreate a way to understand what the YouTube data was by using the Wayback Machine, which is an archive.
Essentially, it takes a picture of that page on YouTube, and it will show counts that are just a place in time.
So they're not all views ever, but it gives you a snapshot of a place in time, how many views were on that video.
Now, you mentioned Sprout.
Social.
That came up in the testimony of the corporate representative, but can you just tell the jury what Sprout Social is?
Sprout Social is an analytics platform that you sign up for a license.
You can then run all of your social media handles, your personas, on all platforms through it, and it will aggregate all the analytics to understand literally how your content sprouts across social media.
Is this a pay service?
It is.
Okay.
And do you know whether or not Infowars used Sprout Social for the time period of 2012, 2018 at least?
Yes.
What is that?
They did?
They did use it, and I've seen the deposition.
Okay.
The deposition is when somebody says something about the deposition.
Did you see any data, though?
Yes, I've seen some data around Sprout Social, what they were able to retrieve.
Were you able to produce the entire data set?
No, it was not entirely available because we didn't understand or have any access or visibility into some platforms, Facebook being one.
The second is really Infowars.com and the websites.
And is that the type of thing that prevents you from giving us an estimate as the total reach of Alex Jones' Sandy Hook lies across all platforms?
Yes.
Okay.
But did you nevertheless endeavor to try to ascertain a minimal reach based on the information that you had?
Correct.
For the information we could gain, we did come up with an estimated minimum reach.
Okay.
And that was, I think you said that was based on And did you have all the information for all those sites or did you have to make certain projections?
That's an answer to this point, Judge.
For YouTube, we used the Wayback Machine to look for videos related to Sandy Hook that were put out by Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems.
We then looked at those counts.
That's how we came up with the estimate for YouTube, and that's a bare minimum count because we know more people could have watched it after that.
We just have no way of looking at it, and it's only the videos we could surface on the Wayback Machine.
Okay.
And in terms of...
We've shown the jury InfoWars content, and can you just describe for the jury what type of website InfoWars.com is in terms of its scale and its original website?
Yes.
Due to the duration that it's been in existence, it has created an enormous direct traffic.
Meaning, while social media redirects some people to the website, many people go directly to the website.
And you can see that in Google Analytics.
Some of the pie charts that we showed you says direct.
That means someone went directly to Infowars.com.
Is there anything unusual about the degree to which Yes.
Based on my experience evaluating websites, Infowars.com gets a very high percentage of direct engagement to the website, meaning people come there for the information.
They're not routed there through social media.
Did you and your team make an effort to quantify that?
We couldn't get any real estimates other than the Google Analytics pages we've already reviewed.
Okay.
And you did not have the direct data from Infowars.com to factor in this question about determining the total reach of Alex Jones and Sandy Hook lives across all platforms, correct?
Correct.
Is that also true for Prison Planet and his sister sites?
Correct.
All right.
And what about radio?
Do you have significant data from radio?
Radio, I had no significant data.
Okay.
Other than the media kits that were provided.
All right.
So now tell us what you and your team did.
In terms of trying to come up with at least a minimum projection based on what the platforms that we spoke of, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
For those three platforms, we did the following.
For YouTube, we went to the Wayback Machine, we looked for Sandy Hook-related content, and then we aggregated the number of views as a place and time.
That means we added the numbers together from every snapshot that we could find related to Sandy Hook content.
How did you go about finding the content in the first place?
We went to the Wayback Machine knowing that videos have been put out.
We then searched for snapshots on YouTube.
Okay.
And aggregate means you added the views at the time together?
For each video.
Okay.
All right.
And is that a complicated thing or not?
It's time-consuming and takes quite a bit of time to find all those and know that you have come close to finding as much of the information as you can.
Okay, so it's a time-consuming endeavor, but is it particularly complicated?
No.
Okay.
So, and then in terms of Twitter, oh sorry, what were those numbers?
It was just over 9 million views that we could speak to just the minimum number of views for Sandy Hook related content on YouTube.
For a period of time?
Over a period of time.
Okay.
And in terms of Twitter, how did you go about calculating Twitter or these views?
For Twitter, we used the Sprout Social data that was provided.
We went back through and looked at what was the number of views on days where Sandy Hook-related content was discussed on Infowars.
Okay.
And is this a rough science?
It's as close as we could get.
Okay.
And it was at a time-consuming enterprise as well?
Yes.
But how do you, do you, are we at the point where you use search terms?
Yes, at times we would use search terms to try and figure out from the Sprout Social Data and from just all of InfoWars content over time which days were related to Sandy Hook.
And did you use hundreds and hundreds of search terms?
We did.
And can you give the jury an example of the type of search terms you would have used?
Sandy Hook, actor, crisis, crisis actor, different combinations like that.
Okay.
Did you have to use some of the plaintiffs' names?
Yes.
And through a combination of using those search terms and Twitter or Sprout Social, you were able to come up with a number, an estimate?
Yes.
And what was that?
It came in right around 100 million in terms of views.
And then in terms of, now, what about Facebook?
You didn't have the Facebook data, I think you said.
Correct.
The engagement.
So how did you go about calculating Facebook?
In one of the charts from Google Analytics, it's called a flowchart, it had the redirects, meaning when did social media direct back to Infowars.com, and based on that, we were able to build a rough estimate of if this many Twitter tweets essentially redirected back to Infowars, you could see the ratio of how many from Facebook redirected back.
And just in terms of your experience in this area for almost 20 years, looking at social media and networks and things like that.
2005 to present, 17. Can you just give the jury a kind of a scale of Facebook as it compares to like YouTube or something?
Facebook has an enormous reach.
If you're moving content and creating dialogue and discussion, if you're getting it onto channels, which are pages on Facebook, or if you're trying to build an audience, Facebook is the primary platform for that.
And again, the projections you're making up for the years 2012 to 2018, right?
Correct.
Okay.
And so is Facebook larger than YouTube and its reach?
Far larger.
And Twitter?
Yes.
Okay.
So I think the document, so did you have to make some estimations or projections based on data that you did have to determine the Facebook reach?
That is correct.
All right.
I think you've talked about a flow chart.
Why don't we bring that up exhibit 454 from Missouri?
That is not a flow exhibit.
It's not a flow exhibit.
I didn't figure a foundation, Judge.
I didn't figure a foundation.
Okay.
Okay.
We moved to introduce 454 as a flow.
It's the flowchart that was just testified to by the witness.
Objection, lack foundation.
So can you lay a foundation?
This was one of the handful of Google documents that they produced.
And it's been identified.
Is it up on your screen, sir?
Yes.
Is that the Google document that you used to evaluate and make your projection best to the reach of Facebook during the calendar year of 2012 to 2018?
Yes.
No objection.
Can we show that?
I'd like to show that to the jury.
I've moved to admit it as full, Mr. Attorney Ferraro.
Thank you, Judge.
So, this is not helping right now because it's hard to see, but can we just blow that up?
Is this the document you're referring to that you used to help make this estimate?
Yes.
It shows the flow from social media to Infowars.com.
Okay.
So, what are we looking at here in terms of...
Can you just explain more about how you were able to extrapolate these numbers by using this analytics?
Yes, if you look to the left, the three social media platforms that are listed from top to bottom are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Starting from YouTube, that's where we started our foundation, you'll see that it shows about 3.9 million redirects.
Then you'll see Twitter as 33 million, and then you see Facebook as 151 million.
So what we did is we just created the ratio to make the estimate.
Meaning we looked at if there is 33 million, how does that relate to 151 million?
That's roughly five times in terms of the ratio.
So you took the Twitter numbers and you multiplied it times five?
Yes.
And is this in accordance, I mean this isn't the first, how many times have you looked at data like this, you and your team, for governments or for financial institutions, for those I've looked at hundreds of these.
And is that ratio consistent with your experience?
It depends on who the audience is receiving this.
Facebook is very high for this audience.
Okay.
And we saw that, I believe, that we just, we saw the pie charts.
Correct.
Okay.
And so, if you can tell us then, we can, oh, I want to ask you this, write down in the, what are these analytics showing right under the 178 million starting paid sessions there?
Yeah, so in addition to just lands on Infowars.com, it's also showing you specific pages which drew a significant amount of traffic.
And so those are pages, watch Alex Jones, and then the one we had actually discussed earlier, which is regarding FBI says nobody killed at Sandy Hook.
So that is in and of itself, just in terms of the redirects, 2.8 million.
So what is the significance of this evidence in relationship to the degree to which Sandy Hook played a prominent or not prominent role in the growth of InfoWars since December 14, 2012?
From this chart alone, you can see that it's one of the top five landing pages across all the InfoWars platform.
Okay, in fact, it's about, is it, okay, so withdrawn.
Down at the 12, it says 12 more pages, so what does that mean, 12 more pages, 6 million?
Meaning adding 12 pages together, the way I interpret this, it comes to 6 million.
Okay, and the FBI says Sandy Hook article, story, is almost half of that next 12?
Yes.
That's from social media redirect to infowars.com.
Okay.
We can take that down.
So let me ask you now, you've shared with us the methodology you just went over in which you arrived at a projection.
Is that the methodology you and your team use?
Yes.
Okay.
So let me ask you, can you tell us what your conclusions were about what a Minimum reach was, based on these three platforms, the information learned from these three platforms, of Alex Jones' Sandy Hook lies across these three platforms.
Adding together YouTube, Twitter, and the Facebook calculation together, just related to lies about Sandy Hook, the minimum audience that we could measure was 550 million on just social media.
That doesn't include any individuals that were going straight to the website.
No Infowars, no Prison Planet, no radio, no other avenues of getting the information?
Correct.
Okay.
And the time period of that was between what?
2012 to 2018. Okay.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Attorney Pettis, cross-examination.
Thank you, sir.
May we have a course for a moment?
You may.
I'm not going to finish it today.
I don't know what that does.
And I'm told he won't be able to bring back tomorrow.
I'm ready to go.
I just wanted to make sure you go over there.
Perfect.
- - We have an order that is not to discuss with the testimony with them during the pregnancy of the cross-accommodation. - - It's routine in a criminal case.
- I don't know why I'm criminal. - And it's routine in federal court.
I don't know if it's true to cops.
- I think I have the-- - I have one. - In the middle of the cross-accommodation?
But listen, I'm going to tell the jury, though, that I'll be back sideways.
You have to describe that that happens from time to time.
I mean, that's working.
Sorry, Judge.
This is my first trial.
Ready?
I'm actually going to tell the jury about the sidebar we just had so that they can know what's coming down the pike.
So we're going, Attorney Pattis will start with his cross-examination of this witness now.
We are going to end at 4.30 today.
Hopefully if I lose track of the time, Mr. Ferraro, you'll let me know.
And then we're going to pick this witness's testimony up on Friday, okay?
This is routine in cases.
Not anything unusual about it, nothing for you to worry about, but just so that you know, we'll go to 430, leave a little early today, and then we'll see Mr. Watts again on Friday, okay?
Whenever you're ready, Attorney Pettis, take your time.
Thanks, sir.
Good afternoon, Mr. Watts.
How are you?
I'm good.
My name is Warren Pettis.
We've never met before.
No, not that I'm aware of.
And I'd like to thank you for your service, obviously, in the military.
You've written a book called Messing with the Enemy, Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, and Fake News, correct?
Correct.
That's not the full title, but yeah.
That's how it's listed on...
Well, actually, you're right.
Messing with the end, surviving in a world of media, in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, Russians, and fake news, that's how it's listed on your website as foreign policy research.
Correct.
And that's what it says on the dust jacket, correct?
Yes.
And you were quite autobiographical in that book, correct?
Correct.
You described your reasons for going to West Point, correct?
Yes.
You worked quite big enough to make the football team and got an interest in military history and told your mother when you were about 15, I'm going to West Point.
You did go to West Point.
I did.
And while you were at West Point, is it a fixed curriculum for all cadets there, sir?
For the first half of it, yes.
And then you choose your major.
You also, yeah, that's right, you get to pick a concentration.
Correct.
So when you described it as a liberal arts education, certainly it's a well-rounded education.
It is.
The purpose is to support an officer's corps capable of leading our military in whatever foreign challenge we may face.
Yes.
For the military, it's foreign.
The oath is foreign and domestic, yes.
Is Alex Jones a domestic enemy?
No.
And West Point was a difficult curriculum, correct?
Yes.
and it could be somewhat brutalizing for a young cadet correct there's a certain amount of hazing it goes on correct and the cadets get some frustration and have to work that frustration out a number of ways yes I did.
Correct.
enter of the box in the food services hall and you found a list of phone numbers, correct?
Yes.
And you impersonated other people at the institution and gave Carpezee any number of messages, false messages.
I impersonated, yes, in his organization.
Yes.
In the hierarchy at West Point.
Yes.
Carfizzi, bring me more meat patties.
The kids are starving up here than you'd hang up on.
Correct?
Yes.
And you'd try to impersonate the voices of others so that Carfizzi would fall for it.
Correct?
Correct.
And Carfizzi ultimately said to you words to the effect of, why are you talking with me like this?
Yes, he didn't use that word.
It was something as a prank joke that we did there.
to you that anybody was involved in a prank joke, correct?
No.
Now, at West Point, in the liberal arts and militant portion of the curriculum, you read a number of classics, correct?
Yes.
Including the Arab War by Sun Tzu, correct?
Different excerpts, yes.
And you understood that in Sun Tzu's mind, politics is warfare by, and you also read Karl von Klaus, correct?
At different times, yes.
And you recognize that Klaus is relying on Sun Tzu taught cadets politics is work by others.
Yes.
And you, in your career, have come to realize that social media is politics, by other means, a particularly virulent and dangerous form of politics, correct?
With respect to Russia, in particular, yes.
And the United States, too?
Yes.
Not where I focus my energy, but yes.
Well, you've taken aim in your book on what you call social media nationalism.
Yes.
And clickbait populism, correct?
Correct.
That undermines the intelligence, basically, of crowds, of the people, correct?
Yes.
It poses, in your mind, an existential threat to the health and security of the republic, correct?
It can.
It does, doesn't it?
I didn't say that.
It's hard to know how to respond to social media, isn't it?
I don't know.
It depends on each individual's familiarity with social media.
You wrote that we want to have a free exchange of ideas, correct?
Yes.
But how to deal with that in a world of social media, that's the challenge, that we don't know how to meet that, correct?
It depends on which country and which place.
Well, let's talk about the United States right here, right now.
Social media poses a threat to our civic norms, does it not?
I didn't say that.
it can your honor objections basis it's going within the scope of what he's getting well why don't we go on and see where we're going but this case is not about politics okay
You knew about Infowars before you were retained by Attorney Toskof, Yes.
You wrote about InfoWars, correct?
I think I mentioned InfoWars at different times in several things I've written over the years.
You included criticism of it for being controversial, correct?
You'd have to reference what it is.
I don't have it in my fingertips.
I've written, just for reference, I've written several books and several hundred articles, so you can refresh my memory of what you're pointing to.
Well, one of the books you wrote was fiction, correct?
Real Fake?
That's about 70 pages long that you write fiction, isn't it?
It was with a team, yes.
That's you writing fiction, is it?
Yes.
It was called Bug Bites.
What?
Bug Bites.
It's the same series.
Yes.
I just need to make sure that I and the jury can follow.
Just make sure that we're not interrupting.
So you wrote, you've written three books.
The book on social media, World of...
Can I correct that?
Because it's not correct.
Two pieces of fiction.
Okay.
So I lost that question.
Do you mind?
Let me try it again.
I'll do it again.
I'll slow down, I'm sorry, it's the end of the day.
You've written three books.
I wrote one book.
I co-authored two others.
You've participated in the writing, well, you told us before about books, plural.
So these are the books we're talking about, correct?
Yes.
One book entitled Messing with the Enemy, Surviving in a Social Media World, Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News.
That's non-fiction.
Correct.
And two pieces of fiction that you wrote with others, correct?
Yes.
Any other books?
No.
You wrote a series of articles, maybe hundreds of articles, correct?
Probably.
You also work with something called the Foreign Policy Research Institute, correct?
Yes.
Are you still there?
Yes, I'm still a fellow there.
You're not just a fellow, you're a distinguished research fellow, correct?
Correct.
And you're also a non-resident fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, correct?
Correct.
You're a national security consultant for NBC News, correct?
Yes.
NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC. How about Fox?
No.
Why not?
I'm hired by NBC News.
I didn't ask that.
You've never been a commentator on Fox News?
I've been on Fox News.
Now, among the articles that you wrote, your most recent article released in April, well, you wrote something in April of 2022, Climate Change and National Security, correct?
That was a podcast series.
Had a written header that went with the six, or excuse me, three on climate change.
You have a, have you ever, okay, so you've never written an article called Climate Change and National Security for Orbis?
I, yes, I contributed to it.
It was part of a bundle of podcasts.
Yes.
You also wrote a piece in the Washington Post in 2018 called Artificial Intelligence is Correct.
And you wrote something in January of 2018. Terrorism in social media is big tech viewing enough, correct?
Yes.
Was that a review of Shoshana Zuboff's book, Surveillance Capitalism?
No.
Do you know Shoshana Zuboff's work?
Vaguely, yes.
You've not read it?
No.
You've not read The Age of Surveillance?
I've read about the book, yes.
But you've not read it?
No.
You know that Shoshana Zuboff's professor at Harvard?
He hasn't read the book, and now he's going to talk about Shoshana someday.
He can ask the question.
I understand the concept of surveillance capitalism, yes.
You know that Shoshana Zuboff is a professor at Harvard?
Yes.
And the business school?
Maybe, yes.
I just know she's affiliated with Harvard.
And surveillance capitalism, you say you're familiar with the concept.
That overlaps, that is a social media phenomenon, is it not?
To some degree, but not entirely.
It involves the use of anger to manipulate people, correct?
And for surveillance capitalism?
It can.
And fear, correct?
It can.
And demonization, correct?
Yes, it can be used.
The concept is that by giving us access to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and whatnot for free, we're actually giving something of value to those who offer these things for free, correct?
It's part of the agreement.
We are leaving a digital footprint, correct?
Yes.
It does.
That information yields information about us that can be used to manipulate us, correct?
It can be.
Because it will target us based on what we fear, because the way these firms are designed is they draw us in based on what attracts us, and what attracts us is anger.
Yes.
So in when you wrote your piece When you wrote your piece about Big tech Were you concerned about big tech's manipulation of the general public based on its peddling of fear to harvest our data?
No.
It was about...
Have you ever written about that?
About big tech or manipulators?
About big tech as a manipulator, harvesting our data for free to manipulate us for commercial purposes.
The article was not in relation to that as the actor.
No.
I didn't ask you about that article.
About big tech as in the companies.
Yeah.
The companies manipulating people.
Yeah.
I've written about...
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
I've written about how the platforms can be used to manipulate people.
Have you ever written about that?
Excuse me.
Thank you.
So I think that we just need to not interrupt each other.
You're right.
I think you're both interrupting each other.
So let's slow it down a little bit so we can follow it.
What have you written about big tech's manipulation of us on the basis of negative emotions?
Again, I don't think your question is stated in a way that I can answer.
Okay, then you don't.
You're saying the actor is big tech.
I'm saying it's people who use technology to manipulate.
And you don't think that the people who own big tech companies use technology to manipulate?
Is that your testimony, sir?
No, I think they're trying to offer service to the public.
They have some responsibility for how the conduct of activity is on that platform.
But I'm not saying that the companies are going and trying to do the manipulation themselves.
Really?
Correct.
Is your sworn testimony under oath in this courtroom?
I have not seen a company that's trying to manipulate people from the corporate perspective.
You can pick companies that use it.
You've testified in Congress a number of times, correct?
Correct.
In 2015 you testified about ISIS, correct?
Yes.
In 2015 you testified about the terrorist attacks involving Charlie Hebdo, correct?
Yes.
In 2016 you testified about a Brussels terrorist attack, correct?
Correct.
I believe it was 2016 for that.
That's what I thought I said.
The previous one you said 2015. I think all of those were related to one hearing.
Well, are you sure about that?
Have you ever read your Wikipedia page, sir?
I have.
And if your Wikipedia talks about you're testifying multiple times in U.S. I know my page is wrong because you can go to the edits on that page and you'll see that there have been many manipulations on to include Eastern European bots and IP addresses I don't
know are they I'm just telling you what the Wikipedia page says I didn't say that.
What were you trying to suggest?
I'm just saying that with regards to Wikipedia, you asked me if I've read it and I have.
I've also read where it has been manipulated as well.
And you testified about Russian interference in the elections in 2016, correct?
I testified in 2017 about the manipulations in 2016. And you testified in 2017, didn't you?
Correct.
And you testified in front of the United States Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, correct?
Correct.
And among the topics you testified to at that committee hearing was artificial intelligence and social media, correct?
No.
Russian black propaganda, correct?
Yes.
While you were at West Point-- well, withdrawn.
I can still ask it that way.
While you were at West Point, did you develop the view that propaganda was politics by another means?
Remember the extension.
Politics is work or by another means, Propaganda is social media is politics by another means.
Did you develop that viewpoint at West Point or compare it thereafter?
Thereafter.
While you were at West Point, and you went from West Point, I forgot who you graduated.
Was it 91?
No.
What year?
Well, 1995. I'm not sure what my Wikipedia page says, but 1995. I'm not asking about your Wikipedia page.
I didn't get it from there.
What year did you graduate from West Point?
1995. And you worked for the FBI briefly, correct?
Yes.
About a year?
Three times.
You worked for the FBI briefly after graduating college, correct?
No, after I left the Army.
And you went to the Army for seven years, correct?
Correct.
And then you went to the Monterey Institute of International Studies, correct?
Correct.
It's now, I guess, Middlebury College in Vermont.
They were acquired by Middlebury.
Were you at the Monterey Institute at the time Middlebury purchased it?
No, after I graduated.
What did you study at the Monterey Institute?
International Security and Development.
In the course of your education at West Point and at the Monterey Institute, you became familiar with the works of a German sociologist named Max Baber, correct?
Yes, in graduate school.
And you obviously read, I'm assuming you read his essay, Politics as a Vocation, correct?
I don't recall.
I read several of his works.
I don't know which ones.
You recall his discussion of charismatic No.
I don't.
It was 17 years ago at least, maybe 18. I'm not sure.
charismatic bureaucratic and rational authority and that's no um now you testified earlier today about the course of your career was seven years yes when Correct.
Yes.
True.
training all agents are called special agents correct and among the things that that you were taught in Quantico I think you told us that you did some work on surges and seizures yes On the basics of the law regarding crimes and so forth.
Correct.
And you developed some comprehension of the rules of evidence, correct?
Yes.
Because the purpose was for you to prepare for a career as an investigator of crimes.
Yes.
And among the other classes that you took at the FBI was a class in preparing you how to testify in situations like this.
Yes.
But you've never testified as an expert in a courtroom.
You've No.
Have you ever testified in a courtroom before at all?
No.
So this is your first time?
Yes, testifying.
But you have testified before congressional committees, correct?
Correct.
And you've appeared at a number of other forums.
You told us about, was it lecturing to or presenting to the Los Angeles Police Department?
At times, yes.
The New Jersey State Police, correct?
Correct.
Dozens of police departments across the country.
Yes.
No.
So this is your first time talking to folks in Connecticut?
I believe so, yes.
Welcome to Lens Dayheads.
You testified to US intelligence officers or agencies, correct?
I didn't testify to them, but I've talked to them.
Presented, I should say.
The U.S. military?
Yes.
You've taught at the FBI? Yes.
And your work with respect to the Intelligence Committee, you made a point of saying that sometimes the testimony was not classified, it was open source, correct?
Correct.
Other times it was classified, correct?
Testimony to the congressional committees?
No, sir.
I'm sorry if I was confusing.
It's late in the day.
I thought I heard you say earlier today that you presented to intelligence committees or intelligence organizations.
Intelligence organizations, yes.
And in response to a question Attorney Kaskoff asked, you said that some of that testimony was open source, correct?
Not testimony, but yes.
Briefings and presentations I've given are open source.
Briefings, thank you.
Yes.
Some of those briefings were confidential, correct?
Yes.
Have you ever heard the expression deep state before?
Yes.
What does that mean to you, sir?
Usually it's a reference, a derogatory one, towards the belief that there is a secret or deep state or a separate state that's running the government.
Why do you say it's derogatory?
It's generally used to say that it's not an official capacity.
I see.
Or sometimes it's used to say it is in an official capacity, but there are secrets our government keeps from us, correct?
If they are classified, yes.
Yes, correct.
Have you ever read a book by a woman, in the course of your studies and preparing to testify here, a book by a woman named Anna Merlin called Republic of Lies?
No.
Have you ever heard of it?
No.
Have you made any effort to read Any of the scholarly work on conspiracy theories authored by social scientists?
Yes, over the years.
Joseph Jasinski's work?
No.
Who is he?
Defonda, I think is his name.
The others, I can just add to it, the others would be in a military context.
Military manuals that you would read.
What's the military teaching about conspiracies?
Not about conspiracies, just about information.
My question may have been overly broad, and I apologize.
I'd ask you if you've made any effort to read the scholarly work on conspiracy theories in American life.
Correct.
Devonda is the only one that I can recall off the top of my head.
I'm sure I've read other articles over time.
So you get the call to prepare to testify against Dave Lutron.
You get the call to prepare to testify as an expert in a case involving Alex Jones.
Correct.
You were familiar with him and informed Yes.
You knew him to be a conspiracy theorist, correct?
I believe that he advances conspiracies, yes.
Did you mention, Your Honor?
It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a lie.
I didn't hear what you said.
Well, I didn't hear a word either of you just said it.
So what was the basis for the- It's irrelevant.
It's a lie.
We're not talking about San Diego.
Well, then why is there- Could you just start your question off because I lost it now.
Sir, you gave the call from the Costco firm to testify about Alex Jones in January of this year, correct?
Yes.
You knew a little bit about InfoWars because you'd written about it before, correct?
Yes, I'm sure I've written about it at some point.
And you knew when you got the call that Alex Jones was a conspiracy theorist, correct?
I knew what Alex Jones says, yes.
I knew what he said.
Had you ever studied him as part of your work with the FBI? No.
Had you ever studied him as part of your work with an intelligence committee, work that you can talk about?
No.
So did you make any effort to understand him in the context of American intellectual history, American life, by reading scholarly works, trying to figure out who is this guy, what's this all about, independent of San Diego?
Did you make any effort?
No, that was not the context of why I was brought on to this.
No, the context was to attack him.
Sustained.
Now, you mentioned that you had a company, Nibero?
Nibero, yes.
Where did that name come from?
It's an interesting name.
It's a Japanese name for Ronin Samurai.
It was a group of Ronin Samurai.
Who did you sell the company?
uh...
microsoft and No, I'm fulfilling this as my last role at McBurro right now.
So was it McBurro and Microsoft that was retained?
No.
It was you?
Me.
So how is it that testifying here fulfills your last obligation to McBurro?
Because the acquisition has happened since I was brought on by Council.
And you thus far generated fees of about $185,000.
No, $158,000 I said this morning.
Have you been paid those fees yet?
The 158, yes.
Who paid them?
Costco.
May I have a moment, Judge?
Take your time.
Thank you.
Was there more than one conversation before you decided to take on the challenge?
No, I think it was on the second conversation I agreed to it.
And this was with Eleanor?
Yes.
Attorney Sterling, yes.
What did she tell you about Sandy Hook in that first conversation?
She told me the situation with the trial, that it was with respect to damages, and that they were looking to assess the volume and reach of Infowars.com, all of the social media sites and handles that they're broadcasting on related to Sandy Hook and different lies that were spoken.
And then how much time passes between the first conversation and the attorney's throne and the second?
I don't know at the top of my head.
A few days or a week.
And then you decided you're in.
Yes, this would have been January 2022. And what was the rate structure?
It was by hour, so it was based on the hours of myself and my research team.
Your hourly rate?
I believe it's 935, I think.
935?
Correct.
You get more for testifying in court?
No.
She told you it was about damages?
That this was a second phase of the trial.
That it was with respect to the trial had already been in process and we're trying to assess.
That's what she told you?
No, it was trying to understand the scope that this was in terms of how the case would end.
I don't remember exact wording from January.
You understand this is a hearing on damages?
I understood it to be that, yes.
Where the plaintiffs have to prove the damages that the jury should award, correct?
The plaintiffs have to present a case, and the jury decides.
Have you given this jury any information they can use to calculate damages for any plaintiff?
Sustained.
Now, I gather that when you realized that you were coming into a hearing in damages, your focus was on the harm that Alex Jones and Infowars caused these plaintiffs, correct?
Objection.
My focus was on the Internet traffic related to the content that he produced and the social media reach.
You testified earlier that you used a number of search terms in the course of your work, correct?
Correct.
And there were actually 441 of those search terms.
Correct, correct.
Keywords and search terms are same, correct?
Yes.
Different words expressing the same concept, right?
Yes.
Did you run the names of each of the plaintiffs in this case on that?
I would have to go through the list to review.
You don't recall?
I don't recall every single name.
Do you recall seeing any other name than Robbie Parker in an Infowars or Alex Jones broadcast?
I would have to review the data to know.
You didn't do so before coming to court?
I reviewed the data, but there was a lot of it.
You understood you're here to testify on hearing the damages.
Yes.
You had a duty to investigate, to inquire, to be thorough, correct?
Correct.
I did not.
Your work early in your career in the military and in intelligence was focused largely on the Middle East, correct?
Sure.
For me, Middle East and Africa.
Correct.
And describe for the jury where the Horn of Africa is.
Those would be the countries furthest to the east, namely Somalia, Kenya, were the two.
And that was an interest you acquired at Monterey, I believe, correct?
Correct.
You went from military academy, you fulfilled your service obligation, you went to the FBI, stayed a year, went to graduate school, and you had an advisor at Yes.
Were you an Arabic speaker at that time?
No.
Are you now?
No.
And you were first-- it was through your focus on groups with a substantial nexus of countries in the Horn of Africa that you first became aware of how effective social media could be to contact, recruit, and basically weaponize individuals, correct?
And when you developed that interest, you realized that social media represented one phase of electronic communication in a digital world.
It replaced the internet, correct?
No.
Well, I think what you told us earlier, in the internet you find content, and in the social media world, content finds you.
Correct.
Does that make social media a qualitatively more effective way of influencing large groups of people?
The two work symbiotically.
So if you do both, it is more effective.
And one of the things that you focused on in your work was the fact that, and you write about this in your book, the Islamic State overtook al-Qaeda because it was better at using social media, correct?
I believe that to be correct, yes.
And you likened social media, you likened the Islamic State's use of social media to groups within American politics, didn't you?
The way that it was used, yes.
Meaning that regardless of what the organization is, the methods for use, which I referred to earlier, were very consistent.
And the groups that you likened to al-Qaeda, In the book?
Yeah.
I addressed two different generations of use of it on both sides of the political aisle.
What was the one on the left?
The Obama presidential campaign was known for its being very dynamic in social media.
Were they terrorists?
No.
Were they hackers?
No.
Were the Republican Party?
No.
Now, I assume when you got the call in January of 2022 to become an expert in this case, you'd already heard of Sandy Omer.
Correct.
And you understood that you would be called upon to testify?
Yes.
And that your intention, obviously, was to review all the material you were provided from whatever source, correct?
Yes.
And you weren't limited to what you were provided.
You also talked about doing searches Right.
To identify missing data, yes.
Did you do any other searches to place this case in context?
For example, there's a reporter at the New York Times named Elizabeth Williamson who wrote a book, Sandy Hook, An American Tragedy and the Battle of the Truth.
Correct.
Yes, I did.
And she's here in the courtroom today.
Have you talked to her today?
I did.
She introduced herself.
You understand that this trial is not a chapter of quote-unquote battle for proof.
It's a hearing and damage.
You understand?
Correct.
Can we see Exhibit 1E, Mr. Bruce?
That is the Exhibit, Your Honor.
Thank you.
1E.
1E.
While that gets teed up, what is a meme, sir?
It would be a short video that expresses some sort of context around an event, and usually they go viral, meaning they're posted onto the internet.
Other people enjoy the meme or take the meme or try and recreate a similar meme with their own content.
And it's not just a video.
They can be words.
It can be words, can be images, can be videos.
In one of the exhibits that was played today, I heard the words, the entered in 1984 is 1776. I'm not familiar with that.
Could you say that again?
You never heard the expression from Alex Jones or anyone associated with him in the material that you reviewed.
The answer to 1984 is 1776. Is that your testimony?
Yes, I have heard that phrase.
And you associate with Alex Jones?
I don't know that I would, but...
Okay.
Is that the sort of thing that would inspire anger?
I'm confused by your question.
You talked before in response to questions by Attorney Koskoff.
May I have a moment, Judge?
Take your time.
About a message.
Correct.
And a message might inspire fear, correct?
Correct.
It might inspire anger, correct?
Yes.
It might demonize people.
It could.
And an effective message mobilizes people around negative emotions, correct?
That is one way to do effective messaging.
And so the answer, when you hear the expression, the answer to 1984, does the year 1984 inspire any thoughts?
I'm assuming it relates to Orwell's book, 1984. So George Orwell wrote what's called a dystopian piece of fiction, correct?
Correct.
About a world in which government controlled everything regarding information, correct?
Yes.
In the book, yes.
And the protagonist, the hero, was the man who just wanted his own individual significance.
He didn't want to buy the lie, correct?
It could be seen as that, as one theme, yes.
When you hear the answer to 1984 or 1776, does that sound like an appeal to anger, or I've not spent much time thinking about that.
One second.
You didn't talk about 1984 or 1776 or any other date other than the dates we talked about, December 14, 2012.
So your objection, objecting beyond the scope or relevance or what?
It was in one of the videos.
He said he didn't hear it.
He said he didn't, the witness also, there's no foundation of what he said he didn't hear it.
And now that he heard a jury.
That's just one.
But what?
I'm going to overrule the objection.
Show us one E, Mr. Bruce, please.
They have hit the ground running in a buildup.
And I said, this is the attack.
Look, people have got to find the clubs the last two months.
I said, they are launching attacks.
They're getting ready.
I can see them warming up with Obama.
They've got a bigger majority in the Congress now and the Senate.
They are going to come after our guns.
Look for better shooting.
Do you know who they are?
No, not based on this clip.
But you're an experienced analyst, correct?
Yes.
Educated at West Point?
Yes.
An institution now owned by Middlebury, correct?
Yes.
Have you drawn any conclusions about who they might be?
Just in the context of this, I believe he mentions President Obama at one point.
I think it's in this clip.
And globalists, too.
Globalists, yes.
Can you play that again, John?
Or, I mean, start it over?
just start it up again.
They have hit the ground running in a buildup, and I said, this is the attack.
People have got to find the clubs the last two months.
I said, they are launching attacks.
They're getting ready.
I can see them warming up with Obama.
They've got a bigger majority in the Congress now in the Senate.
They are going to come after our guns, look for mass shootings.
And you stopped that right here.
And magically it happened.
Again, is that him appealing to anger or fear?
Yes, he's trying to appeal to anger, I believe, in this.
He's claiming that this was premeditated.
Maybe fear, too?
It's usually more than one, but yes, it could be fear and anger.
The anger is the flip side of fear, isn't it?
I don't know.
It's your opinion.
it's not.
I'm not sure.
Did you get around Aristotle's ethics at the military academy?
I probably did somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years ago.
Not since?
No.
Play the video again, John.
They have hit the ground running in a buildup.
I said, this is the attack.
Look, people have got to find the clips the last few months.
I said, they are launching attacks.
They're getting ready.
I can see them warming up with Obama.
They've got a bigger majority in the Congress now and the Senate.
They are going to come after our guns, look for mass shootings.
Go ahead, John, please.
And then magically it happens.
They are coming.
Are those words designed to appeal to anger or fear or both?
Both.
Based on the image, both.
But you don't know who they are?
It's not defined in this segment.
You haven't reached any conclusions based on your review of the material?
No.
Do you think that Alex Jones ginned up all these viewers just by talking?
In other words, did Alex Jones gin up all the fear that attracted people to him, or is he appealing to something that people feel in the world and they respond to it?
I don't know why viewers watch Alex Jones.
Millions do, though.
Yes.
That's a democracy, correct?
This is part of social media nationalism and clickbait populism.
I didn't say that.
Objection.
That's all right.
Thank you.
Some things are worthy of fear, are they not?
I'm not sure what the context of this is, but yes, people can be scared.
Legitimately so?
They could be.
People can be angry.
Yes.
Legitimately so?
Depends on what they see as legitimate.
Others can be demonized, correct?
Correct.
Legitimately so?
I didn't say that.
Well, when Paul Revere wrote in Concord to Lexington saying, the British are coming, the British are coming, the British are coming, was he demonizing the British?
Or was he inviting them to He was sending a warning based on an invasion.
And people were angry and afraid and they revolted, correct?
In 1776 we declared independence, correct?
Correct.
And you're aware that for millions of Americans, that sort of fight is brewing in the streets today, are you not?
No.
Sustained.
let's move on I will look at in here if you'd like that would be for 4:25 okay so so we will see you back on Friday I know that you know what the rules are.
Be very careful when you leave the courthouse today to avoid anyone associated with the case or any media.
Continue to make all reasonable efforts to avoid any media coverage when you go home.
And tomorrow, Ron will safeguard your notebooks and we will see you then.