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Jan. 28, 2025 - Depositions & Trials
27:39
Deposition Testimony of InfoWars Host Owen Shroyer
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Time Text
Here we go.
On record, 10.07.
All right.
To raise your hand.
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Truth.
Great to proceed.
Mr. Schroyer, when were you first told you were given a deposition in this case?
Boy, I don't know the exact date.
Do you recall when it would have been?
Unfortunately, she's not able to help you out here.
No, I don't know the exact date.
Okay.
I'm guessing sometime in the past couple weeks, though?
I would say maybe a month, I've known.
Who have you spoken to about this deposition?
My attorney, and I believe that's it.
Okay.
Did you review any documents for the deposition?
Yes.
Can you describe what documents you reviewed?
An affidavit that I signed for this case, and then two videos that are relevant to this case.
Okay.
I would take it those would be the May 7th and May 8th episodes of your show?
It is the episode pertaining to the original documents you sent me and then the retraction video.
Okay.
Did you talk to anyone other than your attorney about the subject matter of your testimony?
Not that I can recall, no.
Okay.
And have you had any written or electronic communications of anyone about this case?
Not in specifics, other than maybe just telling somebody that I was being deposed today, maybe just somebody at work, just letting them know.
Okay.
As far as your background, you are a journalist who provides news coverage.
I'm a broadcaster, yes.
Okay.
What I'm referring to is, did you see in your legal papers in this case where it was claimed you were a journalist who provides news coverage?
I don't recall what identities I was given in any legal papers.
You record an internet video show called The War Room?
I'm the host of the show, yes.
Okay.
You have one boss, and that's Alex Jones?
You could say that.
But Alex Jones doesn't personally oversee your show or pre-approve what you say, right?
Not necessarily.
And was on the day that we're talking about, in this case, the video that you reviewed for May 7th, 2023, Did Alex Jones personally oversee or tell you what to say?
No.
You're allowed to say what you want on your show?
Yes.
You have people working under you on your show that you can give instructions to?
Yes.
Part of your show involves reviewing news articles and social media posts that have been printed out on paper.
Correct?
Is that a question?
It is.
Yeah, that's part of the show.
Part of your show involves displaying materials printed out from the internet that you have never seen and then commenting on them live.
That's happened before.
That's not an integral part of the show.
That's what happened in this episode, correct?
Not exactly, but generally speaking, that's kind of what happened.
From what I understand of your affidavit...
You reviewed materials on this show relating to my client that you had never seen before?
Reviewed what materials?
Well, for instance, the photo of my client that we're here about today.
You had never seen that before going on air?
No.
You had never reviewed any of those materials?
No, it was just sitting on the desk.
And you knew that there would be materials sitting on the desk?
Yeah, there are materials sitting on the desk.
And you may not have seen them or checked them before?
No.
Whether you might end up defaming someone on your show, it's pretty much a Russian roulette situation as far as you're concerned.
No.
Well, I don't understand.
If you have materials on your desk that you haven't checked, how would you know what's in them?
They're not my materials.
I'm not referencing those materials.
I never touched those materials.
I never told anybody to put those materials on the air on video.
Well, you know they're going to be there, right?
No, I don't know what's going to be there.
No, you know exactly.
You know that stuff is going to be on your desk and you don't know what it is.
Right?
Is that right?
Yeah, I don't go through the thousands of papers on the desk when I sit down for the Sunday show.
I don't have time to.
Right, so when you have a show and part of the basis of your show is to review live materials printed out from the internet that you've never seen, that ain't a great idea.
Do you agree with that?
Objection form.
It's not exactly an ideal situation, but that's the situation I'm in on Sundays.
I don't have time to clear the desk.
I have basically two minutes to sit down and put a mic on, and that's all I can do on Sunday.
So I had nothing to do with those documents.
What instructions do you give about the printed out materials that are going to be used on your show?
Are you talking about for this show in question?
No, just generally.
Well, it's kind of important that there's a distinction being made.
On that show, I literally just sit down at the desk.
It's the exact same desk where somebody's on air before me.
I don't have any time to clear the desk.
I don't have any time to review what's on the desk.
I don't have any time to put new stuff on the desk.
I just have to sit down and go on air.
So on a normal circumstance, I have control over the desk.
I have control of what's on the desk.
In this circumstance, I have none.
You certainly have control of the words coming out of your mouth while you're talking on air, right?
Yes.
And those, in this case, I think what you're telling me is none of that is preplanned.
You don't have a script.
No.
Okay.
So, you know that you're going to be encountering materials you've never seen before and reacting to them live, correct?
No.
Okay.
Well, you know there's going to be materials on the desk, right?
Yes.
In this specific case, you knew you had never seen them before.
Okay.
Right?
Okay.
And then you knew you'd be reacting to them live, correct?
No.
Explain to me why that's not right.
Because I don't have to react to anything on the desk.
I'm not understanding what you're saying.
Your show...
From what I understand how it operates, is you have a stack of materials on your desk that are about the news stories of the day, correct?
Yes.
And that dictates kind of what you're going to be talking about on your show, are those news stories, right?
No.
Okay.
Can you see the materials on your desk while you're on the show?
Yeah, there's a bunch of stacks in front of me.
You can see it on the video.
That's what I wanted to make sure.
When we go to the Infowars document camera, right, that's above the desk, that's a view...
Directly in front of you.
Those papers aren't on some other desk.
That's the desk right in front of you?
Yes.
Okay.
Who...
First of all, do you know who you had select materials for that show?
Nobody, probably.
But no, I don't know.
You don't know how they got to your desk?
My guess is the show before prints out all this stuff and puts it on the desk for the host before me.
That's how they got on the desk.
Who's the host before you?
Alex Jones.
Okay.
So you don't have any idea who printed out those materials for his show?
No, I'm not there.
I get there after he's done.
So the materials that are there on your desk are not even checked by any member of your staff?
No, I don't have a staff for that show.
I just inherit the staff that's already there.
Got you.
So before going on air, you don't do anything yourself to ensure that any of the materials on your desk are accurate or appropriate for the show?
Objection form.
I don't really reference them.
I don't touch them.
I don't pick them up.
They're just there.
Can you identify everyone who is working on your May 7th show who would have had any input on the materials selected for the show?
Not off the top of my head, no.
Okay.
Can you identify for me everybody who works on your show?
Which show?
The Sunday night show that you were doing.
The weekend staff is a rotating staff.
So, I mean, I would just have to sit here and name off staff members.
I don't know who was on the show that night.
Well, can you tell me anybody who might have potentially had input on the materials selected that ended up on your desk?
You want me to just name people's names?
Mm-hmm.
Their full names?
Sure.
Okay.
There's a producer named Scott.
There's a producer named Daria.
There's a couple of helping hands.
Thomas, Rob, Sean.
I mean, these are just some of the names of the staff that are there on Sundays.
Two of those people you described as producers, right?
Is that right?
Yes.
Okay, and then I believe you used the word helpers?
Yes.
Is that right?
Would those be the two kind of job titles of people who were working on your show?
Producer's a title, Board Op, Call Screener, Switcher.
Those are some titles.
Do you have an editor?
Yes.
Who's your editor?
I don't know.
I think the guy that edits the Sunday show.
That show, I think his name is Wilson, but I don't know.
I want to make a distinction, if I can, between, I believe what you may be when you talk about editing the show.
You mean video editing, right?
Yes.
Okay.
I want to make a distinction.
For instance, do you know, does Infowars have a managing editor?
Not that I'm aware of.
Okay.
Let me give you a name of somebody who you might be familiar with.
I don't know if he works for the company anymore.
Kit Daniels.
You familiar with that name?
Yes.
Okay.
Now, he was an editor, right?
He was a press editor.
Correct.
For the stuff that went on the website?
Yes.
And for articles and writing and things like that?
Yes.
Kit Daniels, in other words, isn't a video editor?
No.
Alright.
Does Kit Daniels, does he work on your show at all?
No.
Okay.
Is there anybody else who holds the same job as Kit Daniels last summer, where they were an editor for the network?
I could not tell you that.
I don't know.
Okay.
Greg, can you give me all the copies at Tab 2?
Appreciate it.
There we go.
If we can mark that as Exhibit 1. I would have more copies.
I didn't expect anybody else to be interested in this stuff, which I honestly did not expect to see y'all.
But I'll be happy to make y'all copies at the end if y'all would like.
Do you care about the wood of your children?
Yeah, you can look at this one.
That's perfect.
All right, Mr. Schroer, I've handed you what has been marked as Exhibit 1.
This is an email of Kit Daniels.
We were talking about he's a co-worker of yours.
Was.
Was a co-worker of yours.
Was he a co-worker of yours last summer in 2023?
I don't think I've seen Kit Daniels in maybe over a year.
Okay.
The subject of this email is new editorial policy for all reporters, journalists, and writers.
Do you see that at the top?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
It was sent on June 7, 2018?
You see that?
Mm-hmm.
At that time you were hosting a show as a journalist?
I was a host.
I don't know about the term journalist applying here.
Well, when it says it applies to reporters, journalists, and writers, do you think this policy applies to you?
I don't know.
This could have been meant for the writers.
I do not know.
Well, it was sent to you, wasn't it?
Kid Daniels was never my managing editor.
Well, I'm asking who it was sent to.
It was sent to InfoWars staff.
And that goes to you, right?
I think so.
The policy says any news story published or promoted by Infowars that deals with the possibility of a crime being committed or criminal accusations in general must be checked by multiple editors before publication, whether it be a video report or a written article.
This also includes headlines as well as the content of the report.
This policy will help ensure that reports are free of inaccurate and misleading statements that invite legal problems for the company.
You agree that this policy existed before the show that we're here to talk about today?
Yes.
Okay.
Has anyone ever said to you since 2018, Mr. Stroyer, this policy is no longer in effect, and criminal allegations that you make on your show don't need to be checked by multiple editors?
No.
Do you remember what happened to cause the creation of this policy?
No.
Do you remember that shortly before this email, your coworker Kit Daniels published an innocent person's photo as the Parkland shooter?
No.
Are you familiar with the lawsuit that resulted from those opinions?
Not off the top of my head.
Have you heard the name Marcel Fontaine?
Sounds familiar.
Do you recognize that as the person who was falsely identified as the shooter in the Parkland incident?
Again, I don't remember this off the top of my head.
Do you remember in May 2022, a year before this episode we're talking about, that you published the photo of an innocent woman saying that she was the Uvalde Elementary School shooter?
No.
I want to see if we can refresh your memory on that.
Um...
What the hell are we going?
Alexis, let's mark that as exhibit two.
Okay, yes, go ahead and give that to Mr. Schreiner.
Mr. Schreier, I've handed you what's been marked as Exhibit 2. This is a CNN article that was published on KTVZ Oregon.
The title of this article is False Right Conspiracists Claim the Uvalde Shooter Was a Trans Woman, and I'd like to direct your attention to the highlighted portion on page two.
Do you see that?
Yeah.
Okay, I'm going to read that portion really quick, and you can read along with me.
It says, Jones told the caller he had a photo of Ramos wearing a skirt.
Later in the episode, he shared a tweet from Andy Ngo that asked people to stop claiming that the images of people in skirts being circulated are Ramos.
Because none of those images had been confirmed to be the shooter.
Joan's co-host Owen Schroyer said, I just want to be clear, the images we've been talking about are not the ones that we've been sharing.
We've been sharing the images that are on his Instagram account that is claimed to be his.
The Instagram account that Schroyer mentioned was a spoof account that has since been taken down.
Does this refresh your memory that in 2022 you spread the false image of a mass shooter?
Vaguely.
But I don't know.
I mean, claiming I spread a false image, this is just a quote.
It doesn't show any images, it doesn't give any context, so I'm not admitting to that.
Right, and that's what I'm asking, though, is does it refresh your memory that you did spread the photo of this innocent woman as you've already shared?
Objection form.
I remember the general incident.
Did you learn anything from that?
Uh, no.
Let's talk about your coverage of the Allen, Texas mass shooting in the summer of 2023. I saw that it was claimed in your legal papers that you claimed that you published a widely reported and disseminated mugshot.
Is that accurate?
That is the image that you are referring to.
Other than you, where was it reported prior to your show on May 7th?
Well, it is obviously on the Twitter account that is sitting on the desk that I've noticed is not mentioned in the lawsuit.
And then obviously all the other defendants who are here probably disseminated the same image and I'm sure plenty of other people.
Do you know if any of them did it before or after you?
No.
Okay, so you've read the lawsuit, I take it, because you just commented on it, right?
Yes.
Okay, so you would know from that lawsuit that none of your co-defendants published it before you, right?
I don't know.
And then we have this Twitter account, right?
Kenkoa the Great.
And...
Let's actually just...
Hold that real quick.
There we go.
OK, let's mark that as three.
All right, I've shown you what's been marked as exhibit three. I've shown you what's been marked as exhibit three.
This is a screenshot from the video of your May 7th show.
This is the tweet that you were talking about that was sitting on your desk.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
This Kankoa the Great account on Twitter.
You know that person's identity?
No.
That person's completely anonymous to you?
Yes.
That's, as a source, that's not ideal.
Not my source.
I'm saying as a source, that's not ideal.
Okay.
Correct?
Okay.
I'm not asking you to say okay.
You're not asking me a question.
I am.
I'm asking you as a source, an anonymous account that you don't know the identity of is not ideal.
Objection form.
Not ideal.
Okay.
It shows a picture here and You'll notice that it says, booked in Dallas County, Texas, for unknown.
Do you see that?
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so first of all, at this time, on May 7th, you knew the shooter wasn't booked for the shooting.
You knew that, right?
I don't recall what I knew or didn't know at the time.
Okay.
You see it shows a watermark for a website, right?
It says recentlybooked.com?
Yeah, I see that.
Okay.
Let's work that.
All right.
If any of you have been marked as Exhibit 4, and I want you to take a look at the listing on recentlybooked.com.
Did you ever visit this webpage?
Nope.
Did you ever ask anyone to do that?
Nope.
Do you see where it says age 35?
Yep.
Seeing that would have caused doubt that this was an image of a 33-year-old shooter, right?
Sure.
You would agree that before you discuss a photo on your show, allegedly showing a mass murderer, You need to ensure that reasonable steps were taken to verify its accuracy.
I was not discussing this photo.
I had nothing to do with the printing of this photo.
I had nothing to do with this photo ending up on my desk.
I had nothing to do with anything being highlighted in this photo.
I had nothing to do with this.
I never asked it to be put on the screen.
As I said in my affidavit.
And you shouldn't have let that happen, should you?
There's nothing I can do.
I don't have control over it.
I'm not understanding.
No, you are understanding.
No, I am.
I asked you earlier.
You have people who work under you.
You can give instructions to me.
And did I tell anybody to put that image on the screen?
Don't you think you should have instructed people not to put anonymous images on your desk?
Objection form.
My boss puts it on the desk or somebody puts it on the desk for him?
What am I supposed to do?
There's nothing I can do.
I'm not sure where you're getting that your boss put it on your desk.
Don't you tell me that you had no idea who put it on your desk?
So, okay, so I don't know who put it on my desk.
It wasn't me.
You walked into a studio.
Got onto a show, to a large audience, and started talking about materials you've never seen.
Wasn't talking about that material.
Sure, we have a video of you talking about this.
You have a video of me talking about a mass shooting, which was a story that happens to be the same name as this guy.
Right, you understand that when we're looking at this image right here, that this is a screenshot of your show.
You understand your viewers saw this, right?
I'm the host of a show on Free Speech Systems by Infowars.
I had nothing to do with that image being on the desk or on the screen.
Right, and you have the ability, if you want, to give instructions to the members of your staff about what materials should be on your desk, don't you?
Well, actually, I am supposed to leave the materials on the desk because the host, whose desk it is, likes his stuff to stay on the desk.
So no, I can't just clear out all the materials.
So in other words, whether you might, you know you're getting on a show to talk to a bunch of people, and whether you might end up saying something proper or improper is dependent on the materials that were left on the desk by Alex Jones.
No.
No.
I want to make sure that we're clear that you did nothing To ensure that photographs used during your broadcast were accurate.
Objection form.
I had nothing to do with that photo on the desk or on the screen.
During a breaking news event, you should only discuss to your audience and publish to your audience the image of an alleged mass murderer if the image was confirmed using a primary source.
Would you agree with that?
I had nothing to do with the publishing of that image.
That's not what I asked you, Mr. Shaw.
You want me to ask it again?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
During a breaking news event, you should only discuss or publish an image of a mass alleged shooter if the image was confirmed using a primary source.
Do you agree with that?
Yes.
I want to talk about your use of anonymous materials, how you approach that, okay?
And certainly you recall the time on your show when you used an anonymous blog about a Sandy Hook parent named Neil Husslin.
Do you remember that?
It's funny, because these anonymous accounts that you always bring up as the basis for my lawsuits never end up in a lawsuit with you.
That is interesting, right?
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, it is interesting how the professional commercial journalist has a duty that's different than a random person on Twitter.
Would you agree with that?
Well, I don't know.
That's all about interpretation, I suppose.
No, I'm asking you.
You're in the industry.
I'm asking you about the standard of care in your industry.
Do you think your standard of care talking to your audience is any different than a random anonymous person on Twitter who's not a commercial media person?
Do you believe that?
I'm not sure.
Going back to the use of that anonymous blog about Sandy Hook parent Neil Hustlin, you acknowledged that was a serious error on your part, right?
Yes, and you're well aware of what led to those circumstances because you know a very similar thing happened where somebody brought that to me.
And you acknowledged that that was a serious error on your part.
Yes, I wish I wouldn't have done that.
You called it the worst moment of your journalism career.
Yeah, you're still bringing it up to this day.
And this, what we're talking about today, is the same kind of error.
Objection form.
No, definitely not the same kind of error, except that you pounced on it to bring me here.
You remember in December 2021 giving a deposition in the lawsuit involving Mr. Husslund, right?
Okay.
I mean, sure.
I was deposed, yes.
All right.
I'm going to give you a copy of that.
Actually, let's go ahead and...
I'm going to keep it in the notebook for now for him, for ease, but we'll mark that as Exhibit 5. Alright,
Mr. Shore, you see there, right in front of you is a cover page for the deposition testimony you gave in 2021. Do you see that?
Yep.
Okay.
Can you, and you'll see that there are, it's condensed, there are four pages per page.
Alright, and if you can flip into that to me, to page 116. Okay.
Alright, and do you see a highlighted part up at the top of that page?
Yep.
Okay, I'm going to read that question and answer to you.
Okay.
But sitting here today, when you go back to InfoWars, are you going to just be on live, get handed a story with clips from someone you don't remember who it is, and run it?
Or are you going to make sure it was fact-checked?
And your answer was, well, I would say, after this experience, I am...
I am highly less likely to be handed a story or a video clip and air it without checking it myself.
Do you see that?
Yes.
Alright.
But that wasn't true because you've been doing that most days on your show ever since, right?
Nope.
And that's what you did in this case, right?
Nope.
Not at all.
Not the same thing to you?
Not even close.
Great.
So you see after your answer, Mr. Ogden says, Justice system is working.
Not all the way, but that's a big step forward for us.
Not, I'm not, and I'm not saying that sarcastically.
Genuinely, for both you and I and my clients, we appreciate that position.
Mr. Ogden was being a bit naive there, wouldn't you agree?
I don't know.
Let me ask you again today.
I'm wondering today, now after this experience, sitting here today, when you go back to InfoWars, are you ever going to be on just live and run with a story and discuss things that are on your desk that you've never seen before?
Or are you going to make sure it was fact-checked?
Uh, nope.
There you go.
Thank you, Mr. Shore.
That's all I need from you today.
We'll call it a deposition.
You can go off the record.
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