All Episodes
Jan. 26, 2022 - Knowledge Fight
04:08:29
#641: Formulaic Objections Part 4

Formulaic Objections Part 4 dissects Alex Jones’s evasive Sandy Hook depositions, where he deflects with "false flag" claims (Jesse Smollett, Iraq WMDs) and denies seeing damning emails—like Wolfgang Halbig’s harassment of parents or a 2015 push to promote Jim Fetzer’s debunked book. InfoWars’ Daria Karpova cites Wikipedia and fringe theories as "evidence," ignoring sanctions and discovery requests. The episode reveals a pattern of financial-driven conspiracy peddling, with no accountability, exposing how Jones weaponizes grief for profit while his team lacks basic journalistic rigor. [Automatically generated summary]

Participants
Main
a
alex jones
infowars 18:14
d
dan friesen
01:28:45
d
daria karpova
infowars 09:49
j
jordan holmes
40:25
m
mark bankston
01:14:20
Appearances
b
brad reeves
02:01
t
tom homan
admin 00:46
|

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
I have great respect for knowledge fight.
alex jones
Knowledge fight.
unidentified
I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys.
alex jones
Shang, we are the bad guys.
unidentified
Knowledge fight.
Dan and Jordan.
Knowledge fight.
alex jones
I need money.
tom homan
Reddit.
alex jones
Andy and Pansy.
Andy and Pandy.
Andy and Pansy.
Andy and Kansas.
unidentified
Hello, Alex.
I'm a fish-to-hand color.
I'm a huge fan.
jordan holmes
I love your words.
unidentified
Knowledge fight.
alex jones
Knowledgefight.com.
I love you.
unidentified
Hey, everybody.
dan friesen
Welcome back to Knowledge Fight.
alex jones
I'm Dan.
jordan holmes
I'm Jordan.
dan friesen
We're Gabriel Dudes.
Like to sit around, worship at the altar of Celine, and talk a little bit about Alex Emmerick Jones and the ongoing adventures of drain swirling.
jordan holmes
I don't know.
dan friesen
That's what came to mind.
That wasn't great.
I can do better.
jordan holmes
Yeah, we'll get there.
It's 2022.
We'll get something for it later.
dan friesen
We'll figure it out.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah.
Dan, Dan.
dan friesen
Jordan.
jordan holmes
Dan.
dan friesen
What's up?
jordan holmes
Dan.
What's your bright spot today?
dan friesen
My bright spot today is it's actually a bright spot of anger.
jordan holmes
It's a bright spot of anger.
unidentified
Yes.
dan friesen
And the anger is that no one told me about a thing existing before, and I stumbled across it.
And now it's all I want to do.
I've found that on YouTube, there are a bunch of channels that are just like, they set up a camera and animals show up.
jordan holmes
You didn't know that?
No.
unidentified
It's taken the internet by storm since Fat Bear Week, like 10 years ago.
dan friesen
I knew about Fat Bear Week, but I thought that was a special event.
jordan holmes
No, man.
dan friesen
I didn't realize that there were these cameras that you could just watch live all the time.
jordan holmes
24-7.
dan friesen
I found one that was in the Namibian desert and it's a watering hole.
And so for about five minutes, I'm watching this Ibix or Ibex or however you pronounce that drink from this watering hole.
Like, this is fascinating.
Then a second Ibix showed up and I cheered.
Sitting alone in the apartment, I cheered for the appearance of another animal.
jordan holmes
I'm telling you right now, you can get so many cameras that are just 24-7 on a nest with eggs in there, and it is your entire life.
dan friesen
I don't want that.
That's too much tension.
jordan holmes
Entire life just sitting there being like, ooh, is this a dick?
dan friesen
I don't want to be waiting for the egg to hatch or something like that.
That's too high stakes.
But watching just a watering hole is pretty great.
I'm going to be lost to the world now.
This is where I'm heading.
jordan holmes
I like that you are, in some sense, digitally retreating to the wilderness.
You can't go and move into the middle of the woods, but you can through the vision of a design.
dan friesen
The desire has been there.
Maybe this is the only way that I can manifest it.
Also, one of the Ibyxes walked past the camera.
I'm like, ooh, look at that guy.
jordan holmes
Just look at him.
Oh, look at you.
dan friesen
So what about you?
What's your bright spot?
jordan holmes
My bright spot, Dan, is no, no, no, no.
My partner is a teacher, and that means that right around this time of year, all of the Girl Scouts circle like vultures on weak teachers.
Sure.
Ready to pounce.
dan friesen
You got to do your part.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
So despite the fact that I'm sure it's in some way some sort of evil cartel, the Girl Scouts, it has to be.
dan friesen
I would assume so.
jordan holmes
I haven't read anything about it, but you're sure it is.
So now we have a shit ton of boxes.
Awesome.
dan friesen
Are orders still open?
jordan holmes
I'm pretty sure.
unidentified
I might need you to put it in order for me.
jordan holmes
I've got some.
Okay.
Listen.
dan friesen
You can buy these secondhand.
jordan holmes
At this point, if the cops came, I would be busted for intent to distribute.
That's how many fucking boxes we have.
dan friesen
I'm looking for some Samoas.
jordan holmes
I've got some.
dan friesen
I'm looking for some tag-alongs.
jordan holmes
You can't have any of my fucking tag-alongs.
alex jones
Damn it.
jordan holmes
You don't get a single cookie.
dan friesen
I don't want thin mints.
I've had my fill of those.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
jordan holmes
I got some s'mores ones for you.
alex jones
What?
dan friesen
They have s'mores ones?
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
When did they start this?
jordan holmes
You don't want to know.
tom homan
Okay.
jordan holmes
Anyways, that's my bright spot.
dan friesen
That is a pretty bright spot.
Look, I like sweets.
jordan holmes
We've got some negotiations after the show.
dan friesen
I will say that I like sweets when times are tough.
When things are good, I have much less of a sweet tooth.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
Hey, it looks like times have been tough.
So, Jordan, today we have an episode to go over that has been long in the works.
And we've teased this a little bit, but not very specifically.
Things like I've mentioned that I have some side things I'm working on.
jordan holmes
Yes.
dan friesen
And things like when beginning of December, we had two past episodes.
jordan holmes
We had a little break, and nobody knew why.
dan friesen
Yes.
And all will become clear on today's episode.
But before we get down to business on that, let's take a little moment to say thank you and hello to some new wonks.
So, first, the Rev's Lang.
Thank you so much, Your Nio Policy Wonk.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
jordan holmes
Thank you very much.
dan friesen
I think that's the Reverend's Lang.
jordan holmes
The Reverend's Lang.
dan friesen
Maybe.
jordan holmes
The Rev's Slang?
dan friesen
Who knows?
Okay.
Next, Mother Gerald.
Thank you so much.
You're an Iowa Policy Walk.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
jordan holmes
Thank you very much.
dan friesen
Next, we have a Technocrat in the mix, Jordan.
Thank you so much.
You are now a policy wonk.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
unidentified
Ha ha.
dan friesen
I thought you could trip me up.
jordan holmes
Damn it.
dan friesen
But we also do have a couple technocrats in the mix.
jordan holmes
Okay, goddamn it.
dan friesen
So, first, Jared and Alex's secret assistant, Taylor, and then in parentheses, inside joke.
Thank you so much.
You're an IO Technocrat.
And sorry, Adam, Gigi made me give more money to Dan and Jordan because Bear won't stop howling about globalists.
Thank you so much.
You are now a technocrat.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
I have risen above my enemies.
I might quit tomorrow, actually.
I'm just going to take a little break now.
A little breaky for me.
And then we're going to come back.
And I'm going to start the show over.
But I'm the devil.
I got to be taken off here.
I've been all this.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
I got plenty of words for you, but at the end of the day, fuck you and your new world order and fuck the horse you rode in on and all your shit.
Maybe today should be my last broadcast.
Maybe I'll just be gone a month, maybe five years.
Maybe I'll walk out of here tomorrow and you never see me again.
That's really what I want to do.
I never want to come back here again.
I apologize to the crew and the listeners yesterday that I was legitimately having breakdowns on air.
I'll be better tomorrow.
dan friesen
He may be.
So thank you all.
jordan holmes
Thank you very, very much.
dan friesen
So, Jordan, we have some breaking news in the world of Alex as we're recording this here on Tuesday.
For instance, we have learned that Alex did go for the January 6th committee.
Indeed.
And these are pressing issues that we will talk about on Friday.
Right.
We have for you today an episode where we will be discussing some depositions from Alex's Sandy Hook case.
jordan holmes
Oh, shit.
dan friesen
And I felt like, you know, if we're going to be talking about this, we should probably check in and discuss how all this came about, what the circumstances are.
Totally.
jordan holmes
With the eyewitness on the scene, the plaintiff's attorney.
dan friesen
Absolutely.
So let's throw it to a conversation we pre-recorded with Mark Bankston.
Well, joining us here in the virtual podcast studio over Zoom.
jordan holmes
Do we have a name for our lair?
I don't think we do.
dan friesen
We should.
We should come up with one.
jordan holmes
Should we?
dan friesen
Like the Honeycomb Hideout.
jordan holmes
I think that's a great name for it.
dan friesen
Is that the Bishop Dawn Magic Wand?
We're off track.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
Already.
It's quick.
dan friesen
Joining us here in the Honeycomb Hideout, which I'm insisting is the name.
The lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the Sandy Hook lawsuits against Alex Jones.
Mark Bankster.
jordan holmes
Yes.
mark bankston
Hello, everybody.
dan friesen
Welcome back.
mark bankston
I'm not using the name, by the way.
I'm not saying honeycomb hideout.
That never worked for me.
dan friesen
That's fine.
jordan holmes
Well, you're not here.
So frankly, there's a no boys allowed policy.
mark bankston
So I can respect the rules.
dan friesen
So welcome.
We wanted to do a little preface to this episode because it's, I think, a monumentous occasion.
mark bankston
It's auspicious is how I would describe it.
dan friesen
Sure.
Yeah.
Some would say a narrative twist in things.
And so why don't you take it away and present, give us the lowdown of what's up here.
mark bankston
Well, sure.
Regular view, regular listeners know that I've been following the podcast for a little while now.
And they've been doing some analysis of our lawsuits and such.
And so I actually came onto the podcast and talked to these wacky gentlemen.
And I had become sort of, I guess you could say, over the course of lawsuit, sort of peripherally aware of the work y'all are doing.
dan friesen
People snitch sometimes.
mark bankston
Yeah, they do.
You know, mainstream media is even, I've seen profiles in fairly prestigious publications describing the unparalleled knowledge.
dan friesen
You're talking about the gray lady?
mark bankston
Yeah, the gray lady.
Talking a little bit about you.
And, you know, you can't really, you know, you got to take that with a grain of salt because they're the same newspaper that took us to Iraq based on the wings of the lie.
But I went ahead and checked it out.
And it turns out, wow, God darn, this guy really does know a lot about Alex Jones.
And I was in the position of, look, I had to make myself an expert on Jones.
Me and my partner, Bill, actually had to do that.
And so we watched, oh, gosh, I want to say nearly like 100 hours right off the bat within the span of a couple of weeks.
dan friesen
And it probably flew by.
unidentified
Yeah.
mark bankston
Time flies when your brain is melting.
I'll tell you that.
And I knew, right, like I knew it had a not trivial effect on my brain and perception of the world.
So I was so excited to meet you who's been living in this.
And it turned out Dan knew a hell of a lot about Alex Jones.
As some of y'all know, we recently had a default judgment in our cases, but we're entering sort of the final phase of discovery, which is about the plaintiff's damages, the ways they were harmed by some of this conduct.
And that's required to take us, we had to take a corporate deposition, deposition of Alex Jones.
And in doing so, I knew that I could use Dan's knowledge in this process.
So that's why I reached out to Dan and asked, hey, Dan, would you consult on this case for me?
And Dan said, you know what?
I'd be happy to do that.
And I'd be happy to do it free of charge, completely pro bono to the fans.
jordan holmes
In my defense, I said no.
dan friesen
And also, like, I think you're making, you know, the way you're saying this is like, you asked and I said yes.
And I don't think that's exactly accurate.
I struggled with the decision because of the potential ethical implications of like doing this podcast and like inserting myself in some way.
mark bankston
Exactly.
Which is why, you know, I would never, I would never want to put somebody in your position who's a commentator and a person who has collected knowledge on Jones in this way in the position of testifying at trial or being a witness the jury would ever hear from or having any stake in the outcome.
unidentified
Yeah, George's like, yeah, I'll do it.
dan friesen
You could testify from here just screaming.
mark bankston
I knew I'd never do anything like that.
And I think, you know, certainly experts who consult on cases like this and provide consultation, some of them do charge for their services.
And that would have been totally above board to do.
But I really, you know, it's been a lot of people.
I mean, I'm not going to, it was definitely really appreciated.
And I love the gesture of you saying that you'll do this for pro bono.
But I don't want to put you on a pedestal because so many people have.
I have had the kind of support on this case that's unrivaled in my career where people will step out of the woodwork and say, I'm happy to do whatever I can to assist you here.
And so, yeah, Dan, Dan's come aboard and has been helping me quite a bit in terms of doing this case.
And one of the big surprises for the listeners out there is that Dan personally accompanied me as my consultant to the depositions of the free speech corporate representative and of Mr. Alex Jones.
dan friesen
Yes.
mark bankston
So your humble narrator for all these years was sitting in the room, not more than four feet across the table from Mr. Jones himself and from his corporate representative, Ms. Carcova.
dan friesen
And I want to be clear, just in case anybody has any kind of misgivings, I did not interact with them in any way.
mark bankston
Yeah, he didn't say a word in the entire room.
dan friesen
I was a silent person in the room and I had no contact with them outside of the room.
jordan holmes
So it's not like I shook Alex's hand or like, part of the reason I said no initially, because I was slightly worried for your physical safety to be in the same room with Alex Jones.
No, he's a teddy bear.
mark bankston
I mean, in real life, he's a teddy bear.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
Yeah, he's just a teddy bear.
dan friesen
A very violent teddy bear.
jordan holmes
Stops people's guts in like a good old teddy bear.
dan friesen
Well, we'll get to that later.
Indeed, we will.
mark bankston
And we're, you know, already Dan had assisted me in kind of helping me formulate a lot of the questions that I was going to be asking in that deposition.
But as we're getting answers, Dan's the kind of person who can put his finger on the spot of a fact and say, no, I know that that isn't true.
You need to ask about X or Y.
So your service is really, I mean, I really want to emphasize just invaluable.
There aren't Alex Jones, for as much of a phenomenon as he is and for as culturally influential as he has become, he remains relatively understudied, both in academic and in pop culture settings.
Like it's actually strange how much of his mythos is very shallow.
Like people don't really dig down into what InfoWars is and how it operates and what it does.
And so that was really, really valuable for me.
So first of all, thank you for that.
dan friesen
That's overwhelming.
And thank you for the kind words.
Jordan, yell something.
jordan holmes
You know, Dan, I'm surprised that when you came back, you didn't report to me how invaluable your work was.
You kind of downplayed it, which is not like you at all.
Usually you come back boastful, like, if it weren't for me, this whole thing would have fallen apart.
That's you, right?
dan friesen
Well, I got the flashiness out of my system before I went because I bought a new suit.
jordan holmes
Yes.
dan friesen
That was kind of my way of like, all right, this is a little walk around with some.
jordan holmes
Yes, when we got you a suit, it was an adventure for the both of us.
mark bankston
Let me tell you, listeners, this gentleman cleans up well.
dan friesen
Not great.
And I get dirty real fast.
I clean up.
Okay.
mark bankston
You know, one of the things we had talked about before you had decided to help me and consult with me on this is that if you were going to be offering me advice on this and seeing some of the proceedings, you know, part of your insistence was, look, I'm a commentator on Jones.
I critically analyze what he's doing.
I need to be able to continue to do that about this lawsuit.
And if you were an expert witness who was going to be testifying to a jury, you probably shouldn't be doing that, right?
Because eventually your testimony is going to have to be considered.
But if you're just an outside consultant, and when it comes to things that are in the public record now, I couldn't stop you if I wanted to.
Like legally, you have a First Amendment right that trumps anything that's going on.
dan friesen
And so Alex loves the First Amendment.
mark bankston
I know he loves it.
So yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
Take that, Mark.
You can't stop us even if you fucking wanted to.
mark bankston
Well, I can get creative, right?
unidentified
You know, we'll never know what I come up with.
mark bankston
But no, it's, it's, it's, I knew coming into this that you were still going to be talking about Alex Jones.
Um, and I knew, for instance, that these depositions, if they did become public record, would be part of that.
And what happened, so that your listeners understand, is that there's a protective order of confidentiality in the case, and it provides a process by which if a party gives testimony or documents that it believes it wants to maintain confidentiality or not have them be public, it provides them an avenue for them to do that.
And in this particular situation, much as they have in the past, Infowars chose not to do that.
So very recently, the deposition of Alex Jones and the deposition of Ms. Karpova, the corporate representative, passed into the public domain when they became unchallenged public filings in these cases.
And so there's been some news reporting on them and some of the documents contained within those depositions already.
And so all that's now out in the public record.
So now, listeners, you get to hear a little bit about it, and Dan's going to be able to talk to you about it.
dan friesen
And I want to stress too that, like, it's, I can't, like, one of the downsides of me do like being in the position of like doing this episode and being there is that, you know, obviously I experience things and some of those things I can't talk about because they aren't part of what is in the public record.
unidentified
Right, right.
dan friesen
And so there will, you know, there will be a lot of things that are not really material to the analysis of the depositions themselves.
But I, you know, I have, you know, some thoughts that I just can't share.
jordan holmes
I mean, if you wanted to, you, you couldn't even talk about the mutated second human being coming out of his chest, Cawato, I believe was his name.
dan friesen
I told you that in confidence.
jordan holmes
No, no, no.
I'm saying you can't talk about Coato, okay?
That's my suede.
unidentified
No, no, no.
mark bankston
It's a deep, deep pull there, Jordan.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
No, and in fact, I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to come on this to kind of not for you because you know them, but so that the audience understands how you're talking about these.
There are some ground rules that Dan has to observe when talking about these things.
And one of that is that because his consulting position gives him access to things that do not become public record, as he was saying, there are some things he can't talk about.
dan friesen
Like conversations we had in between breaks and stuff like that.
tom homan
Exactly.
dan friesen
Obviously.
mark bankston
Any of that kind of stuff.
Anybody's actual, you know, the thing is, is you go into a deposition room and 90% of what you do is what they call on the record.
There's a videotape roll and there's a transcript roll and there's somebody typing it all down.
10% of that downtime is off the record and there are things that happen there too off the record.
Obviously anything off the record is not something Dan can talk about.
But now we're in a position where, and I'm glad free speech made, or I'm sorry, InfoWars, I call them by their corporate name sometimes free speech systems, which is just the irony of ironies that they name themselves that.
But the fact that InfoWars made the choice or however they came to the conclusion to not make these depositions confidential, I am very glad they did because I believe that for those people who are following this case who understand the public importance of it, there is a lot of enlightening information that came forward.
Yeah, these are going to be an interesting discussion.
So I'm glad Dan can do that.
And it's part of the wonderful parts of our process is that when things do get into the public record this way, that court proceedings can be critically discussed.
And that's something that I'm glad Dan can do.
But yeah, there are certain things that there may be gaps.
I'm sure Jordan will sometimes ask a question that Dan would have to be no comment to.
dan friesen
I'll probably edit it.
If that comes up, I'll probably edit it out for somebody.
jordan holmes
You'll never know.
dan friesen
But yeah, like if you ask me what Alex smelled like, I'll have to cut that up.
mark bankston
Like a general lavender wind, like the freshly done laundry in the spring of Normandy.
Yeah.
No, none of that kind of, you know, then that's the thing is Dan got to see sort of an inside baseball process of a legal proceeding that a lot of people don't normally get to see, which is how a deposition is done.
Because that's like testimony, but it's not in a courtroom.
You know, we were in a friend of mine's law office in Austin.
And, you know, you're in this very tight quarters where you have a videographer in the room, a court reporter's taking everything down.
You've got all your pairs of lawyers in the room and you've got the witness and you're all in this room together.
And, you know, for one of these depositions, I think went as long as like five, six hours.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
Yeah.
The corporate representative one with Daria was most of a day.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
mark bankston
Yeah.
It was very interesting.
But I'm actually, you know, the thing is we've talked about these depositions in the course of us talking for consulting purposes.
And I'm, I was, that's all from our legal perspective of what we're doing in the case.
And I'm actually interested as these become a little more public to hear what people's reaction to them in a broader sense is.
dan friesen
Yeah.
mark bankston
Because unlike I think Jones's first deposition and the first corporate representatives and all of that, which was very shallow and very guarded and very mockery.
I mean, it was just a kind of a farce of a thing.
This is a farce in its own way, too.
dan friesen
A slightly different farce.
mark bankston
Yeah, a slightly different farce is how I would describe it.
dan friesen
Comedy of errors.
mark bankston
I'll let your audience know that we recently had brought a motion for sanctions based on this corporate deposition.
dan friesen
One with Daria.
mark bankston
With Daria, correct.
And that was because they had been ordered four times to give a corporate deposition in the course of these cases.
The first two times they just didn't show up.
And then the second two times they sent Rob Dew both times.
And Rob Dew seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the law required him to prepare in any way for this deposition.
jordan holmes
I think what you meant to say was a fucking legend that's going to go down in history as making one of the greatest episodes of all time.
dan friesen
They call Rob the sharpshooter.
mark bankston
Doesn't make this on for those because they also tuned into the hearings that we have.
We just had a hearing on it Friday.
And our judges straight out said it was a mockery.
It was an offensive deposition.
dan friesen
The Dario one.
mark bankston
Yes, exactly.
In the wake of an already offensive depositions from Rob Dew.
And so it's like, to get your act together for this, they still haven't done it.
I think you'll see that.
But we recently brought that motion.
We had a hearing on Friday.
They were sanctioned yet again.
And I want to say that this is now, gosh, maybe the seventh or eighth time they've been fined before ever actually having the trial happen.
I mean, it's pretty wild.
And so we're still trying to see what the full fallout of all of that is going to be.
But yeah, this did this did not go well for them in short.
dan friesen
It felt, you know, it's, I was disappointed when I showed up in Austin because you had only told me there was a corporate representative.
I didn't know who it was going to be.
I was really excited for the possibility that we'd get another round with Dew.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
I thought that would be a lot of fun.
And then learning that it was going to be Dario, I was like, man, she might be competent at this.
And then it was so interesting.
And we'll get into this like in more minute detail in the course of the episode, but it's Rob Dewish, but in a very different way.
jordan holmes
It's beautiful.
dan friesen
Yeah.
mark bankston
It's very different.
dan friesen
It's shocking.
mark bankston
Yeah, it's really interesting.
And I'm, yeah, so like I say, that's why I'm glad it's public.
dan friesen
I think that this was, I want to say this, you know, for the audience's benefit.
I think this was one of the more difficult things that I've had to do.
First of all, to not talk about this.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
For this, we did this at the beginning of December was when I came down to Austin and not being able to mention it or not being able to be like, but you know, all the information that I had that was in those depositions, I had to not know.
jordan holmes
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
That was hard for you, but that's easy for you.
I didn't say anything, which is the real fucking accomplishment.
That's what I want to get across here.
Somehow I didn't break.
dan friesen
Who are you going to tell?
unidentified
Your dog?
dan friesen
But like it was really challenging.
And I'm glad that, you know, we're on the other side of it now because it is a bit of a relief.
And then the second challenge was really like questioning prior to agreeing to come down whether or not this was an instance of like sort of affecting the content of the thing we're covering.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
And I really wrestled with that and I struggled with that question because it's been something that we've a policy that we've tried to maintain as it relates to Alex's show.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
We don't want people to call in to his show to fuck with him in order for us to cover it on the show.
And I felt like this was important enough of a thing to do.
And it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.
jordan holmes
Of course.
dan friesen
Anything I can do to help the families is something that is more important than our show.
jordan holmes
I mean, it's hard to say no to fighting evil.
So there is that.
dan friesen
And also, it wouldn't have the same actual presentation as someone prank calling him or something.
It wasn't a prank.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
This was assisting in these are questions that may be fruitful to ask.
These are ideas to check in on.
And I think that is materially different than the way that we've had a non-engagement in the past.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
I think it's, you know, it's close, but I think it's on the right side of it.
mark bankston
This case is so different than most forms of litigation because of its subject matter that when you need, for instance, an expert on, you know, pipe metallurgy and a plant explosion, there's no chance that that same person is going to be critically covering in the media.
Like that's not a thing.
But what's interesting about this case is when you're in this kind of media litigation, the only people in this country who are genuine bona fide experts on Jones are those who have followed his media career and engaged in the criticism to fight back against it.
And in our first depositions, one of our consultants had been Brooke Binkowski, who was the managing editor of Snopes, now at truth or fiction.com.
And she had been one of, I mean, I feel like she's sort of a modern day Cassandra of she was saying in 2015, 2014, here's what fake news and what Infowars is doing is about to do to our country.
And so she, I knew from the get-go, she would, and she had sat in on some of our depositions too.
And we had the same sort of discussion of there is this scientist view that says the subject of your inquiry should be kept in isolation and you shouldn't let your interactions with it affect your observations of it.
Right.
And then there's the idea that Brooke had, which is, no, the entire point of critically covering him and learning more information about him is because of the danger of harm that he presents to people like my clients.
And therefore, to offer that expertise to people who are trying to vindicate that in the court of law is a noble calling, is how she felt about it.
And that's why I felt that this is such a different type of litigation.
It's so strange that way.
And I think it makes it very difficult for people in your position to ever testify at trial because of that.
Right.
dan friesen
I could be impeached as a witness so easily based on a hundred things I've said on my podcast.
mark bankston
I mean, like, why should we believe anything you said, right?
Like, it doesn't, there's no exactly.
jordan holmes
But if you, I mean, I'll stand by everything I've ever said.
dan friesen
I think I screamed at you about alien phones getting pregnant.
jordan holmes
Yes, we have been there.
dan friesen
Yeah, we'll end up playing on the stand.
It's no good.
mark bankston
Yeah, no, I'm thinking about Jordan on the witness stand, and I'm just thinking bad law and order episodes where the window starts shaking.
dan friesen
Yeah, let's go.
You can't handle the truth.
You'd just do that.
jordan holmes
No, that's not nice.
I would be far more clever.
dan friesen
You would do the scene from the critic.
jordan holmes
Oh, yeah.
That would be.
dan friesen
Mustard gives me gas, as does Taffy.
All right.
mark bankston
Very substitute.
We got people to testify as experts.
We had to go to academia, right?
Like to people who are far out of it, right?
Who kind of view it from a distance.
And as much as they study his effects, it's legit true.
Nobody in this country has studied the internal mechanics of how Infowars works, how its stories work, how its editorial process works.
Nobody's done it like you guys.
I mean, it's just, there's nobody who's, and it's, it's weird that there was this vacuum that when people saw what you were doing, the reason it was so well received is because there is such a need for that.
Nobody has gone into that kind of depth.
So that's how you became what you are.
So I'm glad you're going to be able to do this today.
dan friesen
And I'm going to jump out the window.
jordan holmes
See, I thought the way it worked was: if you're fighting against Godzilla, you don't go to like a regular old army or whatever.
You have to get Mothra, right?
So if you're going to depose Alex Jones, you can't just go with some expert somewhere at a goddamn university.
Dan, Mothra.
dan friesen
I'd rather be King Gitora.
jordan holmes
You can be King Gitora.
mark bankston
This might surprise you, Jordan, but my litigation strategy has not been mostly informed by 1960s RKO, Tokyo Pictures with monster movies.
We've had some different choices in there.
And Godzilla did not immediately spring to mind when I thought of Dan.
jordan holmes
I guess we have some differences of opinion that may not be resolved at this time.
dan friesen
I think Mark's strategy probably speaks for itself of not approaching this like a Godzilla movie.
Well, I want to say thanks for inviting me to do this.
And also thanks for coming to do this little intro piece.
I think it's important to recognize some of the cants of what's going to come up and laying the ground rules is important.
And I don't think I could have explained how this was made public record.
I don't know if I fully understood it.
mark bankston
Here's the best part.
I don't think Infowars fully understood it.
I agree with that.
That's the hilarious part.
Is it the one they proposed?
And I don't think they understood it.
But they just think it keeps happening.
I mean, it's the same fun for every deposition.
So, you know, if that's where they stand, they want to let it all be public.
And they've said that from the beginning.
You know, we've had documentary crews covering every court proceeding.
We have HBOs filming everything.
And they've been receptive to that.
And nobody has even asked for a gag order because, gosh, look at what Jones is saying.
I mean, if you just, if you just turn on his show any day when he talks about this, wow, it's out the window.
So it's nice to counterbalance that with a good, thorough, and non-shallow look at what actually happened in those rooms on those transcripts that day.
I'm glad you're going to do it.
dan friesen
Well, awesome.
I think on that note, unless you have anything else to add, we should get to that thorough.
Yeah, let's look at these depositions.
jordan holmes
Thorough.
dan friesen
Yeah.
Wow.
jordan holmes
No, kick the tires.
mark bankston
Get it rolling, guys.
unidentified
Have fun.
jordan holmes
All right.
Thank you so much, Mark.
Thank you very much.
tom homan
Absolutely.
dan friesen
So that's the setup for this.
jordan holmes
Is the rundown?
dan friesen
Yep.
So I was there.
jordan holmes
Yep.
Yep, you were there.
I knew about it.
dan friesen
Can't hide that or mask that.
I considered the idea of just going over these and not mentioning that I was there.
jordan holmes
Right there, right, right.
dan friesen
But I felt like that was very dishonest.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that'd be a little disingenuous there.
dan friesen
And the transcripts of these depositions are, my name is in them.
So if someone were to stumble across that, it would have the real air of impropriety that I would have covered them and not brought that up.
jordan holmes
Yeah, you know, it would almost necessitate a show about us with a host so dedicated as to find the transcripts from this deposition and to discover that you were there.
dan friesen
Probably Harrison Smith.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
It's probably pretty sure.
So today what we're going to be doing is we're going to be going over the two depositions.
One is the corporate representative, Daria Karpova.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
The Russian Daria.
Alex's assistant.
Mysterious.
jordan holmes
Great cake song.
dan friesen
Very mysterious person in the world of Infowars.
And now we get to see what she has to say.
For about six hours.
It's a long deposition.
It's a day.
And then the other deposition is of Alex.
jordan holmes
Alex himself.
dan friesen
And we're going to be going over Alex's first and then Daria's for sort of structural reasons.
And here, Jordan, is an out-of-context drop from Alex's deposition.
alex jones
Jarjar Banks.
mark bankston
You know who that is?
alex jones
No.
dan friesen
Ah, liar.
unidentified
We know that to be a lie.
dan friesen
Alex saying under oath that he doesn't know who Jar Jar Binks is.
jordan holmes
How dare he?
dan friesen
Alex knows that he has a Caribbean black accent.
jordan holmes
Alex knows damn well who Jar Jar Binks is.
dan friesen
So we start off the deposition, Mark, is bringing up some of the talking about Sandy Hook stuff.
And Alex gave us his response to this sort of general question.
mark bankston
One of the things you just talked about is that you have, since this lawsuit has started, you've said some things about Sandy Hook, correct?
alex jones
I've said things about organizations and groups that want to get rid of the First Amendment trying to use me as a case to do it.
mark bankston
Okay, well, what I'm really talking about is you've said things about Sandy Hook itself, correct?
alex jones
I have talked about, I mean, I've talked about the coverage surrounding it and the lawsuits and that ongoing process, yes.
mark bankston
Well, I actually want to ask you about a little something else.
Hold on, back up for a second.
One thing that you have said a few times is that in terms of when you did say that Sandy Hook was completely fake, synthetic, there were actors, et cetera, you've said that you've apologized for that, correct?
alex jones
Well, first off, I said I could see how people see that.
And I also, when people said, please apologize to us, and I'd seen some of the anomalies that I think were wrong that weren't what people were questioning online.
Then I'm like, yeah, of course.
I'm sorry for questioning Sandy Hook, but it wasn't intended in a false way.
I mean, I really thought maybe it didn't happen.
And then the attacks intensified, and people began falsely saying that I was currently saying those things and then exaggerating what I'd said as a way, as a political weapon that Hillary Clinton was using to beat me over the head with it in 2016 on record and run national political ads against me playing edited tapes of me talking about Sandy Hook.
mark bankston
Okay, first of all, objection non-responsive.
dan friesen
There are a couple of moments, and this is something that happens a bit, where there's an objection of non-responsive because you're just rambling about something.
jordan holmes
First of all.
First of all.
dan friesen
Yeah, the question is: you've talked about Sandy Hook itself after you have been.
Well, Now, look, Hillary Clinton wanted to use me as a pillory.
jordan holmes
Now, what you're saying is that he's a yes or no question actually involves Hillary Clinton, and here's where we begin.
dan friesen
Yes.
And there are a couple times where it's just like, it's outrageous.
Mark will have to ask between Alex and Darius sometimes like, do you know what question you're answering?
And there's slight confusion.
jordan holmes
Repeat words back to me.
dan friesen
Right.
And so, you know, the question then comes up of like, you're saying this is your understanding of how you covered Sandy Hook.
And then we're going to be able to play for the jury the opposite.
jordan holmes
Right.
Right, right.
dan friesen
You know that this is.
Why should they not see you as a liar?
jordan holmes
Good question.
dan friesen
Yeah.
And so here's where Alex goes with that.
mark bankston
Okay, first of all, objection non-responsive.
Second of all, Mr. Jones, you understand this jury is going to watch the videos of you saying unequivocally, not I see how people could think this, but unequivocally saying Sandy Hook is completely, oh no, Mr. Jones, you don't get to interrupt me.
unidentified
You understand that, sir?
mark bankston
You're here to answer questions for this jury, and I want you to listen to the questions.
You know this jury is going to watch videos of you saying multiple times over and over again, Sandy Hook is completely fake, completely synthetic.
It is not real, right?
And you're going to sit here in this chair and say, oh, actually what I said, actually what I said is I could see how some other people could think it was fake.
You know the jury's going to see those videos and you know they're going to hear your words.
Do you think that they should take you seriously whatsoever when they can see you saying the things you said you didn't say?
alex jones
I know.
unidentified
Objection form.
brad reeves
Go ahead and ask the question.
alex jones
I know that the jury is going to say, I always heard that people are innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven how guilty they choose.
And that the system's actually scared for me to put on evidence.
The truth is, deep down, I still have real questions about Sandy Hook and a lot of the anomalies.
jordan holmes
Yeah, now's the time to bring that up.
alex jones
And the CIA visiting Adam Lanza before it happened and the FBI, that was in mainstream news, and just all the bizarreness that went on, the public still has real questions, just like they do about Jesse Smollett or the Roe v. Wade baby that never actually died or WMDs in Iraq or just the Gulf of Tonkin or Operation Northwoods or Bubba Wallace or so many of these things that have happened.
Most of these hate crimes and type things end up being false flags.
So I still, when I look at events, question it and say, could this be staged?
And we look for telltale signs.
jordan holmes
What does that mean?
Here's what it means.
It means that he is going to take some lettuce and cheese and put it between two big slices of chicken.
Call that a sandwich.
He's doubling down.
dan friesen
This is such a bizarre response to this question.
I understand that what he's trying to say is that, hey, events sometimes are suspicious and people should ask questions about them.
jordan holmes
Sure.
dan friesen
But then his list, like the Roe v. Wade baby, that's just a situation where he doesn't understand the conversation.
People didn't think that the Roe v. Wade baby was dead.
That's the whole point of the case.
jordan holmes
Right, right.
dan friesen
Turn over this.
And this was one of the storylines that was kind of a big talking point for Alex in the beginning of December, which is why it's appearing in this deposition.
Right, but I'm pretty sure he- He's been talking about it on air recently a bit.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have.
I'm pretty sure he still thinks the Roe v. Wade baby was D.B. Cooper, though.
So I think he does believe that that is a false.
dan friesen
Everything's connected.
jordan holmes
Yeah, exactly.
It has to be.
dan friesen
So you've got that.
That's just him misunderstanding things.
And then you have the Gulf of Tonkin, the WMDs in Iraq.
jordan holmes
Why wouldn't you?
dan friesen
And that is in the same conversation as Jesse Smollett and Bubba Wallace.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Two examples of racially based antagonistic narratives that I don't know if Bubba Wallace's situation with the NASCAR garage is on the scale of lying about weapons of mass destruction.
jordan holmes
I would say there is, it's different.
I would also say that now in the deposition for damages for the case you've already lost, not the best time to say I still have questions about whether it's a strange move.
dan friesen
But more to the point, what I'm trying to say is like, he's giving these examples, and he's like, all of these hate crimes end up being staged or whatever.
And then, are you compared?
Is Sandy Hook a hate crime to you?
Is this the connective tissue?
It makes no sense.
It's just.
jordan holmes
I mean, all crimes involve hate.
unidentified
So aren't all hate crimes, crimes, and crimes hate crimes?
dan friesen
Let me hit that blunt.
Yeah, I mean, it's a strange tactic that's being deployed, and I would have advised against it.
jordan holmes
No, I think it's great.
Okay.
I'm loving it so far.
We're two clips in.
I think he's going to win this thing.
dan friesen
There does seem to be a trend of, like, you're describing it as doubling down.
It's like, why don't we just reopen this wound?
jordan holmes
Yeah, I fat feels.
dan friesen
Why not?
jordan holmes
It's really, I mean, we've already lost.
dan friesen
Yeah, and so Mark kind of pushes on that angle.
mark bankston
All right, Mr. Jones, here's a video of you.
alex jones
It's like the New York Times lying about WMDs on purpose and all of their evil things about it.
Oh, but I questioned one of the big events they hyped up because of a lot of the anomalies, and I have a right to question that.
In fact, I, for a while, thought it didn't happen, then I thought it probably did.
And now, seeing how synthetic everything is, hate my original instinct.
Maybe Alex Jones is always.
I'm pretty much right 99% of the time.
So are you.
I mean, we all know this is easy to look at to see what's happening.
mark bankston
So now you're back to feeding your audience this lie about Sandy Hook.
brad reeves
Objection form.
mark bankston
Correct?
alex jones
No, that's an that I'm proud of the video and I'm proud of my statement and its full context that I'm sure we'll be able to show the jury and every time too that they will see what I had to say and see that I'm speaking up to the American tradition of being able to challenge authority.
Official stories almost always turn out to be at least partially wrong.
mark bankston
Please keep that promise in play that whole October 1st video.
Please keep that promise.
tom homan
Okay.
unidentified
I will be vindicated.
jordan holmes
I'm liking Mark's.
You can hear Mark smiling.
You can hear him smile.
dan friesen
If you pay close attention, you can hear a laugh a couple times too.
There is a jocular nature going on here.
And so this is a good, this seems to be a good line of questioning.
And so this gets pursued.
Like, you lost this case by default.
And so now you're back to suggesting that Sandy Hook was fake.
jordan holmes
Why not?
dan friesen
Because there's probably foresee no consequences for it.
jordan holmes
You're going to double lose.
Doesn't matter.
dan friesen
And so this is pushed on a little.
mark bankston
Please keep that promise in play that whole October 1st video.
Please keep that promise.
alex jones
Okay.
mark bankston
But second, what has happened here is now that you got beat in court, now that a default's been granted.
alex jones
No, I didn't get beat in court.
I got beat by an organized crime syndicate.
mark bankston
Now that a default has been granted, you don't have to pretend anymore, do you?
That's what's going on, right?
unidentified
Objection form.
alex jones
No, that's not what's happened.
A death penalty sanction with all the stuff we produced, I believe is a fraud, and it's because they're scared of the real evidence coming out and want to be able to tell a jury that this man is guilty.
Now you decide how guilty.
No, juries are supposed to decide if someone is guilty or not, period, not how guilty they are.
So you guys can try to do all your anti-free speech stuff.
All you're doing is waking up the American people.
dan friesen
So there's a real trend here at the beginning of the deposition of allowing a bit of going back and forth.
Let's have a little bit of getting this out of the system.
jordan holmes
Sure, sure, sure.
Yeah.
dan friesen
There are more actual solid questions and pieces of evidence on the back end of this.
But it almost feels like let's warm up a little with some sparring.
Because obviously Alex will want to do that.
jordan holmes
Oh, the whole time.
dan friesen
You kind of bait him a little bit, and he gets to throwing out stuff like, you know, hey, but people do have questions.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
I'm proud of this statement that maybe I actually was right.
jordan holmes
It's like when I used to host shows, you know, it's like, get all your heckling down out of the way.
I'm up top.
We'll get all get it all out of your system.
dan friesen
Definitely Mark asking Alex if he has a birthday coming up.
jordan holmes
Totally.
100%.
Anybody celebrating anything?
Yes, absolutely.
dan friesen
Yeah, so this line of questioning does even continue.
alex jones
All you're doing is waking up the American people.
mark bankston
All right, so let's just be honest about what this is.
You got mad after you got defaulted and you lashed out by saying that Sandy Hook was fake again.
That's what happened.
alex jones
No, I have privately, I mean, I've told my crew, and I've always said I really have real questions about this, but I can't 100% prove it was totally staged.
But the CIA was definitely involved, and that came out.
And then I was told again by high-level folks in the CIA that it was staged back at the time.
And so I went with them and also what Wolf King-Halbig said and others.
So I really believe that it should be looked at.
dan friesen
I'm going to guess the CIA person Alex is referring to might be Steve Pieczenik.
unidentified
Yes.
dan friesen
I don't think it's an actual real source.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
But Alex has brought up that CIA involvement thing a couple times.
So I want to just touch on that really quickly because I don't think, I'm not even sure if that came up necessarily in episodes that we've done.
So it might be new to some ears.
The CIA wasn't involved in the shooting, but when the FBI released the redacted reports of the investigation, it included interviews with people who knew Adam Lanza and his mother.
There's one interview that they conducted with a person whose name is redacted, which was filed in a report that was dated December 16th, 2012.
This was a friend of Lanza's mother, Nancy, who had her over to the house periodically.
Quote, when Adam Lanza was in ninth grade, Nancy told Redacted that Adam had hacked into a government computer system.
Adam had made it through the second level of security, and when he tried to breach the third level, the screen went black, and the authorities showed up at Lanza's door at 36 Yogananda Street.
Nancy believed that the authorities that showed up at her door were either the FBI or CIA.
Nancy had to convince the authorities that her son was just very intelligent and was challenging himself to see if he could hack into a government system.
If you consider this in the larger picture of that full interview, it's fairly clear that this was not a reliable assessment that Nancy was making.
Then that's where the CIA comes from.
It's Nancy saying that these people were CIA that showed up.
One event that's described in this interview involves that friend leaving invitations to a dinner party in all the neighbors' mailboxes.
Nancy never RSVP'd, so this person asked why.
And Nancy said it was, quote, because there was no return address on the envelope.
She had thought there was anthrax in it.
This is what Alex is using as the foundation of his assertion that the CIA was involved in the Sandy Hook shooting.
He's spinning conspiracy theories about the shooting while under oath in the deposition where he's being sued for things related to his spinning of conspiracy theories about the shooting.
It just seems like he can't stop.
I don't even know why you would do this.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
It works in an argument setting.
Like if you're arguing with somebody on a podcast or like Piers Morgan or something, this is a great strategy to use.
But I don't know about in court.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I'm already through the deposition as so far.
I'm like, okay, he is clearly established that learning is not a possibility.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's not going to stop.
dan friesen
I think probably learning is counter to his business model.
Probably would have been a maladaptive strategy early on.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right, right.
dan friesen
And so, why change now?
jordan holmes
Which to me says that if I'm like, hey, here's how we punish this guy, if you want it to stop, you have to bankrupt him.
That's the reality of it because he's not going to stop.
And if he does stop for the Sandy Hook families, it's just going to go somewhere else, and he's not going to learn from the behavior because in the depositions for the behavior, he's already lost.
He's doing the behavior.
dan friesen
Yeah, it does feel a bit like that, you know, there's a dead end in terms of trying to learn a lesson.
jordan holmes
You got to bankrupt him, otherwise, there's no lesson to be learned.
dan friesen
I know that's your perspective.
jordan holmes
That's my perspective.
dan friesen
So Alex is pretty mad because he has been defaulted and he's lost these cases by default.
And he believes that he's complied with everything that's been requested of him.
jordan holmes
Of course.
dan friesen
So this turns a little bit embarrassing.
mark bankston
You've repeatedly said that this, this court process, this lawsuit, what just happened, is all a sham because you turned everything over and that court still defaulted you anyway, right?
alex jones
Yes, Owen Schroyer, you never sent him one deposition, one document request, one thing, and he was defaulted along with me.
And if that isn't fraud, then nothing is.
unidentified
Okay, hold on.
mark bankston
I may have to pull this order for you because I need you to understand this.
Do you understand that in Mr. Neil Hessen's case, there was a court order requiring Owen Schroyer to appear for deposition?
Do you know that?
alex jones
I know he appeared for deposition. Yesterday.
After you asked for it after the default.
mark bankston
No, Sergeant Mr. Jones, do you understand that there was an order in August 31st, 2018, asking Mr. requiring Owen Schroyer to appear for deposition?
alex jones
Did you know that?
I don't know what you're talking about.
mark bankston
Yeah, you didn't know that.
unidentified
So you got on your show without even knowing what the discovery was.
dan friesen
Yeah, so the claims that Alex is making of like complying with all this stuff when confronted with like this is something from three and a half, four years ago that you just ignored.
Do you know that?
alex jones
Nope, don't know that.
jordan holmes
I mean, I was waiting for him to say what I would have said, which was just like, really?
It's been going on that long, huh?
dan friesen
Wow.
How the time flies.
jordan holmes
What a strange trip we've been on, guys.
Am I right?
You know, like, let's just stop and take a moment to appreciate where we've all gotten to.
dan friesen
Look, let's just forget about this case.
Isn't it great that you and me have become friends?
jordan holmes
We've been doing this for so long.
Let's just go get a drink.
dan friesen
Think about how many lawyers I've got to meet over the course of this thing.
So many new friends.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The real default judgment was the friends we made along the way.
dan friesen
Yeah, and actually, I was thinking about this.
I want to make one really important clarification.
In terms of the preparation of these clips, I have done a little editing, but the only things that I've cut out are when there will be a call for an exhibit, and then there is a long stretch while the exhibit is being procured.
Yeah, out of a binder.
And so there are long stretches of like just finding shit.
Basically, and so I've cut those down for the sake of listening.
Right.
But not taking out things that would provide greater context or lead to a misrepresentation.
jordan holmes
They're available if you want to go check Dan's work.
dan friesen
I just want to, but I did do that, whereas I usually don't.
No, I don't.
So I just wanted to be totally clear.
jordan holmes
Understood.
dan friesen
So Alex has been confronted with the fact that Owen Schroyer did, in fact, get called for a deposition in 2018.
Yeah.
And they just ignored it.
And it turns out they ignored a whole bunch more stuff.
Uh-oh.
unidentified
So you got on your show without even knowing what the discovery was.
mark bankston
Did you know in Mr. Posner's case and Mrs. De La Rosa's case, do you understand they're suing you, right?
alex jones
I've never said her name.
I'm never going to say it.
unidentified
I'm not asking you about what you said.
mark bankston
You know, they're suing you, don't you?
unidentified
Correct?
Let's just start there.
mark bankston
You know, there's a lawsuit.
alex jones
I know I didn't get a jury trial.
I know a judge said I was guilty.
I don't believe that I live in the Soviet Union.
unidentified
Mr. Jones, you're not answering the questions.
Let's just admit it right now.
You're not answering questions.
mark bankston
I'm asking you, do you know that Leonard Posner and Veronique De La Rosa sued you?
alex jones
Do you know that?
Yes.
mark bankston
Do you know they served you Discovery?
alex jones
I believe so, yes.
unidentified
Yeah, you know you didn't answer it ever?
alex jones
That's not true.
mark bankston
It is true, Mr. Jones, and I bet you when you go back and you talk to your lawyers, you're going to find out a lot of things you don't know.
unidentified
I'm not going to tell you, Mr. Jones, not like you got a bad grade on your homework, like you didn't turn it in.
You didn't know that?
alex jones
What were the depositions we had and all the 81,000 documents?
unidentified
That's in Mrs. Lewis' case.
That's when Mr. Barnes came in.
That's when, and we'll get to that.
Let's talk about that in a minute.
But first, let's stick on Mr. Posner and Mrs. De La Rosa's case.
You don't know that you never answered Discovery, do you?
You don't even know that.
mark bankston
Correct?
alex jones
Again, I don't have the stuff in front of me.
unidentified
Right.
tom homan
Ooh.
dan friesen
A little bit of less gusto and bravado once the actual factual information is.
jordan holmes
That's not good.
No, that's going to break your heart.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah, and I see Mark broke out his tap dancing shoes upon which to dance on Alex's grave, I believe.
dan friesen
I think you can tell there's a tone of this is after the case is already decided.
And this isn't the first time that Mark's been deposed, like he's deposed Alex.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
And so there is kind of a familiarity that maybe wouldn't be there in the first time that they interacted.
And so the list just goes on of stuff in Discovery that Alex claims he was on.
He did everything for.
jordan holmes
Everything.
dan friesen
But did not.
mark bankston
You've got Mr. Posner and Mrs. De La Rosa's case where you didn't even answer Discovery.
You got Mr. Hesslin's defamation case where you didn't show up for defamation, answer any discovery or show up for deposition.
unidentified
Neither did Mr. Schroyer, neither did the company.
mark bankston
You've got Mrs. Lewis' case where you wrote an affidavit saying your lawyer screwed it up.
And you've got Mr. Hesslin's IEED case, which you just got sanctioned because you sent Rob Dew to the deposition and he couldn't answer any questions.
And if all of those things are true, when you get onto your show and you tell your show that this is all just a kangaroo court and you completely complied but got railroaded, that's not true.
None of that's true.
alex jones
No, it is true.
I mean, I remember giving you guys all sorts of stuff, and you would say you hadn't been given it or you wasn't given the way you wanted it.
I mean, look, it should be on the issues of what did I say on air?
unidentified
It should be maybe.
jordan holmes
You don't want it to be on that either.
unidentified
And that's not fair, is it?
mark bankston
Mr. De La Rosa, excuse me, Mrs. De La Rosa and Mr. Posner have the right to ask you questions, right?
unidentified
Do you agree with that or not?
alex jones
I mean, I've sat for these depositions.
mark bankston
You have not sat for a deposition for Mrs. De La Rosa and Mr. Posner.
unidentified
And they have that right, don't they?
I don't know.
jordan holmes
You really don't, do you?
dan friesen
That is probably a difficult question for Alex to ask or to answer either in the affirmative or the negative.
Because I think either introduces more questions that he probably doesn't want to answer.
jordan holmes
Uh-uh.
What a bad day.
Especially in your deposition where you're fucked up, to have the lawyer remind you you're not even a third of the way through the number of cases that you've ignored.
dan friesen
You have ignored.
Yeah, it would be challenging.
jordan holmes
Listen, not only have you been getting an F in my class, I'm here to talk to you about your other classes as well.
dan friesen
And now we should also talk about a class that you took previously, which is, in this metaphor, the last deposition.
Yes.
We went over that, and if you'll recall, there were a number of times where citation and sourcing was discussed.
And Alex would make a claim in a video or on his show, and Mark would ask, where did you get that from?
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
And Alex, he responded on a number of these cases with, I don't know, but I could get it for you.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
If you give me time, I could get it for you.
jordan holmes
How did we do?
dan friesen
Well, we get to the circles back.
mark bankston
Do you remember we talked in that last deposition about the Bloomberg email where Bloomberg sent an email out to his people said get ready in the next 24 hours?
There's going to be a big event.
You remember that?
alex jones
That was a new story, yeah.
mark bankston
Yeah, and then we talked about it for a while because you had brought that up to me.
unidentified
You were like, look, I don't have the email itself.
mark bankston
That was something I was reporting on.
There was a story about it, and I was reporting on it.
You remember that?
alex jones
I do.
mark bankston
And then you remember you told me you could find it for me, right?
alex jones
Yeah, I believe I said that.
mark bankston
And then you never gave it to me, did you?
alex jones
I'd be honest with you, Bankson.
You don't really inhabit much of my mind.
unidentified
You don't have much respect for any of this process, do you?
alex jones
None of it.
I don't think you have respect for America or any of them.
jordan holmes
Oh, my God.
dan friesen
What a whiny baby.
But mailed it.
jordan holmes
Oh, he did.
He did.
That was well delivered.
I'm going to give him that.
dan friesen
You don't have respect for the proceedings that are going on here.
alex jones
You don't have respect for America.
jordan holmes
That was his you can't handle the truth moment.
And I get it.
dan friesen
But he earned it.
But it was also delivered like that.
That line.
You know, you couldn't handle the truth or whatever.
If it was delivered like that, it would not be a classic movie moment.
jordan holmes
No, no, no, absolutely not.
dan friesen
If it was sort of muttered.
jordan holmes
But if it was a whiny baby, dude.
alex jones
You can't handle the truth.
You can't handle the truth.
dan friesen
Yeah, not as electric.
jordan holmes
No, your truth is dumb.
dan friesen
Yeah, that was pretty interesting.
That response, I think, was shocking.
It's just outright combativeness.
Yeah.
It's fun for the sake of a podcast or maybe a show.
jordan holmes
For the sake of a functioning legal system.
No, terrible.
unidentified
I don't think it's awful.
dan friesen
I don't think it impresses anybody.
jordan holmes
Really bad.
Really, really bad.
dan friesen
Yeah.
So now we get to a discussion about Alex's audience size.
Right.
And this might have been a mistake on Alex's part.
alex jones
Uh-oh.
mark bankston
I'm going to play you a piece of audio from your radio show.
So there's not going to be any video to show you.
But this is going to be exhibit three.
alex jones
It was 3% that volunteered for Revolutionary War back in 1776.
But if you look at the InfoWars audience, it's maybe 10% of the United States.
Another 10% or so worldwide.
That's a conservative estimate.
mark bankston
That's true.
alex jones
That's a guesstimation.
Considering it, right?
mark bankston
It's probably a lot higher than that.
Right?
alex jones
I don't know.
I need to find an audience.
Is somebody tuning in once a month, once a year, once a day?
mark bankston
You're the one who said it, Mr. Jones.
You tell me.
alex jones
It's a very short clip.
I need to know the context.
mark bankston
There's nothing else said about audience in that entire clip.
alex jones
Okay, well, I haven't heard the whole clip.
mark bankston
Yeah, it's an advertisement for some sort of pill or something.
I'm asking you right now, is 10% of America an accurate representation of InfoWars listenership?
That's true, right?
You're a major media organization.
alex jones
I mean, I would say a larger percentage than that agree with my worldview, but I mean, I would say 10% of the countries watch something I've done and agree with me.
mark bankston
And then globally, another 10%, right?
Let me put it this way.
Infowars programming is not bound by U.S. borders.
It's the internet's everywhere, right?
Okay, and so globally, Infowars also has a very large audience, right?
Maybe 10% of the globe is listening into InfoWars, right?
alex jones
I would imagine 10% of the people, and I know that's more hyperbole.
But the English-speaking world, yeah, I would say so.
dan friesen
Whoa.
So this is a bit of a misstep, I believe, on Alex's part, because he's in a deposition where the goal is determining the damages he's going to be facing in this case.
One of the relevant questions when it comes to defamation, particularly in a case like this where the defamation was broadcast, is how many people were exposed to the defamatory material.
And the interest of his case should make Alex downplay the size of his audience, but his ego won't allow it.
So he says under oath that 10% of the English-speaking world or about 135 million people are in his audience.
That's a wide audience that he's essentially admitting would have been exposed to the things that he's being sued for, which is unclear if he even understood that in this question.
jordan holmes
Nope.
dan friesen
It's not like Mark is clearly asking these, like, you got a big guy, you got a big show, big audience.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
It's not like he's writing a puff piece about it.
jordan holmes
It's so funny to me because from, I mean, like, I can see this perfectly just from Alex's tone of voice is just like, this is a man who knows something's up, but you're saying all the right things to make me say the things that I want to say.
So these questions of like, you've got a big audience, don't you, Mr. Jones?
Even the way that Mark has phrased it is, of course, Alex is going to say, well, yes, my audience is huge.
unidentified
You know, and he does.
jordan holmes
He does smell a trap.
I can hear it.
Well, but he doesn't know what it is.
It's so funny to me.
It's so funny to me.
He thinks the trap is coming, but the trap was already sprung, my friend.
dan friesen
Do you think that this lawyer is asking you this question?
So on the like, you know, in front of the jury, we can say, hey, this guy's really stupid.
jordan holmes
This guy's so good.
dan friesen
You should be proud of what he's creating.
jordan holmes
I mean, hey, I think he's a monster, but he did.
He's got 135 million regular listeners.
What are you supposed to say?
dan friesen
I could take the time to ask this if it wasn't part of something, a point you were trying to build.
And Alex has just helped that point get built.
jordan holmes
Yep, yep.
dan friesen
Built in a way that you couldn't possibly build through just looking at web traffic or whatever.
alex jones
Nope.
dan friesen
Alex has done a great favor.
jordan holmes
Yep.
dan friesen
I would say, in terms of establishing a self-reported audience size.
jordan holmes
God, you can just feel how stupid he is.
It's brutal.
dan friesen
So this is a particular highlight for me, Mike Down for this, because now that we've established that there's this really large audience, Mark wants to talk about, you know, you have a responsibility to not lie to your audience.
This is great.
mark bankston
Hyperbole is something you're very familiar with.
alex jones
Yes, that's talk radio is a big part of that.
mark bankston
Exactly.
When addressing that audience, your United States and global audience, would you ever intentionally lie to them?
alex jones
No.
mark bankston
Okay, let me play another clip.
alex jones
I want to ever see Wolf Blitzer hurt because Wolf Blitzer is a human maggot.
I mean, like, you really want to start a fight with us just because you just can't help it.
Yeah, you do, don't you?
You're begging for it.
You're begging.
unidentified
You're begging to get your gut stomped out, Art.
alex jones
And I don't know if Wolfie ever had your gut stomped out, but you don't live after that happens.
See, not that I've ever stomped anybody's guts out.
Actually, I have a couple times.
It's not too nice.
unidentified
Takes people a long time to die if you stomp their guts up.
alex jones
But that's no threat to Wolf Blitzer.
mark bankston
How many people have you physically killed?
jordan holmes
Well, I guess we can officially put it to bed.
Alex has not technically probably killed a guy.
dan friesen
Well, Alex will say under oath that he has not killed anybody.
That's such a great little ping-pong exchange.
Yeah.
You got this large audience.
It's important to use hyperbole, but it's important not to directly lie to them, right?
Yes.
Here's you lying.
jordan holmes
Oh, man.
Every time, every single time I answered a question and Mark said, let me play a clip for you, I'd throw the desk away.
I'd be like, fine, you win.
If you've got a clip, you win.
You get what you want.
dan friesen
Well, I think another response would be like, just sitting there like, how am I going to say this is out of context?
How am I going to, hmm.
jordan holmes
What if?
unidentified
Can we?
dan friesen
Can my lawyer yell something?
jordan holmes
I stepped on a nail.
And then run.
dan friesen
So this is the point here in the deposition where we start to get around to some documents and some exhibits being introduced.
And this one was a bit of a curveball.
This was a surprise.
mark bankston
It's fair to say that Leonard Posner and Free Speech Systems have had an unfriendly relationship over the years.
alex jones
No, I'm not.
I mean, I don't really follow what he does.
mark bankston
And you've done shows about him.
So you do follow him, correct?
alex jones
I mean, how do you ever refresh my memory?
mark bankston
So I will refresh your memory about what you know about Mr. Posner.
I'm going to show you about Mark's Exhibit 5.
Have you ever seen that before?
alex jones
No, not that I remember.
What is it?
mark bankston
That's the sole document you produced to me just a couple, I guess, a month or two ago, in regard to discovery requests for any documents you had regarding Mr. Posner.
That's the sole document that was in that folder labeled Posner.
That's it.
And that, you will agree with me, appears to be a very large, looks to be about 187-page comprehensive background report on Mr. Posner.
Correct?
alex jones
Oh, I never ran a background report on Posner.
I've never even seen this.
mark bankston
I understand that you probably never even saw that.
alex jones
Someone email us this and then we opened it.
unidentified
I don't know, Mr. Jones.
You gave it to me.
I'm not supposed to tell you about it.
I don't know.
mark bankston
You tell me.
alex jones
That's why I got you.
I did not know.
I mean, we just go through the email, most of it even unopened, and just send you guys everything.
unidentified
This isn't an email, is it?
alex jones
I would imagine, well, I've never run a background thing on Posner.
All right.
mark bankston
One thing we can agree on, because you look at the bottom of that document, it says FSSTX.085544, correct?
alex jones
Yeah.
mark bankston
That's the Bates numbers y'all use when you give me documents, right?
So this document right here came from Infowars Corporate Files.
alex jones
I thought you said we haven't given you any documents.
Earlier, you said we didn't get.
We gave you nothing.
We didn't read respond.
mark bankston
You gave me documents in the Lewis case in responsive to documents.
alex jones
Well, I mean, listen, I'm just telling you, I've never looked at this.
mark bankston
That's not what I'm asking you, Mr. Jones.
alex jones
But I remember hearing in the news about somebody in Florida doing a background thing on him.
And so I figure somebody might have sent us this.
I'm just guessing.
I shouldn't guess.
I don't know.
unidentified
Yeah, do you think you should be guessing in this deposition?
alex jones
No, I just said, you're right.
I don't know what this is.
mark bankston
So let's not do that anymore.
dan friesen
I think that the attempt there on Alex's part to try and evade was the, I thought we didn't give you any documents.
It was met with a laugh.
And clearly, this isn't going to be a road that Alex is going to be able to go down.
And so instead, he's like, well, I heard there was a guy in Florida.
That's obviously a reference to Wolfgang Halbig.
Yeah.
But he did want to say his name and evoked it.
jordan holmes
I'm not going to say his name.
dan friesen
Maybe I'm going to get through this deposition without how big comes in.
jordan holmes
And nobody says Halbig's name.
I bet they don't even remember.
This whole thing, remember, we got served in 2018.
I don't even remember this guy.
dan friesen
Yeah, that's a strange sort of vibe.
jordan holmes
Not good.
dan friesen
So this is a particularly interesting point in this exchange because Alex seems actually confused by the presentation of this document.
And it's a gigantic and extensive background check on Leonard Posner, one of the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook.
The fact that Free Speech Systems turned that over in the case is bizarre.
The fact that that was in their files to begin with is bizarre.
Like, all of it does not add up.
I suspect, based on Alex's attempts to workshop an explanation, that one of two things is going on here.
Either he knew about this document and is surprised to see it, so he's trying to come up with the cover story, or he had no idea about its existence, but he realizes how fucked up it is that that was in their files.
So he's trying to come up with a cover story for that.
Either way, the result is an unconvincing mess.
And this question is just left open for a jury to hear without any explanation or exculpatory context on Alex's part.
And I don't think the existence of this document looks good.
jordan holmes
No, no, no, no.
I mean, I believe that Alex has never read it.
Sure.
It's 187 pages.
That's fine.
But I mean, of all they were going through the things they want to give, which obviously we know excludes so many things.
And they were looking at the one file in Leonard Posner's name.
And they were like, let's put this super suspicious, massive background report that we totally didn't have ordered or asked for.
dan friesen
With no explanation.
jordan holmes
No context.
dan friesen
Everybody seems confused by its existence.
jordan holmes
What are you doing here?
dan friesen
Yeah, it's so bizarre.
Especially considering one of the things that's discussed about Alex and Infowars' behavior is the publishing of Posner's address where he got his mail and stuff.
And so the existence of this kind of extremely thorough background report is not great.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
One that has a lot of personal information about it.
You bet.
You know, if I were somebody who had already had a default judgment against me in one case and then specifically releasing a private person's information was at fault in another case, I would not want to have a big stack of that person's private information in my purpose in my corporate files.
dan friesen
It does seem to, at least it provides opportunity.
You know, like, how would you have information?
Well, here's how you would possibly have that information.
jordan holmes
Where did this come from?
I just listen, we walk down the streets and shit falls from the sky.
I don't know what to tell you.
dan friesen
It's very strange.
And this will be revisited in the Daria deposition, so we will get back to this.
But this is a nice little semantic game Alex tries to play about this.
mark bankston
One thing we can agree on is that in the files of Free Speech Systems is a 187-page investigator's comprehensive report on Leonard Posner.
alex jones
According to you?
mark bankston
No, no, no.
No, sir.
According to you, I want your testimony.
alex jones
I told you I've never seen this before.
mark bankston
I don't care if you've seen it before.
Okay.
I'm saying you put this is your base number on the bottom, correct?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
This came from Infowars Corporate.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
I think that there is a good dynamic going on where Alex keeps trying to get around things.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And I think that Mark's strategy is flexible enough that he can allow for Alex to say some bullshit and then run into a wall with some of these deflection tactics.
jordan holmes
I think it's very good.
dan friesen
I think it's a lot of fun.
jordan holmes
Yeah, you really have to establish for a while in advance that, no, Alex, you sent this to us.
This is yours, not mine.
I'm not making claims about it.
This is what you sent to us.
dan friesen
Yeah, you know, and when the sort of linguistic and rhetorical dodges that he uses that are just almost second nature, he couldn't stop himself if he wanted to.
I would imagine not, but you do have to sort of put a pin in them.
Because you do it enough, it does send the message that I'm not going to put up with it.
It's going to be an uneffective and unsuccessful strategy.
And I think that may be how you have to talk to him.
jordan holmes
Come down fast and hard, I guess.
dan friesen
A little parental.
jordan holmes
Yeah, well, if he didn't sound like he had failed a book report every time he answered a question, maybe you wouldn't have to talk to him like a fucking child.
dan friesen
Perhaps.
So they get into talking about the chain of events where Leonard Posner contacted InfoWars with a polite complaint, and then it went from there.
mark bankston
No, Mr. Posner started in all of this privately complaining to Infowars.
You agree with that?
He made a private complaint to you.
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And he was very polite about it, wasn't he?
alex jones
It's been a long time since I saw the email, but I think so.
mark bankston
Okay.
And when that didn't work, he complained again, but this time to YouTube.
You know about that, right?
alex jones
I really don't remember.
mark bankston
You know, Mr. Posner complained to YouTube.
jordan holmes
Right.
alex jones
No, I mean, no, I mean, I remember people said he was going around getting a lot of stuff taken down all over the place.
unidentified
And it made you mad, didn't it?
alex jones
No.
No, actually, I told my crew members, Sandy Hook's a tar baby.
Stop covering it.
jordan holmes
Oh, boy.
Let's keep that one in.
Okay.
I want that in the legal record for the rest of my life.
I want the legal system to know what I said.
dan friesen
That was a little disappointing.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
But the way Alex answered that question is really puzzling to me.
Like, listening to it, I was very confused.
First, he's aware that Mr. Posner politely complained to Infowars and was ignored.
Then, Alex is unaware that Posner went on to complain to YouTube, but when confronted with how absurd that statement is, considering things he said publicly, Alex tries to explain how he could be mad at Posner about free speech issues, but somehow not aware that he'd complained to YouTube about Alex and gotten a strike on his channel.
You can basically hear the gears moving here.
Well, Alex is trying to come up with a just plausible enough explanation for all the details he thinks he has to account for.
Like, oh, no, the reason I did those shows was because I heard that he was getting things taken down all over the place and was against free speech.
Had nothing to do with any personal interaction I had.
jordan holmes
No, no, no, no.
My revenue stream being shut down eventually due to the germination of effort from this one particular man, I wouldn't pay attention to that at all.
Please.
What was I getting from YouTube?
Millions?
dan friesen
So this is just confusing.
This answer is bizarre.
alex jones
Long before you guys ever sued me, I would scream at people if they even talked about it because it's tar baby.
And that's why I've told you I just had to compartmentalize because it's just like constant.
I'm the Sandy Hook man.
I killed the kids.
I had people in Florida just two months ago, 12 and go, you killed those kids.
And I went, no, I didn't.
And I just said, whatever.
People know who Adam Lance is.
They think I killed the kids.
So whatever.
I mean, I just, you know, you guys use a deplatforming.
People think I killed the kids.
All this stuff.
Just do your worst.
unidentified
What was my question?
alex jones
I've answered your question.
unidentified
You don't know what it was.
mark bankston
You were just talking.
You were just.
Right?
alex jones
No.
I didn't know what your question was.
unidentified
Right.
mark bankston
And so you just started talking.
unidentified
Because you didn't even know what to talk.
alex jones
Because it wasn't really questioning.
You don't care.
unidentified
Correct?
alex jones
Because it wasn't a real question.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
You got to talk to him like a child.
You just got to.
dan friesen
What was the question?
What question do you think you're answering?
jordan holmes
Well, you know, I answered your question.
Nope.
No, I did.
I did.
Yeah, I said words.
You said words.
I said words.
That's how words work.
dan friesen
The question was regarding awareness of the YouTube complaint that Posner had made.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
Didn't you see it?
He answered that question.
dan friesen
I went to Florida and someone said I killed the kids.
jordan holmes
Yes, he answered the question.
People don't even know who Adam Lance is.
I killed the kids.
Just do your worst to me.
That's the answer to that question, Dan.
dan friesen
So This transitions from being some questions about Mr. Posner to being questions about another parent, Neil Hesslin, who was featured in the Megan Kelly piece that Alex got so mad about.
And we get a good establishing question here.
mark bankston
When Neil Huslin, okay, first of all, you know who Neil Huslin is, right?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
So when Neil Huslin appeared on Megan Kelly's show in 2017, do you remember that?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
When he went on there and said he was upset by the things you were saying about Sandy Hook, did you believe him?
unidentified
Ugh.
alex jones
I thought it was all done very theatrically and in a very canned way, but I do think parents have pain over their children, but it was all done.
It had an infomercial feel to it.
And that's my view of it.
mark bankston
Look, I don't care really what you think about Megan Kelly or NBC News run by the largest weapons manufacturer in the world.
You know, like, I don't care.
Yes, they make incredibly edited videos.
It's a complete.
I mean, I'm sure if you've ever seen an NBC production, lights and cameras and staging that they set up scenes.
They do all this stuff.
I know that.
I know it looks like a video.
I'm not asking about NBC or Megan Kelly.
I just want to know about Neil Hesslin.
Did you believe him?
brad reeves
Objection 4.
alex jones
Believe him about what?
mark bankston
When he said he was upset about the things you said about Sandy Hook, did you believe him?
alex jones
Yes, I believe him.
dan friesen
So this is, I think, a really good approach that Mark is taking with the questioning, where he's getting out in front of Alex's criticism of the media.
He says, one of the ways that Alex can best deflect from taking responsibility for his actions is to point to other media entities and yell about the mistakes they've made or how they're corrupt.
By introducing that on his own, Mark is essentially taking that tool away or at least weakening its impact.
Because if Alex tries to employ that dodge, the response he can clearly expect isn't a distracting argument, but something like, we're in agreement that the media isn't great, but that's not relevant to the discussion we're having.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, he just cut off Alex's feet.
dan friesen
Essentially, yeah.
This is something that I think is a really good tactic you can use when you're talking to hyper-evasive people who are also full of shit.
If there's something that's a standard rhetorical refuge that they tend to take, staking out your own claim in that space makes it so they're less comfortable retreating to it.
And that's a good ploy.
And at the same time, you've re-centered this to being like, did you believe Neil Hesslin when he said this about his kid?
Right.
Because that is kind of relevant.
mark bankston
I want to take you back to the night that you first saw that Megan Kelly interview, which probably was a surprise for you considering that it was not what she represented it to you to be, correct?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And on that night when you saw that video and you saw Mr. Hesslin saying those things, I want to take you back to that date.
Okay.
And at that date, you understood that if Infoworst were to make a video saying Mr. Hesslin could not have held his son, that would be very upsetting to Mr. Hesslin.
You understood that.
unidentified
Objection four.
alex jones
No, I did not understand that.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
This is bizarre.
Ooh.
Because he has said already that he understood and believed Neil Heslin on Megan Kelly's show that he was upset by the things that Infowars has said.
jordan holmes
He said a parent has a VFA pain.
alex jones
Sure.
dan friesen
Yeah.
But somehow now he's saying that he doesn't understand that saying more stuff.
jordan holmes
What are human emotions?
dan friesen
Yeah, that's like an inherent contradiction that he's making.
Yeah, yeah.
And that is kind of bizarre.
jordan holmes
Alex, excuse me.
Do you understand basic human empathy?
Just on a little.
Okay.
dan friesen
Well, after the Megan Kelly piece, Owen Schroer did a story where he said that Neil Hesslin couldn't have held his son.
unidentified
Right.
jordan holmes
Yes, I recall.
dan friesen
Which is part of the lawsuit.
And so, you know, we want to know why did he do that?
Who gave him the idea to do that?
jordan holmes
How do you feel about it now?
mark bankston
Who do you know sitting here today who made the choice for Owen Schroyer to put those claims by Jim Fetzer on the air about Neil Husson after the Megan Kelly interview?
Do you know who did that?
alex jones
It was a live show.
It's not a video we made.
It was a live show.
And I believe he read a Zero Hedge article.
He just read an article.
unidentified
Right, from Jim about Jim Fetzer's stuff, right?
mark bankston
You remember that?
alex jones
I believe he was in the article.
unidentified
You're right.
mark bankston
And you understand that a video was made for that and uploaded to YouTube on June 26, 2017?
Would you have any reason to dispute that?
alex jones
I'm not sure we even had our YouTube channel then.
mark bankston
You did.
You did.
You lost.
You also know that a month after Mr. Schroyer made that video, you then took that five-minute video from the live show and played it on your show again.
You understand that?
unidentified
You're being sued for that.
alex jones
I mean, yes, I guess.
mark bankston
Okay.
So whose decision was it, if you know, for him to basically give more air to Mr. Fetzer's claims?
Whose decision was that?
alex jones
It was Owen's decision.
unidentified
Okay.
tom homan
Ooh.
dan friesen
Hey, Owen, you meet my friend Buss over here.
alex jones
Oh, boy.
dan friesen
You're going to go under it.
jordan holmes
Oh, boy.
dan friesen
Yeah, that was all Owen.
tom homan
Yeah.
dan friesen
Now, that still doesn't excuse Alex's re-airing of the video on his show.
jordan holmes
That was your choice.
Based on what Alex has just said, which is that Owen obviously has control over his own show.
dan friesen
Sure.
jordan holmes
It's a live show.
He chose to do that.
That means that Alex, having the same control over his own.
Probably more.
You would assume.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Chose to air the exact same information on his show.
dan friesen
Now, look, I don't have time for those kinds of little decisions.
jordan holmes
Okay, that's a good point.
But wait.
dan friesen
There's a rebuttal to this and a follow-up question that Mark may have some information that runs counter to this thing that Alex is saying.
mark bankston
Uh-oh.
See, the thing is, I talked to him a couple days ago, and he said, no, he didn't read it at all or research it.
Somebody put it in front of him and told him to do it.
He doesn't remember who, but he doesn't do that.
I mean, he doesn't research stuff himself.
Somebody puts it in front of him.
So let's try to go at it this way.
If Owen's going to be doing that video that day.
alex jones
I don't agree with that statement.
mark bankston
Okay.
Well, I mean, I'm, again, talk to Owen because he testified a couple days ago, right?
dan friesen
So this question, Mark poses, brings up a point that puts Alex in a really uncomfortable position.
He needs the impression to be that Infowar's reporters are all in-depth researchers who bring their own work to the show and deliver hard news.
This is an important image for Alex to maintain since it looks like what journalists do, kind of.
The problem, however, is that Owen has told Mark that when he said that Neil Hesslin couldn't have held his son after the shooting, he was just reading an article someone put in front of him with no awareness of what the article was or what the sources were.
So Alex is now in the position of having to claim that Owen lied.
This is likely because the alternative opens a can of worms that Alex does not want to have opened to the public, and that's asking the question, who put the article in front of Owen?
If Owen isn't lying, then someone in that studio has a shocking level of editorial control over what goes on on the show, and we have no idea who that person might be.
You can see how this question alone could lead to some discomfort, because if such a person exists, you have to ask yourself, how did they get this editorial authority?
Is that part of their job description?
And what kind of digging do they do into the sources that they are providing for the anchors to just say on air?
On the flip side of this, it also opens up a question about who can and can't just tell Owen what to say on air.
If a person who fed him the story was someone like a boom mic operator, then that raises the question: can anyone just put something in front of Owen and he'll read it on air as the news?
Yeah.
That's troubling.
jordan holmes
Yeah, we're into anchorman Ron Burgundy territory.
dan friesen
Yeah, so Alex is in the position now where one option he has is throwing Owen under the bus.
The other option involves the possibility of some undisclosed editorial manager giving Owen the story to report, or the possibility of complete negligence and lack of oversight about everything they put on the air to the point where any person who's there.
jordan holmes
Oh my god, I just heard a bus's brake screech so loud.
I just had to stop for some reason.
I don't know what could have.
dan friesen
It's strange.
I understand the instinct that Alex has.
Yeah.
But yeah, this point that Mark brings up of a conversation he's had with Owen.
Right.
It's very counter.
These are counter.
These are to give them bus metaphors, two buses heading for an intersection.
jordan holmes
Both trying to push one another under each other.
dan friesen
And both are being driven by Keanu Reeves and speed.
jordan holmes
Right.
What I find interesting about this so far, and really what is going to do Alex more than anything else is that Alex's ability to understand questions is so shallow that he doesn't realize that by answering one of Mark's questions, he is then raising the possibility that more questions will be asked.
Like he doesn't get that.
He believes that the answer is the end of the question.
dan friesen
I think that's probably because he's used to monologuing.
jordan holmes
That's what I'm saying.
dan friesen
And then also having interviews with guests on his show who are essentially conspirators, co-collaborators with him.
unidentified
Right.
jordan holmes
So this is a completely new concept to him that the answer is also a consequence that leads to more questions.
dan friesen
John Rappaport would never ask a phone.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
This is fucking with his brain.
dan friesen
Why can't I have a deposition with John Rappaport?
jordan holmes
I answered one question.
Why are you asking more questions about that question?
dan friesen
When I have conversations with Steve Pieczenik, he usually tells me I'm a genius.
unidentified
He says I look pretty in the mornings.
dan friesen
So Alex has to really put his foot down and make clear that, like, no, Owen runs his own show.
Oh, he is in charge.
jordan holmes
Here we go.
mark bankston
So the only two people in the room who are probably going to have any influence on what goes in front of the anchor to say are the producer and the person who's researching you, checking clips and that sort of thing.
Right?
alex jones
No, no.
The way it works is the host is telling people what to play and what articles.
The host runs the shows.
mark bankston
So Owen should have been the one who found the Zero Hedge article.
That's what you're thinking?
That's how it would normally work?
He would have found that article.
alex jones
Hundreds.
Hundreds of articles.
This is the way I do it.
Other people don't do it this way.
I'm own basically producer, booker, everything.
So the way I sit there and I print hundreds of articles or I direct people to, and I just say, go to these 10 sites and print everything on it.
So I'll give a physical copy.
And then other people there have chosen to do it the same way.
And then just constantly more information is coming out as the day goes on.
And, you know, we might, it's kind of like a parrot's eating.
I might like throw away 90% of the stuff that's put in front of them, and then it sits there and just decides what it wants to eat.
But the radio host run the show.
It's a radio show on TV.
It's a radio show.
It's not journalism.
It's not, you know, in the main.
It's just like Howard Stern, or it's just like Rush Limbaugh.
And you're playing clips, you're covering articles, you're giving your opinion on things.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
Oh, so it's not journalism.
jordan holmes
No.
Not even a little bit.
dan friesen
Okay.
I mean, I agree.
jordan holmes
It's a radio show on TV.
Ironically, it is neither of those things.
dan friesen
Sure.
It's just a thing where we riff around about extremist topics.
alex jones
Yeah.
dan friesen
So, Mark wants to establish that this information that Alex was using in the 2017 videos that he put out.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
You know, it traces back to people like Jim Fetzer.
Sure.
And whether or not at that time he had reason to believe that Jim Fetzer was not a good source.
mark bankston
Back in 2017, you had information.
You had seen information that caused you to doubt whether Mr. Hesslin really held his kid.
Correct?
alex jones
Yes, I did see an article questioning it.
mark bankston
Yeah, and that information, that information was raised by Mr. Fetzer, correct?
alex jones
Jackson form?
I don't have the article in front of me.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
In 2017, Infowars, the company itself, had an understanding that there was issues with Mr. Fetzer's credibility.
Correct?
Objection four.
alex jones
I mean, I can't really speak to Mr. Fetcher's credibility.
dan friesen
So this is a trap.
unidentified
I can.
dan friesen
This is obviously the question being asked, the answer is in the question of the stuff you said was traced.
You know, it traces back to Jim Fetzer.
The article was just Jim Fetzer information.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
So the second question is also more or less a statement that, like, hey, do you have any reasons to doubt his credibility?
Yeah.
And of course, there's an email.
alex jones
I mean, I can't really speak to Mr. Fetzer's credibility.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
Well, other people in your company have spoken to Mr. Fetzer's credibility to you, correct?
unidentified
Well.
alex jones
I don't recall.
unidentified
You don't recall Paul Watson talking to you about Jim Fetzer?
alex jones
No.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
If somebody, if Paul Watson in 2015, is he your chief reporter by then?
Is he an editor?
What is he?
dan friesen
Do you remember?
alex jones
Yeah, he was the head editor of InfoWars, the articles, the site itself.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And he also did some hosting duties too, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
If Mr. Watson, let's just say again that Mr. Watson, somebody whose opinion you respect, I would assume, correct?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Somebody you will, if he brings you something, you'll listen to it, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
May not always agree with Mr. Watson, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
But you'll listen to him.
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
If Mr. Watson had come to you in 2015 and told you, Alex, Jim Fetzer's bat shit crazy, would you have listened to him?
Would you have taken that into consideration?
alex jones
Yes.
jordan holmes
This is, I think this could not be more like a fork in chess.
You know, like when you've got your knight in the right spot and you're, listen, I'm getting your queen or I'm getting your rook.
So how do you want this to go?
And Alex does not understand what's about to happen to him.
dan friesen
Yeah, it's like there's the email of Paul saying, we can't trust these fucking people.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
And it's like it's an email that Buckley is on talking about like, oh, no, we'll talk to Alex.
jordan holmes
I can't believe Alex is hearing this and not realizing that what's about to happen is exactly the thing that, I mean, this is amazing.
dan friesen
Well, the water's getting hot.
jordan holmes
I want the hammer to drop, my friend.
This frog is boiling.
mark bankston
If you received information that called into doubt Mr. Fetzer's credibility, you would check in and verify that before ever relying on him again, correct?
unidentified
Jackson 4.
alex jones
I can't talk about the hypotheticals that you're discussing.
I already told you that 98% of what we do is cover news in the public domain to give our opinion and commentary.
And so I'm not a journalist at the Wall Street Journal that writes one-year-long investigative journalist reports.
And so I'm a radio talk show host that puts the show on TV.
dan friesen
This whole thing that he's doing with like, I'm just a talk show host kind of thing, it just, it feels like a, you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses kind of thing.
jordan holmes
Come on.
unidentified
I'm just a talk show.
jordan holmes
Who am I?
I'm just a little talk show host over here.
I'm not causing no problems.
dan friesen
Yeah, it's such nonsense.
I mean, like, he's also trying to present this idea of like everything we cover is just like mainstream media stuff.
Like, he pretends that he has high-level secret sources.
He constantly is taking primary source documents and coming up with fantasy interpretations of them.
He's regularly conducting the most softball interviews with dangerous lunatics.
And a lot of the time, he's even reporting stuff based on fake stories from his past or esoteric dreams that he came up with that he had that he thinks are prophetic.
jordan holmes
But we can't blame him for that until we know he's not a psychic, okay?
And we can't prove that yet.
dan friesen
I'm going to go ahead and err on the side of where I'm at.
jordan holmes
Okay, fine.
dan friesen
So the hammer doesn't necessarily come down about this email from Paul, but we know that it exists.
unidentified
Yes, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
And so you don't really need to bring it up because you have Alex saying these things.
And so instead, let's talk a little bit about old grump, David Knight.
jordan holmes
Hey.
mark bankston
Who's David Knight?
alex jones
David Knight is a talk show host.
mark bankston
Does he work for you right now?
alex jones
No.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
He did work for you recently?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
When did he leave the company?
alex jones
I remember correctly, about a year ago.
mark bankston
And then he's not come back in any way?
Are y'all still doing videos with David Knight?
tom homan
No.
mark bankston
David Knight did not there was some There was some tension between David Knight and Dr. Steve Pachinik.
agree with that?
alex jones
I mean, I remember some.
mark bankston
David Knight and Steve Pachinik did not get along, right?
alex jones
I guess.
mark bankston
David Knight was incredibly critical of the things Steve Pachinik was saying about Sandy Hook, correct?
alex jones
No, I don't remember that.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
Can you tell me why David Knight isn't with the company anymore?
alex jones
David was saying that he was being censored and no one was censoring him and he was just unhappy.
And so I fired him.
tom homan
All right.
dan friesen
Interesting.
So I've made some comments about tactics and strategies Mark's using that I think are positive.
In the interest of total fairness, I do have to clarify that Mark has a slightly incorrect piece of information that he's putting out here.
David Knight was totally into what Steve was saying about Sandy Hook and actually was still promoting that Sandy Hook was fake on his show until at least 2017.
David got sick of Steve when he said that the Las Vegas shooting was fake and that led to the deterioration of their working relationship.
And then David got really mad when Steve started coming back on the show around the lead up to the 2020 election.
David was insistent that Steve was a con man and the stuff about all the balance being watermarked with blockchain was stupid and that Steve was just lying to Alex.
This is what led to him getting fired and replaced by Harrison Smith hosting the American Journal.
So there is a definite truth to the tension between the two of them.
But David Knight actually was totally fine with this.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
Yes.
This is only more damning for David Knight.
dan friesen
Sure.
And Alex is like, oh, he's being censored.
It's like, is he being censored about Steve?
jordan holmes
You were censoring him.
dan friesen
Yes.
jordan holmes
He wanted to go and say that Steve Pachinik was a lying piece of shit, and you were like, no.
So I fired him.
dan friesen
So now we learn a little bit about some of David Knight's actions back in the Sandy Hook time.
This is weird.
jordan holmes
Let's hear about it.
mark bankston
I'm going to put in front of you what I marked as exhibit seven.
Now one of the things you'll notice about this document is you look down in the bottom corners, there's no numbers, are there?
Bottom corners of the document.
unidentified
No.
mark bankston
Blank page?
All right.
So this is, I'm going to represent to you, this is a document that was produced to me by your former lawyers that has no Bates number on it.
Okay?
So I don't have an identification number for you.
But looking at this email with David Knight's name to and from, that's one of your employees at that time, 2017?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And I'm going to go ahead and read this for you here.
This is the date is June 19th, 2017.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
You remember that the Megan Kelly interview was in the summer of 2017, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And in fact, one of the videos that your company is being sued for is a June 26th video from 2017 that Owen Schroyer did.
We've just been talking about, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
And then in July, you also did a video about Mr. Hesslin as well, correct?
That you're being sued for.
alex jones
I don't.
mark bankston
Yes.
So you do know you did make that July 20th video about Mr. Hesslin.
You know that sitting here today.
alex jones
You mean I did a live radio show, yes.
Did a show.
mark bankston
Did a show.
alex jones
I didn't make a video.
unidentified
Well, I guess you didn't make the video, but somebody did.
mark bankston
Somebody made a video of that and uploaded it to the YouTube channel at Inforz, right?
So I don't, what I'm trying to get, because you've brought this distinction up a couple times, that no, we're just a live radio show.
It's not a video.
But there are videos, and they are uploaded to YouTube, correct?
alex jones
They were, yes.
mark bankston
And in fact, the listenership for the radio show could be totally different than who's watching the YouTube video, correct?
alex jones
They are, yeah.
mark bankston
Yeah, okay.
So now we have this video.
We have this email from David Knight, and it's from David Knight to David Knight, right?
So he's sending himself something, correct?
alex jones
I would guess.
mark bankston
Okay.
The subject line is it says, Connecticut Carrie releases the troubled past of Neil Hesslin.
And then do you see that there is a link there from ammoland.com, correct?
alex jones
Yes.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
And then it says sent for my iPad, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And then this email here was sent to himself at 6.12 p.m.
You see that?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
Everything I've said about this email is accurate?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
You have any reason to think that this is not a true and accurate email from InfoWars' Fox?
alex jones
I don't know.
mark bankston
I don't know either.
You gave it to me and it doesn't even have to be.
tom homan
That's why I'm asking.
mark bankston
Do you have any reason to dispute this is a real question?
alex jones
No, I don't have any reason to dispute it.
mark bankston
Okay.
dan friesen
So we've got this established that David Knight, around the time of the Megan Kelly interview, at 6 p.m., was emailing himself an article with dirt on Neil Hesslin.
Right.
unidentified
Now, when did the interview air?
dan friesen
But there's more.
Hold on.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
Let me show you this, too.
There's a similar email, which I've marked as exhibit 8.
You see this is 6.18, 2017?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
Just a couple days before Owen Schroyer did his video?
alex jones
Correct?
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And do you remember that Megan Kelly's interview with your profile came out in June 19th, 2017?
unidentified
I don't know.
alex jones
I don't remember the date.
mark bankston
Okay.
So here we have again David Knight sending an email to himself, David Knight.
SeekTheTruth80 at Yahoo.
Is that another one of David Knight's email addresses?
alex jones
I don't know.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
You don't know who that is?
No.
Okay.
It says subject Neil Hesslin, father of Sandy Hook victim, faces criminal charges, newscountrytimes.com, right?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
And then there's a Country Times article link.
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And then Mr. Knight Sent himself this email at 2.56 in the morning.
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
You have any reason to think that this isn't a correct true and copy email that came out of InfoWars files?
alex jones
No, I'm crazy.
dan friesen
I think this is a good strategy that's being employed here because there's no question for Alex to answer other than just like, do you have reason to believe this is inauthentic?
Right.
It essentially gives Alex no room to move or to spin anything.
There's almost definitely no information that Alex could give about these emails that would be useful.
But letting them just sit there, there's clear indications that senior employees at InfoWars were doing research into things that they could use to smear Hesslin at 2 a.m. or 2.50 something a.m.
And 6 p.m. that day, like there's a stretch of time where he had it's almost like it was his job for the day.
It's such a bad look.
jordan holmes
Almost as if somebody had directed him to find information on Neil Hesslin.
dan friesen
And he had been up all night.
jordan holmes
And he had been working so hard on it.
And then later people used that information.
dan friesen
Burning the midnight oil looking for smears.
jordan holmes
I think it was probably just because he was, you know, he was just doing it on his own.
dan friesen
It gives an indication of the kind of vibe maybe that was going on around Infowars party.
jordan holmes
Okay, I want this information.
dan friesen
So because there's, I don't know, maybe the appearance of looking for ways to attack this person who was in the Megan Kelly interview seemed like maybe threatening to Alex.
jordan holmes
Ah, come on.
dan friesen
This is an important question, which is like, do you have any reason to believe that these people were faking their grief?
mark bankston
Does the company have any reason to contend?
Well, first, let me ask you it this way.
Do you have any reason to contend that any of these parents have been faking their distress over Infowars actions as it regards Sandy Hook?
alex jones
I did not kill their children, and I didn't visit Adam Lanza's house.
The CIA did, and all the rest of that.
And no one sued me back at the time when I was actually talking about it.
It was once I became extremely famous.
Hillary Clinton made an issue about it in campaign ads.
And then Trump won the election.
And then I became this big supercharged political target as low-hanging fruit.
And then they go, oh, he's the Sandy Hook man.
And then the anti-gun control groups and the Democratic Party basically attached themselves to me so that every time I was in the news, they could then bring back up Sandy Hook for the gun control advocacy that they have.
And that's what this long process has been.
mark bankston
Okay, first of all, objection non-responsive.
Was any of that meant to be a reason that you contend that the Sandy Hook families are faking, or the same, my clients are faking their distress over Sunday?
alex jones
I do not think they're faking their distress.
mark bankston
Okay, so their distress over what you said is genuine.
You admit that.
alex jones
Objection?
I mean, I would call it more hatred than distress.
mark bankston
I think that, yeah, I think there's some feelings of hatred.
alex jones
Yeah.
mark bankston
I do.
I think when, for instance, you can understand how when Neil Hesslin has spent the last moments with his little heroic child who saved some lives that day, looking him in the face with a bullet hole in his head.
alex jones
I didn't kill him.
mark bankston
I know you didn't kill him.
brad reeves
Please let him just ask you.
mark bankston
Yeah, let's not interrupt me, Mr. Jones.
brad reeves
I know you're going to kill him.
I'm handling it with my client.
mark bankston
Please.
You're not, but I'm asking you, Mr. Jones, I'm not saying you killed these kids.
Nobody's saying that you caused that grief.
Let's make that really clear.
Nobody's saying that.
These parents, though, were grieving over the deaths of their children.
That's a thing that they went through.
It has nothing to do with you.
You get that?
Their grief over the death of their children has nothing to do with you.
You get that?
alex jones
Except then through the gun control bill that it was projected on gun owners blaming us for their deaths, and we don't accept that.
mark bankston
I don't even know what that means.
But we don't know what that is.
alex jones
You know what that means.
Gun owners have all been blamed.
You asked me to answer your question.
We get blamed every time some crazy person on Prozac goes and kills people that the CIA went and visited on record.
And then we get blamed, and we're tired of being blamed.
dan friesen
You can almost hear Alex starting to turn into like show mode here.
You can almost hear that flip get that switch get flipped because there's just like, I guess I'm gonna yell now, or I guess I'm gonna get really combative and do a performance.
jordan holmes
Well, it was in reaction to him being forced to say, yes, that is, you know, once he got that negative, that terrible headspace of just having to say, yes, I know what you're saying.
He couldn't deflect on anything.
So then it just turned into him being like, there's only one way for me to take control of this again.
And that's to do my show.
dan friesen
And I think it's in response to the objection non-responsive.
Just like, I'm not even going to engage with this thread you're going down.
jordan holmes
Totally.
dan friesen
That means nothing.
jordan holmes
God, that moment of, listen, I'll take care of my client.
The fuck you are.
dan friesen
Yeah.
This is not Barnes.
So in this next clip, Alex continues down this line.
And it's unfortunate what happens when he gets into show mode in the wrong settings.
alex jones
So here's the deal.
jordan holmes
Here's the deal.
alex jones
The court of public opinion knows that people have a right to ask questions.
Now, in hindsight, I saw the families.
It looked pretty legitimate.
Some of the anomalies turned out to not be true.
And then I said I was sorry.
And then I got sued.
And so let's just not sit here and pretend that Alex Jones is in red pajamas like the devil running around attacking all these people.
And that's not the case.
unidentified
Let's see if you can.
mark bankston
Okay, so if Neil Huslin spent these last moments with his son, has this cherished memory, putting his hands through his son's hair, and then he sees Mr. Schroyer and then you get on TV and draw serious doubt about whether he even held his son, whether he's telling the truth.
And he did that after he had asked you to stop, you can understand why that man might have some negative feelings about you.
alex jones
And you can understand how he's on TV on a national program attacking us.
mark bankston
Yeah, you know why he did that?
tom homan
Yeah.
unidentified
Tell me why.
Why did he do that?
alex jones
Because Megan Kelly went and organized the whole thing for publicity to go after the Second Amendment.
They stepped into this, used it for political purposes, went after the American people, and then get surprised when people think it might be staged, might be synthetic.
unidentified
You think Neil Husslin went on national television to ask you to stop as part of a plot to what?
Destroy the Second Amendment?
alex jones
There are the interests behind it and the money and the financing.
mark bankston
I don't care about those people.
I don't represent any of those people.
I don't represent Megan Kelly.
If I had Megan Kelly in this chair right now, believe me, I'd be talking to her some things.
dan friesen
So now Alex has gotten himself into a strange position where he's trying to claim that these people were doing these sort of pageants to attack the Second Amendment.
And it's fun when you're on a radio show and you can broadly say these things.
jordan holmes
No one will push back.
dan friesen
But then when you're asked about specifics of like, we're talking about my client here, is that what you're saying?
jordan holmes
I mean, well, okay.
All right.
dan friesen
Having to dance around all these things and ask to be specific is like kryptonite for Alex.
And you can see that.
And he tries to continue to justify a lot of his behavior because of a notion that the Sandy Hook parents got political.
Sure.
And that made it so he had to fight them.
alex jones
Right.
mark bankston
Do you have any reason to dispute that these parents' grieving process over the past eight years has been impacted by Infowar's actions as it regards San Diego?
unidentified
Objection form.
alex jones
That's a hypothetical question.
I can't speak to their emotions.
mark bankston
There's nothing hypothetical about it, Mr. Jones.
alex jones
I did not kill their children.
They became political and used that death to then, for their advocacy against the right to keep bear arms.
And so that directly put them in opposition politically with me.
And so they stepped into that political arena.
mark bankston
What did Leonard Posner do politically about guns?
What did he do?
Did he ever say anything about guns publicly?
alex jones
I'm talking about the whole Sandy Hook situation in general, and then some of the parents.
mark bankston
Okay, did Scarlett Lewis ever say anything about guns?
alex jones
I don't have it all in front of me.
dan friesen
That's such an illustrative moment.
Alex is trying to come up with a justification for his actions because he's being confronted with the reality that he traumatized these parents with his shit.
And the place he decides to land is that they used their children's deaths for political gain against the Second Amendment.
Mark's rebuttal is so revealing because Alex can't name a single thing that these two people who are suing Alex ever did in terms of gun advocacy.
He has no idea what these people did or didn't do.
His response was just the normal kind of dodge he'll use when he's being questioned by some shithead like Rogan, who'll just go along with whatever Alex says.
Here's why this is key to understand.
Alex didn't say or do the things he did about the particular parents who were suing him because they were in opposition to the Second Amendment.
What happened was that Alex saw the conversation surrounding Sandy Hook and the shooting there as being a threat to his guns.
So he decided that the Sandy Hook parents were one uniform group, which he needed to attack to change the narrative.
Alex didn't really care about any of them or what they were doing or not doing individually.
He saw the collection of families as an entity he could attack and paint as coming after the Second Amendment, and portraying them as being actors is a really easy, convenient way to invalidate them to his audience.
Maybe some of the parents were involved in gun-related activism.
So to Alex, that means they all were, and they were using the shooting to push their agenda.
To undermine what he perceived as them using the shooting for political gain, Alex attacked individual parents because he felt that by doing so, he was invalidating the group as a whole and protecting the Second Amendment.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
It's pretty clear based on the way he's describing his thought pattern.
jordan holmes
And this is when I would go back to the earlier question about Neil Heslin when he was on Megan Kelly and Mark really forced Alex to get to this place of like, yes, I get it.
If he, I mean, he's a human being.
If your son has died and you hold him, I get that that would hurt.
I get that.
And then even then, he can try and justify his behavior after that.
But once you've established that he can look at another human being and say, yes, my actions hurt you, that is underlying all of these justifications.
dan friesen
You kind of have to go back to like just most elementary, let's get agreement about air.
jordan holmes
Totally.
Totally.
dan friesen
Do we breathe?
jordan holmes
Right.
But you know you hurt them.
You can understand that.
And so then whatever justification you have is still undercut by the fact that you know that you hurt them.
dan friesen
Right.
But I think even in that case, even with that established, Alex could still retreat to the idea that hurting them is an unfortunate byproduct of defending the Second Amendment.
jordan holmes
Sure.
dan friesen
He could probably justify that in his own head.
It still doesn't sound good.
jordan holmes
That's what I guess exactly.
dan friesen
But I think we're well and far beyond anything sounding good.
Right.
I think that train has left the station.
So this seems to be a bit of a pattern of behavior that Alex has.
This is laid out.
And this is where I really was like, this is where things turned.
And I was really shocked that this was happening.
alex jones
Uh-oh.
mark bankston
So we know in 2012, right when it happened, you got on TV and started talking about it being staged, right?
We know that.
alex jones
Soon thereafter, I had questions.
mark bankston
No, Mr. Jones, I don't understand this whole thing about questions.
I don't get this.
If you say Sandy Hook is fake, that's not a question, right?
alex jones
That was years later.
There's a quote that Sandy Hook is fake.
I can see how people think it's absolutely fake.
mark bankston
There's no quote of you saying I can see how people say that doesn't exist.
You keep repeating that, it doesn't exist.
alex jones
Okay, well, that's what I remember.
mark bankston
In our last deposition, I showed you clip after clip of you saying it's totally synthetic, completely made up, with actors.
At first, I thought they killed real kids, but nope.
alex jones
They didn't.
That was my thing you said.
Yep.
tom homan
Yep.
mark bankston
And you did that in 2014.
You did it in 2013.
You did it in 2014.
You did it in 2015.
You did it in 2016.
You did it in 2017.
Correct?
unidentified
Objection form.
alex jones
I'd have to go back and look, but I definitely said that I had serious questions about it and could see how it was staged with all the bizarreness, man.
I tell you.
unidentified
No, Mr. Jones, let me just make something really clear.
mark bankston
If you had gone on and said, man, Sandy Hook looks weird.
There's a bunch of weird stuff going on.
God, it's weird.
Look at this weird thing.
This thing's weird, and I don't know what's going on.
And somebody needs to answer these questions.
You wouldn't be here today.
unidentified
Okay?
mark bankston
The reason the statements that I want to talk to you about is you admit that over those five years, you repeatedly, without equivocation, said it was fake.
The children didn't die.
There were actors playing the different parts of different people.
You said those things.
Can you now just admit that for the jury that you said them?
unidentified
They're going to see the videos.
mark bankston
Can you?
alex jones
Sure, they should investigate Sandy Hook themselves.
Wild.
unidentified
Whoa.
dan friesen
Wild.
jordan holmes
Fucking wild.
dan friesen
At the end there, I almost gasped when I heard that response.
Alex is getting so defensive, and he's having to try and pass off so many flimsy arguments that it seems like something just snapped.
Like, yeah, they should go investigate Sandy Hook.
I couldn't believe my ears, but then this goes on.
mark bankston
Can you now just admit that for the jury that you said them?
They're going to see the videos.
Can you?
alex jones
And they should investigate Sandy Hook themselves.
brad reeves
Objection form.
alex jones
They should look into it themselves and see why people ask questions.
You hope they don't.
mark bankston
No, I really hope they do.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
I feel like Alex is really deeply implying that he is right or was right.
jordan holmes
I think he's saying that it's still fake.
I think he's absolutely contending that it is still fake.
dan friesen
It's such a bizarre thing, but you can tell if you're watching this or listening to it even, you can tell that it is a sort of visceral response.
That's a lashing out.
There's a bit of anger behind like, people should look into it.
And I think it's largely motivated by so many attempts at deflection and stuff just not really working.
jordan holmes
Still not hitting.
dan friesen
And I think that that's maybe the value in sort of cutting off exits and like, OK, now you have nowhere to go other than you now are going to.
jordan holmes
I mean, you also have to cut off the physical exits as well as the financial exits, as well as we've had to cut off a lot of exits to get to a place where Alex is here.
dan friesen
It's true.
So after that outburst, I do enjoy that.
You're afraid that they're going to look into this.
jordan holmes
I mean, bananas, man.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Bananas.
dan friesen
So we now get to some more emails.
And one of them.
jordan holmes
But what about her emails?
dan friesen
Oh, hashtag.
mark bankston
Come on.
jordan holmes
Hey, come on.
unidentified
Remember that?
jordan holmes
Let's play it back, everybody.
It's 2015 again.
dan friesen
No, turns out we're going to talk about some emails that have to do with Jim Fetzer.
jordan holmes
Okay.
mark bankston
Before we broke, we had talked about whether InfoWars had ever promoted or directed people to Jim Fetzer's book, tried to get more viewership for Jim Fetzer's book, and you weren't aware of that, right?
alex jones
Not in my memory.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
I'm going to show you out of Marks' Exhibit 9.
And I'm going to go through this whole thing with you to see if it reflects your memory, okay?
Or if it refreshes your memory.
dan friesen
So he has no memory of promoting Fetzer's book.
jordan holmes
I've never heard of it.
dan friesen
Uh-oh.
mark bankston
I want to start at the bottom with Alan Powell's email and he says, Rob, Jim Fetzer put together a book on Sandy Hook to which I contributed two chapters.
Amazon have decided they won't handle it.
I think Jim would agree to it being distributed by Infowars free as a PDF.
We were both just on the phone, we were both just on the Jeff Rinch show today, and Jim gave that right of distribution to Jeff.
Would you see if Alex would have Jim and Jim Tracy on to promote the book and talk a bit about the still running soar of Scandy Hook?
I spoke to Jim Fetzer about this today and said he will speak to you.
If you flip over onto the back part of the page, you just see it says, cheers, Alan Powell.
So did I read that email correctly?
unidentified
Yes.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
The next message is from Jim.
Okay, before we go on to Jim Fetzer's message, you know who Jeff Rinz is?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
Do you remember Paul Watson also telling you at the same time that he told you that Jim Fetzer was batshit crazy, that Jeff Rinz was batshit crazy?
Do you remember that?
alex jones
No.
mark bankston
Okay.
Going up to Jim Fetzer's email, or he identifies himself as Jim and James, so it's going to be used both in this document.
But he says, Rob, we are making the book available to the public for free.
Here is the cover in PDF.
Several sites are now offering it.
I would be glad if Alex were to do the same.
I am sure James would be glad to come on with me if Alex wanted to interview us about this stunning event.
I think the latest case was the Pentagon Papers.
Did I read that correctly?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And then Rob Dew writes back to Jim Fetzer, says, thanks for the heads up, sent the links to Adon, and he is writing an article about it.
Please let us know if there is a bump in downloads, Rob.
Did I read that correctly?
unidentified
Yes.
alex jones
Okay.
dan friesen
That's not great.
I think getting these emails that are asking for promotion, maybe you can dance around.
We get a lot of emails.
But when Rob Dew is writing back, hey, I've sent this on to a Don Salazar who's writing about it.
Please let us know if our ad campaign for you is effective.
jordan holmes
The moment you said, let us know if there's a bump in traffic, you are Ricoed.
Like you're in the fucking case, man.
If I said it to them, I would expect to be in the fucking case.
dan friesen
I mean, at very least, you're admitting at least a curiosity-based interest in how things go.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
That's a pretty bad look.
jordan holmes
I mean, because if you're not curious, just like, ooh, wouldn't it be interesting?
You're curious to see if you should do it yourself or again.
dan friesen
Yeah, see, see if this is something that people are interested in.
jordan holmes
Yes.
Please give me marketing.
dan friesen
Does this attract our audience?
jordan holmes
Exactly.
dan friesen
So Fetzer's information is largely what was behind the Zero Hedge article that Owen read in the video that ended up being part of this lawsuit.
Yeah, yeah.
And so Mark has a little point about this actual Zero Hedge article that seems to be missed.
mark bankston
I'm going to show you Mark's Exhibit 10.
recognize that?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
Can you tell us what this is?
alex jones
Zero Hedge article.
mark bankston
Do you know why it might be relevant to this lawsuit?
alex jones
This is the article Owen was reading that he's been sued for and the coverage I gave him Owen was sued for.
mark bankston
Okay.
Can you read the second page for me?
jordan holmes
I want to give him a treat.
mark bankston
Do you see there's a big blank space in the middle of the page?
Seems to be a way it printed from the internet.
Below that big blank space, do you see where it says, except this does not comport with the official story?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And then it says, Jim Fetzer, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, who wrote a book claiming Sandy Hook was stage, notes that based on the facts of the case, Hesslin's statement that he held his son with a bullet hole through his head could not have happened.
I read that correctly?
unidentified
Yes.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
Now I want you to flip to the third page.
You see that first sentence?
The first paragraph there?
It's just one long sentence?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And how that paragraph begins is by saying it's entirely possible that Mr. Hesslin had access to his son after that.
Do you see where it says that?
tom homan
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
That wasn't said by Infowars, though, right?
alex jones
I don't have the clip in front of me.
unidentified
Okay.
tom homan
Ooh.
dan friesen
See, here's the problem with their shoddy strategy of never reading the things that they cover.
jordan holmes
You should probably do that.
dan friesen
The actual article that they're getting sued over actually says in it that, hey, maybe he did kill his son.
Well, but they ignored that portion of the story and used it just to justify a position of, hey, he couldn't have.
Okay.
jordan holmes
Well, one way makes money and the other one doesn't.
unidentified
I feel like we both know which way works.
dan friesen
Yep.
that's an unfortunate thing to to have to uh see right in front of you man i really would and and this might be the crazy thing for me right Right.
jordan holmes
But if I had spent my entire career not reading things and then suddenly was starting to be told more and more terrifyingly that the lawsuits weren't going well, I would take maybe a whole week to just really read through everything that I'm supposed to know about.
That way I wouldn't be surprised when I was in a deposition.
And maybe I wouldn't get caught in so many of these fucking traps.
dan friesen
You don't want to have a sort of consistent, heavy breath of grief throughout a deposition.
jordan holmes
Not good.
Not good.
dan friesen
Oh, no.
jordan holmes
Deflation is not a ongoing thing you want to feel.
You want to be deflated and then done.
You don't want to constantly keep going.
dan friesen
Your response to seeing something that is really unfortunate and damning shouldn't be, oh no, not again.
That's bad.
jordan holmes
Ooh, you got me.
dan friesen
Again.
jordan holmes
You just put those needles in me.
dan friesen
So the idea about Alex's relationship with Jim Fetzer is supposed to be that he didn't trust him as a source.
Sure.
Even before the 2017 getting sued and so this is weird.
mark bankston
Okay, I've shown you what I've marked as exhibit 11.
And I know that this has a real, like, has a lot of stuff in it's in really tiny print.
unidentified
Yeah.
mark bankston
Yeah.
unidentified
I know.
mark bankston
Like, yeah, I don't.
The only thing that I'm actually, I think when we get into this document, we'll quickly discover that it may not be necessary to even read all of this stuff.
But if so, I may need to give you some time to go read it if you want to do that.
But what I want to ask you about this document is up at the very top, you see that this is an email on June 29th, 2018.
Okay, that's about a month after you were sued.
You understand that?
Okay.
jordan holmes
I don't know if it's from this email.
mark bankston
What was Nico's job title at that time?
alex jones
Radio producer.
mark bankston
Okay, and then Daria, what's her title?
alex jones
She was sound operator then.
mark bankston
Okay.
And today she's a producer as well, right?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And so Daria is sending this to Nico, and the subject is forward vanishing blog.
Not only is Noah Posner a fiction, but his father Lenny is also a fake.
Have you ever seen this email?
alex jones
No.
mark bankston
Okay.
I don't think I need to ask you anything else about it then.
If you've never read this, I don't think we need to talk about it.
Now, the only other question why Nico would be sending things to Daria from Jim Fetzer right after you were sued?
alex jones
I mean, no, I have no idea.
dan friesen
And I can't have an idea.
jordan holmes
I find this to be very surprising.
Because, no, well, I mean.
dan friesen
It's revelatory.
jordan holmes
It is revelatory.
It's not surprising.
I think what's more surprising to me is that it appears as though he still thinks he's got a chance.
You know, it really feels like the way he's talking, he's like, okay, maybe I lost on this question.
Maybe I'm losing on this one.
But next one, maybe there's that little glimmer of light I can sneak through.
dan friesen
Well, I mean, I think how do you operate in life if that's not how you feel?
jordan holmes
Man, if I was in this deposition, I would be like, literally everything I say, you're going to have a clip for.
So fucking say whatever you want to say.
Here's my answers to your questions.
Yes or no, whatever you want.
dan friesen
I will just say, I don't know, over and over again, and then we'll go home.
jordan holmes
And then we'll go home because you won.
dan friesen
We'll run.
Run out the clock on this thing.
jordan holmes
I mean, literally, we've already had the default judgment.
You won, man.
Yeah.
dan friesen
So, of course, there are more documents.
And we're shifting now over into the Wolfgang Halbig section of some of these documents.
And Mark brings up this email, and he reads it.
This is a bit of a longer clip, but this email is important.
And I believe that, you know, some of the goal of this is just to establish and make Alex recognize, like, this dude's a bad source.
Yeah.
You shouldn't be trusting this.
jordan holmes
Let's get down to this.
mark bankston
I want to talk a little bit about Wolfgang Halbig.
Do you know what I mean when I talk about the Super Bowl picture?
alex jones
No.
mark bankston
Okay.
Do you know what I mean when I talk about the Super Bowl choir of fourth graders from Sandy Hook?
alex jones
Yes, I've heard of that.
unidentified
Okay.
alex jones
And that's when I really started thinking it probably did happen because it just gets too wet.
It's just ridiculous.
It's crazy.
mark bankston
It's just crazy, right?
jordan holmes
Sure.
That's what happened.
mark bankston
I've shown you what I've marked as Exhibit 12.
You'll see again at the bottom, there's no Bates number on this one, right?
alex jones
No.
mark bankston
Okay.
This one is dated 11-19, 2016.
unidentified
That was the one that was.
mark bankston
It was towards the end of 2016.
It is from Wolfgang Halbig, right?
The two-line, the main people it's sent to, include Nico, that's an Infowars employee, right?
Yes.
Then the Trump, several, a couple addresses to the Trump organization, correct?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Rob Dew, who is also another employee of yours, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
And then Jay Rince.
Do you think it'd be a fair assumption to say that's probably Jeff Rinz?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And then also copied, there's a CC line, and there's several other people copied who are either media organizations and there's also some government addresses.
unidentified
Do you see that?
alex jones
Yes.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
So there are also a bunch of attachments listed.
Do you see that?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And those attachments appear to be PNG files.
Those are images, right?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And then the subject line says, trust, but always verify.
Please verify with your uncle.
Thanks.
You see that?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And then I'm going to go ahead and read this email to you, all right?
jordan holmes
Come on.
mark bankston
It says, Nico and Rob.
Rob, please send this video to your uncle, the former FBI agent who attended my Connecticut Freedom of Information hearings in Cartford, Connecticut.
He told me that I was right about what was happening, which gave me a tat more courage.
He has friends who can verify this video to be accurate.
And now we know that the children who supposedly died at Sandy Hook are at the Super Bowl on February 3rd, 2013, and that is why we have never ever heard them sing again.
Think about it for just a second.
They sing before 110 million people worldwide with Jennifer Hudson.
They have 87,000 people in the stadium of over 3,500 news reporters, and we never have one interview in the newspaper on television from them.
Why?
Just think about how much money came flowing in after that February 3rd, 2013 Super Bowl performance from across the world.
Why have they never performed again if they were so great to be asked to sing at the February 3rd, 2013 Super Bowl?
Why no appearances on the national early morning television shows?
They sing before 110 million people and they simply disappear.
Even Beyonce met them.
Where are they?
Are they all dead?
Are they coerced and threatened by the NFL and CBS Sports and by their own parents never to talk about the greatest day in their lives?
Are they part of child trafficking?
Who would do this to fourth-grade children when we all know that children need to express their feelings or emotions or it can have long-term mental health issues?
Then below that is a YouTube link, and then it says, please have your uncle verify and tell me that I am not crazy because I have now run out of funds chasing the truth.
Please help if you can afford it.
Wolfgang Halbig.
And then he gives his address and phone number.
Correct?
I've read all that correctly.
Yes.
Okay.
When he asked them to verify that he is not crazy, that's not something that could be done from this email.
This is crazy, isn't it?
alex jones
That is when I really started thinking that it probably did happen when things took these turns, yes.
But then I still saw some anomalies.
But I'm not the progenitor of this.
I'm not saying this.
mark bankston
No, I understand that.
But once you see this, you have to understand that Wolfgang Halbig isn't reliable anymore, right?
alex jones
Yes, when he first came out, though, I'd seen him on national TV as a big top expert and all the things.
So that's why I was relying on him.
mark bankston
Yeah, okay.
dan friesen
So this is an important foundation here that's being built through this email because it kind of boxes Alex in.
And honestly, he did it to himself.
Because he's getting presented with a clearly insane email that Halbig sent Rob Dew trying to reach Rob's uncle.
Alex has to say that it's not coming from a credible person, but he also has to maintain that it wasn't wrong for him to have seen Halbig as a credible source prior to this.
That's why Alex tries to use this excuse that it was actually, this was when he decided that Halbig wasn't a good source and that he shouldn't listen to him.
This is a really dumb piece of information to Alex offer up, essentially unprompted, because what it does is it puts a hard deadline on the point where you yourself are admitting you had no reason to take this person's claim seriously.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
This is basically creating an unanswerable question for Alex if you can demonstrate that he took Halbig's claim seriously at any point after this.
And that's a real problem for Alex's appearance of consistency.
This is also a double-edged sword because Alex is also essentially testifying that the things that Halbig did or sent Infowars prior to this were not enough to get him to think that Halbig was nuts and shouldn't be trusted as a source.
So remember the date of this.
This was November 19th, 2016 was when this happened.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I mean, that's one where you really, that's an own goal.
That should be, that's on Alex right there.
Because the moment you are like given the opportunity to have a date stamp on something you think and you're Alex, that's not a good idea.
dan friesen
Well, again, it's a thing we talk about a bit, and that's the like specificity is a real danger.
Yeah.
When you're giving this, whether it's that exact date of the email or this time that this story was being pushed by Halbig, that is too specific for you to be able to play games with.
You can't have that.
jordan holmes
Which, again, if I'm doing this, I would say look into when I actually started listening to Halbig and when I stopped talking about Halbig.
dan friesen
You might not want to do that.
jordan holmes
I would not agree to a date prior to the end of when I started talking about Halbig.
dan friesen
But what's fascinating about it, too, is if you listen to it, he's not agreeing to something.
He's saying it himself.
jordan holmes
Yep.
dan friesen
That is not a question that Mark asked him at all, which is wild.
jordan holmes
Amazing.
dan friesen
So there's a long chunk that I skip over here because between the last clip and the next one, and it's not big, it's not because the stuff wasn't interesting, but because it's not really relevant to some of the questions we have.
It consists of Mark and Alex discussing how the alternative media is really important in the country because the corporate media isn't really something that we can trust to get us out of the mess we're in.
Mark keeps trying to work on in a recognition that it's important for the alternative media to hold themselves responsible when they get things wrong.
And then Alex just goes off about how he's the victim and the mainstream media is out to crush all alternative media.
tom homan
Sure.
dan friesen
It's a bit of a circular thing, but it seems like the goal is to try and attempt to build some rapport.
That has the effect of possibly confusing Alex and getting him off his set plans.
And it also makes it so the kinds of rebuttals can't really be used effectively.
Alex can't excuse his behavior by condemning the mainstream media because Mark can just say, you're telling me, man, but that's not what we're here to talk about.
So it's again just sort of creating that camaraderie almost.
jordan holmes
I find it interesting that Alex is so such a weird dude that you can play both good cop and bad cop in the same deposition.
You know, like he's, he's, he's fucking pinned Alex's ears to the wall.
And he's still, and Alex is still like, yeah, no, you don't like the mainstream media.
Me neither, man.
I think we got a lot of, I think we got a lot of common ground.
dan friesen
It is weird to hear like there's a bit of guard letting down.
It's like, you have to know that this isn't for your benefit.
jordan holmes
You've got fucking railroad spikes through the stigmata, man.
You're fucked.
Okay?
dan friesen
So there's a bit of that, and then another email from Wolfgang Halbig is brought up.
mark bankston
I want to show you this.
This I've marked as exhibit 13.
Okay.
This, as you see at the bottom, it says FSSTX-039550.
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And this is from Wolfgang Halbig, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And then this is to a couple email addresses that I bet you don't know who those people are, right?
alex jones
No, I don't.
mark bankston
Yeah, the one safeandsoundschools.org.
Have you ever heard of an organization called that?
alex jones
Not in my memory.
mark bankston
I don't either.
Okay.
I'm going to assume, though, that you see the address is written to somebody named Michelle?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And then the subject line is, I urge Michelle to stop using Josephine and making money and appearing on speaking engagements.
You saw that?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
The date of this email is December 21st, 2014.
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And as we see from free speech systems at the bottom, this is a document from Infowars Corporate Files.
unidentified
Correct?
alex jones
Okay, yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
The attachments here, we see a bunch of PNGs.
That's correct?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
I'm going to go ahead and read the email to you, all right?
dan friesen
So this is another email from Halbig, and you'll notice that this one's dated prior to the one about the Super Bowl choir, which is where Alex's claim that he realized Halbig is no good.
So this email was in Infowars corporate files, which itself is weird because no one at Infowars seems to be copied on this email itself.
It's very weird.
Its existence in the files implies an awareness of its contents since it wasn't emailed to them.
mark bankston
Yeah.
dan friesen
So this wasn't good enough to get Halbig blacklisted, and this is a mess.
mark bankston
I'm going to go ahead and read the email to you, all right?
Michelle, how could you and your husband, as responsible parents, even allow your precious child Josephine to attend that filthy and deplorable-looking school on December 14th, 2012?
This school, as you must have known, is and was a toxic waste dumped, as reported by environmental consultants who requested more money from City of Newtown leaders before demolishing the school and transported all of the high levels of lead paint, high levels of asbestos, and especially the high levels of PCPs in the groundwater at Sandy Hook out of state.
Josephine, your child should have expected more from you before that tragic day as a parent.
You are supposed to protect her from serious lifelong health risk when you send her to that school every day.
Why would you as a parent and all those other parents who supposedly lost a child to gunfire allow their children as you did to serious toxic waste?
This all unfolded before the first shot at that school even occurred.
Did you not see the filth and deplorable conditions when you went to that school or are you blind?
I do not understand unless you explain it to me and the world why you and your husband failed Josephine, who is a non-verbal child as you stated and depended on protect her from all the serious health risks that you sentenced her to on a daily basis.
Now you talk about school security.
You have got to be joking.
You have all these experts on your staff who are now part of your conspiracy.
They should be ashamed of their actions in supporting you.
A mom puts her own child at risk on a daily basis and is now the expert on school security.
I look forward to meeting you one day when I can take your deposition about not the shooting, not about the shooting, but why you and your husband failed Josephine by sending her to that filthy and deplorable school with all that toxic waste.
We call this child endangerment when you know of the danger that exposed your child to serious lifelong health risk.
You must have known without a doubt because pictures do not, and it says LI, but I believe that means lie.
You put her life in serious risk every day, knowing how filthy and deplorable that school is.
I am enclosing photos that you must recognize since you took your child to school and having a child in special needs, you would expect a school environment and school climate that allows children to learn and teachers to teach, right?
Please explain to me if you can why a school principal Dawn Hopspring would allow her school to be so filthy and deplorable looking.
There is not one female elementary school principal in this country who would allow her school to be that filthy and deplorable both inside and outside and most of all allow her to become a toxic waste dump placing every child in her city.
Right?
All of the pictures are taken by the major crime squad from the Connecticut State Police.
Please respond since you are now the expert on school security.
Wolfgang W. Halbig, www.sandyjustice, sandyhookjustice.com.
I read that correctly?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
How do you feel about that email?
alex jones
It's horrible.
I'd never seen this before.
I mean, I guess he's cinatas too.
mark bankston
Oh, it's in Interval War's corporate files, right?
alex jones
Yeah, I just don't even see M4s on here, though.
I wonder why we had it.
mark bankston
That was going to be my next question.
Do you know?
alex jones
I don't.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
So this is an email where Halbig is harassing and terrorizing Sandy Hook family.
This is before the point where Alex said he'd realized that Halbig was bad news.
This looks bad.
tom homan
Yeah.
dan friesen
And see, some of these clips are a little bit longer where Mark's reading these emails.
And I think that it's important because it honestly was kind of a revelation for me, too, because I understood that Halbig's behavior was characterized this way.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
But I hadn't heard the contents of these emails.
And it really, it really did make me not take it more seriously or anything because I already felt this was a pretty serious case, but it's personal.
It made it more visceral.
And knowing the actual behavior and the ways that he's contacting these family members and the things that he's doing simultaneously to the time when Alex is promoting him and such, it really just gets pretty inexcusable.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Pretty disgusting.
jordan holmes
I've got a new rule for my life, which is that I don't want to be around people who, if I were to have their emails read to me in a deposition, are both so awful I would have to sigh and put my head in my hands, but also so long that I have to do it multiple times.
dan friesen
Yeah, there were a bunch of sighs in there.
jordan holmes
That was the most like, oh, fuck.
Like, you could not get more opportunities for one man to say, oh, fuck.
dan friesen
Oh, no.
jordan holmes
Oh, that was a bad one.
dan friesen
Oh, this sucks.
jordan holmes
Oh, Jesus.
Is there more?
dan friesen
There's more.
There is more.
jordan holmes
Holy fuck.
dan friesen
And guess what?
There's another email.
No!
unidentified
Yes!
jordan holmes
Jesus!
mark bankston
I'm going to show you what Marsh's exhibit 14.
You see at the top, there's another email from Wolfgang Halbig.
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Right?
And on this one.
You see about right here?
See where the blue line is?
Sorry, good.
You see that?
And so you see on your document too, you've got this in force email addresses there?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay, and that would be Rob Dew and Nico who got this email.
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
This was March 21st, 2017.
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
The subject was, anyone needing the address for a visit to welcome them to Florida, please call, and this was a great day for me.
Who says that you cannot catch a big fish in Florida?
That's what the subject line says?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay, and then there's a PNG attached to an image file.
Is that correct?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And then I'm going to go ahead and read this email to you.
dan friesen
So here we have another email from Halbig, and the date on this one is March 21st, 2017.
So as we can tell from Alex's telling of the timeline, this is supposed to be after he'd realized that Halbig was not a good source.
Possibly a content warning.
This email is very disturbing.
I found it a bit chilling to hear, and I don't want to just spring this on people without a little bit of a heads up.
It's not like explicit or anything, but it's fucked up.
Real messed up.
mark bankston
And then I'm going to go ahead and read this email to you.
It says, Nick and Laura Phelps did a great job acting in Newtown, on Newtown, Connecticut on December 14th, 2012.
I visited their home today at 1924 Westover Reserve Boulevard, Windmere, Florida, 34786.
And thanks to Lieutenant Van Gailey telling me during my wellness check of Nick and Laura Phelps that they no longer live in Newtown, Connecticut, and that they are now, and they are now Richard and Jennifer Sexton.
Guess what?
He is totally right.
And can you believe it that my Newtown police department guided me in the right direction?
They have a beautiful home with a three-car garage.
They were not home today, but the good news was that the three adult female moms with their children standing outside their homes observed me and wanted to know what I was doing.
It was spring break.
It is spring break for Orange County, Florida school children.
I showed them this picture and I told them that I did not want to go to the wrong house to surprise Nick and Laura from Newtown, Connecticut, aka Richard and Jennifer Sexton today.
It took a few minutes for them to look at the pictures and then when they asked why I wanted to speak to them, I told them that I had been in Newtown and wanted to surprise them since they now live in Florida.
They asked for my name, which I gave them as Wolfgang Halbig.
They told me how I would knew them and I told them that they have been on the national news so I wanted to meet them again.
Our conversation was all about Newtown, Connecticut.
So she said, do you mind if I text her?
I said, absolutely not.
Waited about 10 minutes only to learn that they did not know me, which surprised me.
They verified the pictures and why would she text them about Newtown, Connecticut, and that someone from there wanted to visit if they were not Nick and Laura Phelps now, Richard and Jennifer Sexton.
At first I did not want to enter since it is a gated community, but several people told me just go on in there.
There is no security guard at the gates.
If there is CCTV, they will see me being told to go in, and that is the only reason or I would not have entered.
Now, who says law enforcement does not know what they are doing?
Thank you, Newtown, Connecticut Police Department.
Can you turn the document over?
First of all, I read that email correctly.
unidentified
Yes.
Okay.
mark bankston
And then on the back, you see there's a picture here, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
And at the top, it says Sandy Hook hoax actors, correct?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
And it has arrows pointing to the Phelps, right?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
And then at the bottom, it says playing the part of grief-stricken parents, correct?
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
This is a horrible email, isn't it?
alex jones
I've never seen this email, and it's...
That's your point.
Yes, I don't like this email.
And again, this is someone else, Wolf King Halbig, after I'd already clearly knew that he cracked up.
And so that's not my work.
dan friesen
So that sucks.
Just a dude bragging about stalking grieving families.
jordan holmes
I mean, that's psychopathic in a fucking serial killer.
That's a serial killer.
Like, that should be treated with the same level of true crime terror as a serial killer.
tom homan
Yeah.
dan friesen
it's it's uh you holy fuck it's It's hard to imagine something more unsettling in the context of what Wolfgang could have been doing.
jordan holmes
Yeah, and like most true crime documentaries, the cops are the bad guys, as always.
dan friesen
Allegedly, I don't know how much you take.
jordan holmes
No, I'm not saying that he necessarily literally accurately.
dan friesen
So at the end there, you can see Alex essentially taking the bait that he set for himself.
He's established that he knew Halbig was no good after the Super Bowl thing in 2016.
And then after that, this email comes from after that.
So he gets to absolve himself of any responsibility.
He gets to use this trick that he pulled out.
jordan holmes
He would.
dan friesen
But like I said, this is a trap that Alex set by giving a pretty specific time period when he has no excuse to not know that Halbig isn't reliable.
And this immediately becomes a problem.
tom homan
Yeah.
alex jones
Yes, I don't like this email.
And again, this is someone else, Wolfgang Halbig, after I'd already clearly knew that he cracked up.
And so that's not my work.
mark bankston
Next month, you did a video called Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed, right?
alex jones
Someone edited a video, put that name on it.
I've seen that.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And during that video, you repeated all of Wolfgang Halbig's claims, right?
His 16 questions thing?
alex jones
I don't remember that.
I'd have to see that video, but I believe it was about people using it to continue to try to get gun control and money.
dan friesen
So, yeah, we have a demonstration and a point made that after this, even all this, your timeline doesn't make sense.
You know, after all this bullshit, the stalking of families, horrifying emails being sent to Nico and Rob.
And after the 2016 point, when you had every reason to doubt his credibility as an expert, you're still repeating his things in the Sandy Hook Vampires video.
jordan holmes
I can't believe he...
That's just dumb in every direction all the time.
dan friesen
It makes it so much easier to point to, like, oh, okay, so at this point, you're not supposed to trust him, right?
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
So explain this.
jordan holmes
And again, just that tiny glimmer of hope of just like, well, you know, I haven't seen the video.
Dude, we're at our whenever of this.
Yeah.
If he says he's got a video of you saying it and you haven't seen the video, click.
You can play it at any time, man.
It's here.
dan friesen
Yeah, and the, I don't know, I haven't seen the video is only going to get you out of answering this question now.
It's not a good answer.
It's not a good excuse.
jordan holmes
You're fucked.
dan friesen
So we got another Halbig email.
jordan holmes
Oh, God damn it.
dan friesen
Yeah, this one's not great either.
jordan holmes
I mean, I'm not even associated with him and I'm making the sounds that Alex is making.
mark bankston
Mr. Jones, I've handed you what it marks as exhibit 15.
At the bottom, we see it says FSXTX-040027.
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
So there's an email from InfoWars Corporate Files.
alex jones
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
At the top, it says Wolfgang Halbig, right?
That's who it's from?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay, it says to WildRoseFarm1740 at gmail.com.
Do you know who that is?
alex jones
No.
mark bankston
That's my client, Scarlett Lewis.
Okay.
The subject line says, how could you as a mother stop and buy your special brand of coffee on December 14th, 2012, when you heard as a mom that shots had been fired at the Sandy Hook school?
You read that correctly?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
This is a March 10th, 2015 email, correct?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
He says in this email, Scarlett, it is just a matter of time, and all that money you have has to be returned.
How could you even stop to buy your coffee and you bought coffee for two other people?
What kind of mother does that, especially when you see on the news tell everyone how you ran across that fire department parking lot?
If you did, you would have spilled the coffee.
Do some serious soul searching because the scam is up.
Wolfgang and his phone number.
I read that correctly?
unidentified
Yes.
Okay.
mark bankston
So at least Infowars had received information that Mr. Halbig was harassing Ms. Lewis, correct?
brad reeves
Chair to the form.
alex jones
We get millions of emails.
I'd never seen those up until the time of these lawsuits, so I'm not Wolfgang Halbig.
mark bankston
I understand.
All I'm asking is, InfoWars received that?
alex jones
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
So now we have another email where Halbig is harassing the families of Sandy Hook victims.
This email's in corporate files for InfoWars.
And this one's from March 10th, 2015, which is prior to the supposed cutoff of Alex thinking Halbig is credible.
The picture starts to come into focus a little bit, where you have Halbig demonstrating a pattern of behavior that people at Infowars had every reason to know about, given their access to these emails, and Rob Dew, news director for the nightly news, being copied on almost all of them.
Also, this doesn't come up in the deposition, but Wolfgang Halbig was a guest on Alex's show on March 4th, 2015, just six days before he wrote this email harassing Scarlett Lewis.
And, like, it's not hard to put some pieces together of Wolfgang is on Alex's show.
The website, his website's given out.
It's conceivable that donations are accrued by his appearance on here.
And days later, he's engaging in this behavior where he harasses grieving parents.
It's disgusting.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah.
If I'm Alex in this situation, I hear those three emails, and I immediately switch tactics.
And I just go, that guy's a real piece of shit.
We got to go get him.
And then I'd grab everybody and we'd go to Newtown, Connecticut, or whatever it is we need to go.
dan friesen
We're in Texas.
jordan holmes
We got to get him.
alex jones
Let's go.
dan friesen
We're in Texas.
Let's form a posse.
jordan holmes
Let's get a posse together.
We got to get this guy.
He's a real piece of shit.
dan friesen
Mark, you're deputized.
Let's do this.
jordan holmes
Everybody has guns now because I'm Alex.
dan friesen
Brad, get my horse.
jordan holmes
Like, Jesus, what a piece of shit.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Fuck me.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
That's a fucked up fucking wow.
dan friesen
Yeah.
So it's also interesting to recognize that these evasions of I didn't know about this stuff.
No one knew about this stuff.
We get so many emails.
It just doesn't really fly.
mark bankston
I'm going to show you what I've marked as exhibit 18.
You see at the bottom is FSSTX-039897.
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
This is a 2015 email sent March 6, 2015.
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And this is the top email is Nico forwarding something to Rob Dew.
Correct.
And it says, forward two cents from a third-year law student.
Right?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
And then it says, some comments on Halbig's last interview from a law student.
Okay?
And then I'm going to go ahead and read you this email from a gentleman named R. Darren Brumfield.
It was sent to media contacts at Infowars.com.
He writes, two cents from a third-year law student.
Madam or sir, I'm in my final semester of law school.
I listened to the Wolfgang Halbig video and some significant alarm bells went off.
I also wrote on the YouTube page, but I copy and paste here.
Okay, so let's, so I just get this straight.
Starting at 3130, he filed his lawsuit in Seminole County Court in Florida.
Not in federal court in Florida, but in state court, there is a legal requirement called, quote, standing, unquote.
He does not have standing to sue in Seminole County Court.
He was not a party in the shooting in any fashion.
There is also a concept called, quote, jurisdiction, unquote.
Either the man is lying or the judge is insane.
A Florida county-level judge would not have jurisdiction for any reason other than a contract, tort, or crime issue in directly involving Halbig.
Something is completely wrong here.
Had he said, quote, in the federal district of Florida, quote, or whatever district it might be if the state is split, that may at least be plausible.
This is completely insane and cannot go anywhere but into the trash can.
No standing, no subject matter jurisdiction, no personal jurisdiction, two cents from a third-year law student who is legally current in his education.
The man seems to be grasping and stretching.
No judge in their right mind would do such a thing as he describes.
Here's an example.
Imagine there is a crime in Las Vegas and the criminal kills himself.
There is no law whatsoever that would allow Alex or anyone else to file a suit in San Antonio for anything regarding the crime in Las Vegas.
There is no claim that could be made in Texas for something that happened in Nevada.
It is a rule.
R. Darren Blumfield.
Have I read all that correctly?
unidentified
Yes.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
So here we have that not only did Infowars receive information suggesting that what Halbig was up to was completely insane, in Darren Brumfield's words, but actually Nico ended up forwarding that information directly to Rob Dew, correct?
alex jones
Yes.
tom homan
Okay.
alex jones
Which is good that he found that because we got about 10,000 emails there.
At least we did.
jordan holmes
What?
mark bankston
It's good that he found that in 2015?
alex jones
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't shown to me, but I mean, that shows he was using it.
jordan holmes
Is that what you think?
alex jones
I guess Rob Dew wanted to know about anything coming in about San Diego because he was interested in it.
And so that's why I was sent to him.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
Yeah, it's good that he found that it's not good for you right now.
jordan holmes
Explain to me how you could make my jaw drop more than for Alex to be like, well, it's good that he found that.
What?
alex jones
Yeah.
jordan holmes
What are you talking about?
dan friesen
Wait.
How could Rob Dew have kept this from me?
Oh, Rob, I'd like you to also meet my friend Bus.
jordan holmes
Wait.
This might be bad for me.
alex jones
You know what?
jordan holmes
Rob sounds like a real piece of shit.
Let's get together and go get him.
Come on, guys.
dan friesen
This posse is going to be busy.
jordan holmes
We're going to be very busy for a while.
dan friesen
So the pattern with these emails that has kind of been illustrated, I believe, is they have this horrible behavior that Wolfgang is engaging in.
Right.
The evidence of is clearly in InfoWars files.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
dan friesen
And people from InfoWars are forwarded on these and CC'd on these emails.
jordan holmes
And have taken action, such as forwarding them further.
dan friesen
Well, the email that is forwarded further from Nico to Rob is someone questioning the sanity of this person, which I think in terms of due diligence, maybe you would take a second look at the person and notice that, hey, there's these emails where he's harassing Sandy Oak family members.
You might think that would happen, but I guess it didn't.
And this is a bizarre sort of picture that you get from these emails.
But I think it's remarkable to see that Alex's response to this is bordering on what he would expect a person to feel.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
You know, like you hear these emails and like, this is a horrible email.
That's awful.
I didn't know about this.
That's exactly what you would do if you had feelings.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
Because you were a human.
tom homan
Great.
dan friesen
And maybe it's an indication that he's a human.
unidentified
Well, we'll see.
dan friesen
So after this, we get into a little bit of a conversation about Dan Badondi and the Kraken.
Yes, Alex sending him to Newtown.
Right.
And so he plays the clip of Alex calling Badanti the Kraken.
tom homan
Right.
dan friesen
And it's like, the Kraken's a mythological beast, right?
Yeah.
Trying to get into sort of the record and have Alex respond to, like, you know, the Kraken, that's not somebody that's, you knew he's going to go cause trouble.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right, right.
dan friesen
And obviously that's the case.
unidentified
Yes.
dan friesen
And Alex is evasive about that.
jordan holmes
Of course.
Which version of the movie are you talking about?
unidentified
Because, I mean, Liam Neeson wasn't as good, I don't think, when he said I have a lot of thoughts about movies.
I mean, now that we're in the territory I'm comfortable with, let's get into it.
dan friesen
I tell you about Oblivion.
So we have one last clip here from Alex's deposition.
And it's a question of we've seen a lot of bad behavior from folks within Infowars, vis-a-vis Sandy Hook and Wolfgang especially.
And Fetzer.
jordan holmes
You could say that.
dan friesen
Illustrated throughout this deposition.
Possible.
So the question of editorial standards and that kind of thing comes up.
tom homan
Sure.
dan friesen
And this isn't the best response Alex could have.
mark bankston
Your company has never disciplined anyone due to a false fact about Sandy Hook published on InfoWars, correct?
alex jones
I don't remember.
jordan holmes
Good work, Knott Barnes.
mark bankston
You think it's possible you may have disciplined somebody for some saying something false about Sandy Hook?
alex jones
I wouldn't say false.
I mean, people got in trouble for talking about it.
I mean, I've tried to stay out of it and myself get sucked back into it.
I think people testify to that, too.
At least that's what I was told.
jordan holmes
You just said you wanted people to look into it.
mark bankston
You, in 2015, went to people like Adan Salazar and told him, stop printing articles about Sandy Hook.
This is because Leonard Posner was kept getting strikes against the company, right?
alex jones
I don't remember if it was Leonard Posner.
I mean, I know I've seen people make a big thing between me and Leonard Posner.
I barely know who he is, and I've seen him in some shows, but I know I just did not.
Yes, I mean, I did not want to.
I had seen some of the anomalies and things be proven that should not be anomalies.
And so I wasn't sure that it was staged.
But then, you know, I go back and forth like anybody on these kind of these mysteries.
dan friesen
What?
alex jones
So that's where I stand on that.
dan friesen
That's not an ideal answer.
Have you punished anybody?
Is there any consequences for anybody who's published false things about Sandy Hook?
Hey, look, this is a mystery.
jordan holmes
I just don't, I don't know.
I don't know how you could take this to a jury and not say to them, like, listen, this is a man who's already lost the case.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
This is a man who's under oath in a case that he lost for saying that this isn't real.
Right.
Saying this isn't real, or it might not be, or he still has questions over it.
We're well past the point where you can say, like, oh, we'll have our day in court.
It's already gone.
Yeah.
So there's no way to do anything other than say this man has to be stopped.
dan friesen
Well, I think, you know?
Yeah, I think a lot of the appearance that you get from this deposition is certainly a lack of remorse, a lack of having learned anything, a lack of even seeming to be willing to understand the problem.
jordan holmes
Basic comprehension of reality.
dan friesen
Yes.
There's also clearly an indication that he intends to continue the paper.
jordan holmes
Absolutely.
I mean, and almost a strange, extreme solipsism.
Almost as if, like, wait, wait, wait.
What are you talking about?
This happened outside of what I experienced, so it doesn't matter.
Right?
It's not real because I didn't read this email, so it doesn't matter to me.
dan friesen
Yeah, and even beyond that, like a real lack of institutional guardrails within InfoWars, where there is no standards for what they can or can't report.
jordan holmes
It's chaos.
dan friesen
There's no consequences for anything.
jordan holmes
There's no standards for sending the fucking plaintiff a fucking backdrop report.
dan friesen
Which you don't know you did.
jordan holmes
You don't know you did?
We got it before we even start with the journalistic standards.
dan friesen
It's wild.
jordan holmes
What do you even have?
Take an inventory of what you even have.
What's in the building?
dan friesen
So now, Jordan, we jump over to the corporate representative deposition of Daria Karpova.
unidentified
Oh, boy.
dan friesen
Here we go.
I was a little disappointed.
I believe I said this when we were talking to Mark, that it wasn't Rob Dew again.
Yeah, yeah.
But there are doish characteristics to this.
jordan holmes
It's du-esque.
dan friesen
Sure.
Yes.
There were hints of do.
I think that we'll probably skip over a fair amount of this because it is in the same way that Rob's deposition was, there were a lot of just like, I don't know.
Like, does the company know or not?
I don't know.
jordan holmes
I don't know if the company knows.
I don't know.
I don't know.
dan friesen
Yeah, there is a ton of that.
And the deposition itself is like five hours long.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
And so we're going to chop out a fair amount of that and just talk about what is the matter.
What's the point here?
jordan holmes
Yeah, from the way you described it to me, I got a little bit of like, what would it be like to depose Donald Rumsfeld?
dan friesen
I think that Donald Rumsfeld might take less long pauses before answering questions.
jordan holmes
Yeah, he's a lot slicker.
dan friesen
Every single question, there's a long pause before she answers.
Actually, I think it's probably a good strategy.
jordan holmes
Oh, it's much smarter than Alex's strategy of saying whatever.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Hey, what do you not know that I can give to you that would help you?
dan friesen
Although, I will say that I think that some of the strategies that she does employ in terms of answering questions are not much better and maybe are more shocking and way more offensive than some of the things I've seen.
jordan holmes
Well, that sounds about right.
dan friesen
So strap it in.
Here we go.
So at the beginning of this, at the start, Mark asks a number of questions to try and nail down how much preparation Daria did for the deposition and with whom she consulted.
The preparation is clearly minimal and the questions are kind of repetitive, so I'm going to skip past that bit where that's discussed.
I'll put it this way.
On a scale of 1 to 10, she's not very prepared, but a little more than Rob Dew.
jordan holmes
Right.
So she's a 1.2.
dan friesen
Maybe.
On a scale of 1 to 10, she's a 0.8.
jordan holmes
Right, right.
Oh, I thought with, okay.
dan friesen
It's not zero.
jordan holmes
Well, I thought do was at the one since it's easy to the negatives.
You can't have a negative on a scale like, oh, you're cheating.
dan friesen
I'm in a number war.
jordan holmes
You are.
dan friesen
So this leads us to Mark presenting Daria with a folder that she had brought along that contained what she wanted to introduce into evidence.
She had brought along some documents, and this is where we're at.
mark bankston
Beautiful.
No, I understand.
I've been given a folder.
Do you recognize this folder that I'm holding right here?
Yes.
Okay.
I've been told that these are documents that you reviewed prior to this deposition.
daria karpova
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
So you have taken the documents that you prepared yourself for today and put them in this folder?
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
Okay.
I want to right now.
No, let's do them individually.
You can do 1A1B1.
Yeah, that's probably not the best of it.
That's not the worst idea.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
So, ma'am, what I'm going to do is I'm going to put a sticker on this folder itself.
And we're going to mark that as exhibit one.
Okay, and I want to talk to you about some of the documents in here.
dan friesen
So each exhibit is going to be like one A, one B, one C in this folder of things she's brought.
And I think I can say this without giving away any privileged information.
This was the first one in terms of like day one was the Dario deposition, then the next day was Alex.
So this was my first moments of being in this setting.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And I was just like, I was just like, I got to get a seatbelt.
I got to strap this in because here is where we begin with these documents.
mark bankston
I've marked this as 1A.
You recognize that, correct?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
That's a document that you reviewed prior to this deposition, right?
unidentified
Correct.
mark bankston
That is the Wikipedia entry for false flag, correct?
unidentified
Yes.
Okay.
mark bankston
Can you tell me why you looked at this document?
daria karpova
I thought it would be a good idea to bring it as a reference to some of the points for topic number one.
If I could have the list of topics that would help me to identify the exhibits.
unidentified
I understand what you're saying.
In fact, let's do that.
dan friesen
So the topic that Daria is referring to is the sourcing and research that went into the productions of the videos that are listed in the plaintiff's case.
So I don't know what she needs the false flag Wikipedia page for.
I felt like this had not started well.
I was worried.
jordan holmes
I mean, I'm thinking about this now, and I'm thinking about removing the sticker that says 1A and putting a new sticker on that says grape job.
And you can scratch it, and it smells like grapes!
Dan!
dan friesen
Four stars tell her to go home to a mother.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
Good God.
dan friesen
So here's the next document we get.
mark bankston
So now I have handed you what I've marked as 1C, which you recognize, correct?
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
And that is the Wikipedia entry for the Reichstag fire, correct?
Yes.
The Reichstag fire was a Nazi Party arson attack, correct?
daria karpova
Correct.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
Can you tell me why this is relevant to the case?
daria karpova
Same answer as for the previous exhibit.
I thought it would be a document pertaining to some of the points in topic number one as an example of false flags.
unidentified
Hmm.
dan friesen
Okay.
Another Wikipedia page.
jordan holmes
To paraphrase the one funny thing Pete Holmes ever said, it seems like you printed out a part of the internet for us to throw away.
dan friesen
Yeah, yeah.
It's strange because, again, as the corporate representative, like the lion's share of what she's supposed to be discussing is like sourcing and personnel who worked on the videos in question.
Yeah.
And that has nothing to do with the Reichstag fires Wikipedia.
unidentified
Disagree?
jordan holmes
Sources?
Mostly Nazis.
dan friesen
Fair enough.
Let's see if the next one's better.
mark bankston
We put into 1D.
You recognize that?
daria karpova
Yes.
unidentified
Okay, where does, can you read the website at the bottom?
What website does that come from?
daria karpova
HistoryToday.com.
mark bankston
Okay, so this is a History Today article about the sinking of the Maine, correct?
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
Okay.
The USS Maine was a 19th century warship, correct?
daria karpova
Correct.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And that warship exploded in Havana Harbor, correct?
It's hard baby.
dan friesen
No problem.
mark bankston
Let me ask that again.
That warship exploded in Havana Harbor, correct?
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
There is significant historical evidence to suggest that that ship was intentionally exploded by the United States government.
That's correct?
daria karpova
There is a controversy about it.
unidentified
I'll just say it.
mark bankston
In other words, what I'm wondering is, from reading that article, did you come away with the idea that there is substantial evidence?
In other words, non-trivial evidence, which people could use to support the idea that the USS Maine was intentionally destroyed by the United States government.
daria karpova
I would say one could infer that.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
Can you tell me why that particular article is relevant to your testimony today?
daria karpova
It could be viewed as an example of false flags throughout history.
dan friesen
Cool.
So at this point, I think it becomes a bit clear that the strategy of the articles that Daria has in the folder amounts to a lazy attempt at illustrating that false flags have happened in the past, and thus it's not so out of left field for Alex to question whether any event may or may not be another one.
That's all good and well, but it's really superfluous to the questions at hand.
And the thing that I find most interesting is that while being questioned about the article concerning the sinking of the main, Daria seems unwilling to commit to even saying that there's evidence that it was a false flag, only going so far as to say that there's controversy.
jordan holmes
She's cagey.
Yeah.
dan friesen
That's some of the vibe you might be getting in the early stages of this.
I thought that was a little bit weird.
But I guess maybe it could make some strategic sense.
You don't have to prove anything as a false flag.
All you have to do is prove that some things people say are.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
Because that's the behavior you're trying to justify in terms of Alex.
jordan holmes
Right.
I mean, I want to ask this.
I just want to ask this question over and over and over again to all of these people.
Just like, let's strip away all the bullshit.
On a fundamental level, do you know why you're here?
Like, just like, why?
What are you here to do?
dan friesen
Yeah.
You know?
Again, it's going back to that stuff with Alex.
Like, you have to get back to fundamentals.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah.
What is water?
Is it the wet stuff?
Is that it?
dan friesen
Is it something else?
Can you breathe water?
jordan holmes
Yeah.
Hey, listen, if you think water is air and that's how we have to talk about it and I have to say water is air and air is water, that's fucking fine as long as we agree.
dan friesen
At least we'll be able to communicate.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
That's all I need to know, man.
dan friesen
Yeah, it's that idea that the beginning of communication is the definition of terms.
You can't really, and I do think that that does come into a problem with interacting with folks from InfoWars, as it seems from these depositions in particular that I've seen.
I mean, it seems like you're not having, you're talking in different languages.
jordan holmes
Do you know what it makes me think of?
When we talked to John Ronson, he very briefly had this moment where we went kind of far off and he just said, you know, he was wondering, how is it that we can judge Alex, you know, just in this sense of like, do we judge him the way we judge other people?
Because he's clearly not like other people.
Who can you judge him by?
What is the standard by which Alex can be judged?
And it's like, when you have an entire organization that is thinking it's totally fine to print out a Wikipedia article and take it to a deposition, I don't know.
They're aliens.
That's what it is.
They're just aliens.
dan friesen
It introduces a really strange question that is like, is this somebody who's trying to bluff a report?
Like, ah, this will do.
Or is it someone who doesn't care?
Or is it active insult?
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Like, I don't know.
unidentified
No.
jordan holmes
And it could, I don't, yeah, exactly.
Aliens.
Just complete aliens.
I don't understand what is happening.
dan friesen
Yeah, but maybe like the rest of these documents will help you sort of.
unidentified
I'm sure they will.
jordan holmes
I'm sure they will.
mark bankston
I'm going to put in front of you one E. You recognize that, correct?
Yes.
A Wikipedia entry for the Pearl Harbor Advanced Knowledge Conspiracy Theory, correct?
Correct.
Is this the same answer as the other documents?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
So this is another example of potentially well, let me ask back up.
Would you call this a false flag, for instance?
Let me rephrase that question.
If the allegations about this conspiracy theory are true, would you consider that a false flag?
daria karpova
I would say so, yes.
dan friesen
So we have another Wikipedia article about conspiracy theories about Pearl Harbor.
I think the point's made by this point, right?
jordan holmes
I don't know.
dan friesen
I don't know why we need more.
So at least the documents aren't all just Wikipedia pages.
Some of them are bios for weirdos.
unidentified
Woo!
jordan holmes
Like the back of a book jacket.
mark bankston
You recognize that?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Can you explain what that is?
daria karpova
Yes, it is an article that was archived from the website DC Clothesline, which includes Mr. Halbig's biography, which I wanted to have on hand.
mark bankston
Okay, so this is just biographical information about one of InfoWars sources.
daria karpova
Correct.
dan friesen
So we got Wolfgang Halbig's bio.
And we have another bio.
tom homan
Yeah.
mark bankston
All right, I'm going to show you what I've marked as one H. You recognize that?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
That's from Dr. Steve Pachinik's website, isn't it?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And that's basically a biography of Dr. Steve Pieczenik.
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
Okay, and you wanted to have that because Steve Pachinik is somebody who has appeared on Infowars at one point to talk about Sandy Art.
unidentified
Correct.
Okay.
dan friesen
I do regret that, unfortunately, in this deposition, more questions aren't asked about Steve Pieczenik.
tom homan
Yeah.
dan friesen
Yeah.
Because I think having anybody have to answer for like some of the bullshit.
It's not even just the bio.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Just be like, how much of this is that?
jordan holmes
Let's just go through it.
Let's just go through it and you tell me what's true and what's not true.
You brought it into evidence, man.
That's what's going on now.
dan friesen
Yeah.
So we've got the bio of these two people, which I think is, I mean, I don't think it matters much, but at least it seems more relevant to what you might bring.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
And then there's another document in there, and this is where things start to get real fucked up.
jordan holmes
My daughter drew a picture.
dan friesen
Things are real fucked up at this point.
It is really weird.
jordan holmes
Oh, no.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
I'm going to show you now what I have marked as one I. You recognize that?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
That's a Guardian article, right?
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
Guardian's a newspaper in Britain.
Am I right about that?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
This article says, headline says, Sandy Hook father Leonard Posner on death threats.
I never imagined having to fight for my child's legacy, correct?
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
What did you need this article for in your testimony today?
That's not a good question.
Why did you feel you wanted to review this article for your testimony today?
dan friesen
After this, there is a long pause.
Yeah.
A very long pause.
I don't know if it's a long pause of trying to remember why or if it was like a how do I say this?
Yeah, I'm not sure, but it goes off the fucking rails.
daria karpova
The reason I wanted to have this article is that I thought one of the victim's mothers there was interesting information regarding the victim's mother and her request to have an open casket for the funeral.
It seems to me that the motivation for doing so would be to exploit a child's death for a political agenda.
mark bankston
Might another reason for it is because a bunch of people were saying that child was fake?
Couldn't that be a reason for it?
daria karpova
I don't know.
dan friesen
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
So she has brought a Guardian article that references how Miss De La Rosa has opted to have an open casket funeral.
So, you know, this is dicey.
This feels real, Mark Dicey.
jordan holmes
I'm not stoked about the direction it's going.
unidentified
No.
jordan holmes
No.
unidentified
And it gets sitting here right now.
mark bankston
If your child.
Let's back up.
You just had a baby, right?
daria karpova
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
Let's say six years from now, your child walks into elementary school and is massacred in a gun violence incident, and some news organizations are saying that your child is fake.
Can you see that a possible way to combat that would be to have an open casket funeral for your child?
unidentified
No.
mark bankston
That's not something you would ever consider?
unidentified
No.
mark bankston
You can imagine how somebody else could consider that.
daria karpova
Not if they have a heart and no political agenda.
mark bankston
Okay, so you think that this Jewish family's choice to have an open casket funeral for their child was politically motivated?
brad reeves
I'm going to object to this being outside the scope of her corporate representative testimony.
unidentified
That's fine.
tom homan
Ooh.
dan friesen
So they discussed this objection, and then they determined that she should answer the question.
jordan holmes
Oh.
I thought Brad finally had one good thing to, you know.
dan friesen
Well, I mean, the objection might be fine, but it's still going to answer the question.
So the court reporter reads the question back.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
And who.
daria karpova
What has being Jewish having to do with this?
mark bankston
I'm not here to answer your question, too.
daria karpova
I don't know.
My answer is my personal opinion, I find it unconscionable.
That's something that I would never bring myself to doing.
mark bankston
People have open casket funerals every day, don't they?
daria karpova
Yes, however, considering the circumstances and how the child was disfigured based on these articles, I find that just horrific.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
So Daria didn't pick up on this, but the reason that Mark brought up the fact that the parent is Jewish and decided to have an open casket funeral for her son is because that's a huge deal.
In most Jewish traditions, it's not acceptable to have an open casket funeral.
Out of respect, it's traditionally understood that you're not supposed to gaze upon the face of the deceased.
The fact that a person of Jewish heritage would make the decision to have an open casket funeral because people were saying that her son didn't exist indicates a very strong conviction that the world not be allowed to pretend that this didn't happen or try to mentally hide behind safe images.
As Veronique, the mother in question, told the forward, quote, I just want people to know the ugliness of it so we don't talk about it abstractly, like these little angels went to heaven.
No, they were butchered.
They were brutalized.
And that's what haunts me at night.
It's a subtle nuance that's being hinted at in this question that's completely missed by Daria because in preparation for this deposition, it doesn't seem like she's done all that much.
Still, a little better prepared than Rob Dew.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
But it's impossible to beat that bar.
You're never going to do worse than him, I don't think.
jordan holmes
I mean, the worst part is...
dan friesen
Well, I guess if Rob Dood shown up drunk, maybe.
jordan holmes
That would have been nice.
That would have been a good day for us.
dan friesen
Yeah, sorry.
jordan holmes
I mean, the strange thing is I believe her, but partially because she's on the other side, so she's not going to do that stuff because she knows it won't fucking do a thing.
dan friesen
I kind of agree with you.
jordan holmes
Do you know what I'm saying?
dan friesen
I emotionally agree that she is not lying.
Yep.
That she thinks that they would do this for political reasons.
And if you had a heart, you would never do so.
jordan holmes
She believes that.
dan friesen
I don't think that's coming from an analytical place.
I think that is an emotional truth.
jordan holmes
Yep, because she knows what somebody would do to somebody who did that.
dan friesen
It sounds that way to me.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
So we got another article.
This is weird.
mark bankston
Here's another article about that, right?
Exhibit 1J?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
So you actually pulled two separate articles about Noah Posner's funeral having an open coffin.
Correct?
daria karpova
I pulled this one article because it was linked in The Guardian, and I wanted to make sure that I have the sources of where I got, baby.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And so of all the documents that you've reviewed regarding the plaintiffs, the only ones you've reviewed that you chose to go review were two articles about Mrs. Posner choosing to have an open casket for her son.
Correct?
unidentified
That wasn't the reason why I reviewed the article.
mark bankston
That's not what I'm asking you, Ms. Karpova.
I'm asking you, of all the documents you reviewed about the plaintiffs before this deposition, the only two that you did review are articles that discuss Noah Posner's funeral having an open casket.
Correct?
daria karpova
They happen to mention that, but that's not the only thing they discuss.
mark bankston
I'm not saying that.
I understand what you're saying.
Let's make it even broader then for you.
The only two pieces of documentation that you have reviewed for this deposition about the plaintiffs are two articles, both of which discuss in the article Noah Posner's open casket funeral.
Correct?
unidentified
Yes.
Okay.
mark bankston
Tell me any other information from those articles that you believe is relevant to this deposition today.
daria karpova
I've already mentioned that the state of the physical body that the child had for the fun casket ceremony describes that.
mark bankston
Okay, so when it comes down to the documents that you reviewed for this deposition about the plaintiffs, the only information that you're really gleaning from this that's useful to this deposition has to concerns Noah Posner's open casket and the appearance of his body.
Correct?
daria karpova
It was useful to some of the points.
mark bankston
I'm not asking what it's useful for.
dan friesen
This is bizarre.
Like it's a you have Wikipedia articles, Steve and Wolfgang's self-written bios, correct, and multiple articles about the Posner, Noah Posner having an open casket funeral.
It's upsetting.
jordan holmes
If I was going to subtitle this deposition, it would be, when you say it like that.
dan friesen
Wait.
unidentified
Wait until we get deeper into this.
jordan holmes
Every time she hears something, it's like she hears it for the first time.
She's like, oh, well, when you put it like that, it sure sounds like I'm an asshole.
dan friesen
There's some deep bizarreness that is even, this is just the amuse-bouche of how bizarre this is going to get.
jordan holmes
It's crazy.
dan friesen
So Mark tries to get into the actual topics that she's there as the corporate representative to discuss.
And that is a dead end.
mark bankston
Topic number one is the sourcing research for the videos described in plaintiff's petitions.
When was the last time you watched those videos?
What?
Back up.
Made an assumption there.
Have you watched the videos in plaintiff's petition?
Ever in your history of informed?
daria karpova
I've watched some of them.
jordan holmes
What?
mark bankston
Okay.
So one thing we can say is that in preparation for this deposition, you didn't watch those videos.
Correct?
I'm sorry.
Ms. Carpova, is that a difficult question for you to answer?
daria karpova
Well, I've already answered some of the videos.
mark bankston
Right.
No, I understand that you have in your history at InfoWars since 2015, you've probably on occasion seen some of these videos.
I understand that.
What I'm asking you is since the date you were told you were given this deposition in November and you were preparing for this deposition, you haven't watched any of these videos, right?
daria karpova
I have not.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
Ooh.
So this is a bad start because you now know that you're not going to really even be familiar with the videos in question.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right, right.
dan friesen
And that is kind of limiting.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Is your ability to testify as a corporate representative?
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
Yeah.
Once we've established here that she hasn't watched these videos in preparation, it turns out also that by extension, that means she doesn't even know what they say.
mark bankston
Do you see that paragraph 14 identifies a January 27th, 2013 video entitled, Why People Think Sandy Hook is a Hoax?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
You're familiar with the claims made in that video, right?
brad reeves
projection form.
daria karpova
I don't recall the exact video.
mark bankston
And so sitting here today, you're not familiar with the claims made in that video.
unidentified
No.
dan friesen
Okay.
And because of this, so much of the questions that are being asked end up being her guessing.
jordan holmes
I don't know.
dan friesen
You know, like, what are the sources for this?
Well, I would assume that it's Wolfgang Halbig.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
Or, you know, like, I have an educated guess that it's this person.
jordan holmes
Right, right.
dan friesen
And then Mark will push back about, like, what did you do to try and figure out, if anything, who made this video, who worked on this, what are the sources?
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And she'll be like, well, nothing.
unidentified
I mean, how do they pick who shows up for this?
jordan holmes
Did they throw a dart or something?
Like, what is happening?
dan friesen
I think there's an InfoWars elder who goes into a trance.
jordan holmes
InfoWars elder goes into a trance.
dan friesen
And then they choose somebody.
jordan holmes
Bananas.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
The confidence with which you would walk into what amounts to the end of your professional career.
dan friesen
So we're going to skip a bunch of the back and forths of just like, who did this?
I don't know.
Probably Wolfgang.
Probably Wolfgang.
And there's a lot of it.
And I don't skip it because it's not relevant.
It definitely is.
jordan holmes
Oh, totally.
dan friesen
And it paints the picture of how unprepared she was for this deposition and the lack of respect that's being shown to the process.
But in terms of, you know, we're doing a show also.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
And I think it would get grading in much the same way it was clearly in the room.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
You know?
Yeah.
So we're going to jump to a question about the Super Bowl pick.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
So this is the pick that Alex was asked about.
It's a Wolfgang Halbig sent it to Nico.
Yep.
And we couldn't determine whether or not Alex should answer if this is crazy.
Actually, he did.
He did say it was crazy.
Here is Mark beginning to bring this up to Daria.
unidentified
All right.
mark bankston
So I'm just trying to make sure.
Have you or have you seen this document?
daria karpova
I don't recall reading this particular exchange with Mr. Halbig in Nico.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
I'm going to start at the bottom here.
And This document that I'm reading from you is marked FSS Texas, FSSTX-039429.
And you will see at the bottom email, Mr. Halbig writes to Nico.
Do you know who Nathaniel Fokes is, the person he copies?
daria karpova
No.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
Nico, though, is an InfoWars employee.
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
What's his job title at this time?
daria karpova
He's not employed by P. Specialist.
mark bankston
At this time.
daria karpova
Oh, at this time?
unidentified
He would be the head producer.
mark bankston
Nico's no longer employed by Infowars?
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
Does InfoWars possess his last known contact information?
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
Mr. Halbig in this email states, Nico, the picture of the Sandy Hook Elementary School choir is one of the keys.
Other pictures are great for discussion.
unidentified
These are the CT crime pictures.
tom homan
Wolf.
mark bankston
Have I read that correctly?
daria karpova
Yes.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
Nico responds and says, got the Super Bowl picture.
Thank you for sending.
We will be calling you on Skype at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.
How long will you be available for the interview today?
Thanks, Nico.
Have read that correctly?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And then the final email says, as long as you and Alex can put up with me, Wolfgang.
Read that correctly.
unidentified
Yes.
Okay.
mark bankston
Does this help you refresh your memory about what the Super Bowl picture is?
dan friesen
So we've got the topic introduced.
We have Nico's response to getting the Super Bowl picture.
I will say, though, if I can say one positive thing about Wolfgang Halbig, it's that sometimes he signs off his emails Wolf.
jordan holmes
Ooh, that's not bad.
dan friesen
Yeah, but it's not consistent.
jordan holmes
Eh.
Yeah, I know.
dan friesen
I think if my name was Wolfgang, I'd be constantly making people call me Wolf.
jordan holmes
I don't know.
Sometimes you sign your emails Dutch.
Don't you?
No, I don't.
dan friesen
So, we get to talking about the Super Bowl pick itself.
Uh-huh.
This, oh, God.
This is, I don't even, I'm having trouble figuring out how to just like prepare you for how insane what's coming up is.
jordan holmes
I can't be prepared.
mark bankston
All right, I'm going to show you a market as Exhibit 5.
You can take a look at that picture for me.
Do you see at the bottom corner where it says FSSTX.04476?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
Have you seen this picture before?
daria karpova
Personally, I have not.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
This was a document, though.
You can tell from the number at the bottom that was produced by the company, correct?
daria karpova
Yes.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
Can you read what it says at the very top of the picture, the white text?
daria karpova
Ten Sandy Hoe children found alive and well.
tom homan
Okay.
mark bankston
This does the company now admit that this picture is outrageous.
brad reeves
Objection form.
dan friesen
Yeah, it might.
jordan holmes
Hey, listen.
Listen.
It's been a long fucking trial.
And you guys have been dicks.
dan friesen
Are you ready to admit that this is outrageous?
jordan holmes
Excuse me.
Are you ready to say, you're full of shit, Niener, Niener, Niener?
Go fuck yourself?
dan friesen
Yeah, so apparently this is worth an objection.
Yeah.
But it deteriorates.
mark bankston
Well, what I'm saying is if there's an expert and you've been relying on him, guy supposed to be a school safety shooting expert, whatever it is, right?
And you're relying on him.
And then, just hypothetically, that person just starts saying absolutely crazy things.
And it's pretty clear they're going off their rocker.
Maybe they were even credible at one time.
But suddenly they start saying a bunch of crazy things.
To the company, when it's deciding whether to put stuff on about Sandy Hook, it needs to, it should consider whether what the things its expert is saying are crazy, correct?
daria karpova
Well, if he's the expert on the subject matter and who knows a lot more on the subject than any of us working at free speech systems, it would be reasonable to believe that we would want to listen what consider what the information that he's bringing.
mark bankston
What exactly in Wolfgang Halbig's history and expertise makes him an expert that you should defer to on whether this picture of the Super Bowl choir is actually pictures of children who were murdered?
daria karpova
Well, that's a good question.
That's why I brought his bio, which I would like to read.
jordan holmes
No, you'd just like to read it.
No, yes.
No.
dan friesen
Wild.
unidentified
No.
dan friesen
Wild.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
So.
One of the things I think is really interesting that's going on there is that like Dari is essentially appealing to authority.
Yeah.
You know, like just being like, well, Wolfgang said so, and he's the expert on things.
jordan holmes
No, that's that was like, really?
You're gonna tell me.
dan friesen
If the expert says crazy things, they're not crazy because this person's the expert.
Those things, by being said by this person, become credible.
That's weird.
mark bankston
Okay.
jordan holmes
So what you're telling me is that the editorial standard for InfoWars is if somebody was an expert, we would believe them.
dan friesen
Can we even qualify that further?
jordan holmes
That's a good point.
dan friesen
If they claim to be an expert, there we are.
So before we even get to expert, if you make up credentials for yourself that are really impressive, you get to just do whatever you want.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
So you're telling me that the tip of the spear against disinformation from the mainstream media.
dan friesen
They do a lot of background.
jordan holmes
So people who work 11 hours a day.
Oh, Alex is up until 5 in the morning sometimes, always researching.
You're telling me that you don't need to verify any of that shit on your own?
dan friesen
No, no, because this guy's an expert.
jordan holmes
Fair enough.
dan friesen
So Mark wants to know if this picture of the Super Bowl choir that was sent to Nico was made by a sane person.
mark bankston
Well, you admit, sitting here right now, this was not created by a rational, sane human being.
Or are you going to tell this jury that this is created by a rational, sane human being?
daria karpova
I don't have an opinion, a personal opinion on it.
mark bankston
So you see this picture, and in trying to determine whether it was created by a sane, rational human being, you look at it and go, I have no strong feelings either way.
Correct?
daria karpova
I'm not a psychiatric medical expert to determine who is sane and who isn't.
dan friesen
That is quite a response.
jordan holmes
Oh boy.
I mean, you know, listen, Goldwater rule.
What are you going to do?
dan friesen
I guess there's really no way around that from like a questioning perspective, really.
Like, of like, yeah, you, I guess you aren't, but right.
You're just trying to dodge the question of like, it's very clear if you look at this, you'd be like, this is well, as Mark said, outrageous.
jordan holmes
No, I mean, there's the problem with this little chunk right here is we're in a situation where the rules are such that you can't, Mark can't be like, hey, listen, you know.
And she can't be like, I know, but you know, right?
And he can't be like, look, yeah, no, I know why.
dan friesen
She just level with me for a second.
jordan holmes
Right.
I mean, they both, everybody knows what's going on.
This is so infuriating to me.
It's because Mark knows she's full of shit and she knows she's full of shit.
dan friesen
Now, I agree.
I agree that that is a frustrating dynamic.
jordan holmes
That's very frustrating.
dan friesen
Now, listen to me.
Yeah.
That dynamic breaks.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
The status quo changes.
jordan holmes
That's good.
dan friesen
Let's get in the midst of this conversation about whether or not a sane person would make this Super Bowl picture.
And, oh my God.
mark bankston
You would, if somebody sent you this while you were doing reporting, you would thank them for it?
daria karpova
I don't know.
No, it depends on the circumstances.
mark bankston
Okay, well, the circumstances.
daria karpova
He wasn't there when Nico was having this exchange, what information was.
mark bankston
Well, I'm asking you, what if you had this information?
A picture that says at the top, 10 Sandy Hook children found alive and well, and then the Super Bowl choir in front of millions of people.
Would you look at that and go, man, I'm glad that you sent me that?
daria karpova
Personally, I would rather think that those kids were alive than having because the tragedy of being murdered for no reason, the innocence of those children who didn't deserve that kind of fate.
I would hold out hope to the last bit of my soul, hoping and praying that that picture was that that was something that be possible for those kids to be alive.
dan friesen
Whoa, whoa.
jordan holmes
If I saw that picture and then asked somebody a question about that picture and then they gave me that response, I would throw a table through the wall.
dan friesen
I almost gasped.
jordan holmes
That is fucking crazy.
Really?
dan friesen
It's such a bizarre response to the questioning over the Super Bowl picture, and it's not even relevant to the question she was being asked.
This is volunteered of her own desire to express this.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
It's really hard to understand this mentality unless you recognize that people like Daria, and I would assume most of the people at Infowars, don't ascribe to the rules of reality, things like cause and effect or object permanence.
In her mind, choosing to believe that the kids who were killed at Sandy Hook are actually secretly in the choir at the Super Bowl, that's an optimistic idea because the alternative is choosing to believe that the kids are dead.
There's so many problems with this idea.
I mean, the most obvious being that what she's describing is essentially just living in a fantasy world because reality is too tough.
But also, she seems to be ignoring how this isn't an isolated thing.
Like, if the kids at Sandy Hook were secretly in that choir, the implications of that are horrific.
And I don't know if this would actually be an optimistic scenario.
jordan holmes
No, it'd be the worst case possible fucking scenario that ever been.
dan friesen
If the government had just pulled off a massive false flag and then they were rubbing it in by having the fake kids sing at the Super Bowl, I suspect those kids would not live past halftime.
These are people who work for the literal devil.
They're not above that shit.
I find it hard to believe that if the globalists did something like this, they would just leave those loose-hanging threads out there.
jordan holmes
I mean, for your response to that question to just be like, you know, I choose hope.
It's just fucking go, go, get out of here.
dan friesen
So when I heard Daria say that, I thought, well, this trip has been worth it.
I had heard something that was completely unpredictable.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
That was something I never expected I would hear.
And then it actually even goes on.
mark bankston
So if you think about it, from your point of view, if you think about it, if the parents, if my clients saw this picture, they should give them a lot of hope, right?
They should react really positively to this with a lot of hope inside, right?
brad reeves
Objection form.
mark bankston
Is that what you're saying?
daria karpova
I'm not those parents.
I'm looking at it as an outsider.
And I would much rather, and I don't know a person with a heart who'd rather think, who would rather believe that the kids are dead versus that the kids might be alive?
I would say it's reasonable for a person with a heart to have that sort of optimism as I'm sure Alex wanted to believe that those kids, if there was any possibility that the kids were not dead, then he was going to grab onto it because that's a much better proposition to have in your heart and mind than to realize that they weren't.
mark bankston
So, Alex Jones, according to how the company views things in terms of your Sandy Hook coverage, Alex Jones said the kids didn't really die and they were really alive in part because he has such a big heart and a lot of hope and optimism.
brad reeves
Attraction for him.
dan friesen
You might not have heard it because the lawyer was talking, but she said yes.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
That's truly bizarre.
And remember, this is somebody testifying as a corporate representative.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I was going to say that's something that's really important to remind people.
dan friesen
She's there in an official capacity and still decided to take a very ill-advised swing at trying to pretend that spreading Sandy Hook conspiracies was actually an act of kindness.
jordan holmes
Listen, the editorial position of InfoWars and Free Speech Systems is that not only was Santa real in Miracle on 34th Street, he is real outside of Miracle on the 34th Street.
dan friesen
If I were Mark, I would have kept pressing on this line of thought to really determine if Daria thinks that her beliefs somehow affect world events.
Like if she believes that her thinking that the kids were alive has any bearing on whether or not they are actually alive or dead?
From these comments, I am not sure.
jordan holmes
I mean, you know, that's the weird thing that I'm getting right now.
I was so quick to believe her earlier whenever she said that she wouldn't do that stuff because I do believe that she does think that if you were that you would never engage with conspiracy theorists if you're if your kid dies because it won't matter either way.
Like that makes sense to me.
She's saying this with the same tone of like emotional honesty and this is batshit crazy.
dan friesen
Yes, there are a couple moments where you get that outside of the I don't know like answers about sources and I didn't do anything to prepare for this.
And like this, that moment, those two of the moments that are like, that are like really stand out.
And I think this one is particularly upsetting.
jordan holmes
It's very upsetting.
dan friesen
And I think the point that Mark brings up about like, oh, my clients should love this picture that it should give them hope.
Like the fact that she can't register or refuses to register that, that's obviously it makes her idea look absurd.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Because of course the parents are furious.
unidentified
Right, right, right.
jordan holmes
So here's the dumb thing you said.
I'm going to take it to a logical end point, and now you're going to see that it's dumb.
And she's like, well, I would rather die than see that it's dumb.
dan friesen
And actually, I find it much more comfortable to live in this dumb place.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
Yeah.
dan friesen
Congratulations.
jordan holmes
If you have a heart, how could you not believe that I am writing a unicorn home after we record this show?
If you have a heart.
dan friesen
There is also this focus of having a heart.
jordan holmes
Having a, I just have a heart, Dan.
dan friesen
It is weird.
jordan holmes
Sure, we've harassed and destroyed many people's lives, but that's because we have a heart, Dan.
dan friesen
Right.
It's for the good of hearts.
jordan holmes
All of you lawyers trying to get some sort of remuneration for these Sandy Hook families that we've badgered and horrifically fucked with for the past 10 years or whatever it is, those people.
dan friesen
You should call Infowars Cheerios because it's heart healthy, heart-friendly.
All right.
So, Daria, there's more questions that she can't answer about sourcing and stuff.
And so they end up taking a break.
And this is where I was like, oh, my God.
There's just a recognition that she is in trouble.
unidentified
Uh-huh.
mark bankston
You see, they're talking about an April 22nd, 2017 video called Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
You understand that that is the video that Mr. Posner and Mrs. De La Rosa based their defamation claim on?
Did you know that?
daria karpova
Okay.
mark bankston
Did you know that?
When preparing for this depot, did you know that?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
Did you watch that video?
I mean, unless you've watched it in the last couple hours, you haven't watched it, right?
For this deposition?
daria karpova
I'm familiar with the video.
mark bankston
Did you watch it in preparing for this deposition, though?
daria karpova
Yes, I believe so.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
When did you watch it?
daria karpova
Earlier today.
mark bankston
Earlier today, when?
daria karpova
During the break.
mark bankston
Oh, so during the break, when it became apparent that you hadn't watched these videos, you went and tried to watch this video.
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
You didn't watch the whole thing, though, did you?
daria karpova
No.
mark bankston
Because it's a 45-minute video, right?
daria karpova
It's a lengthy video.
mark bankston
Yeah, so you didn't watch this video.
Try to watch pieces of this video, correct?
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
How many pieces did you watch?
How many minutes total did you watch of this video?
daria karpova
Did not count.
dan friesen
Whew.
That's a tough thing to admit to as a corporate representative that, like, ah, I recognized a couple hours into this deposition that I was so underwater that I needed to go on break and do the preparation that I should have done beforehand.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
So we, so when I came into this, I was judging myself by Rob Dew standards.
dan friesen
And you're doing great.
jordan holmes
And I really thought that I could do no wrong because I brought in Wikipedia articles and that was W no Wrong.
Yes, exactly.
Sorry.
But now, after talking to you, I'm realizing that I really should have crammed for my homework.
dan friesen
Yeah.
I should have done something.
jordan holmes
Oh, man.
It would have been really nice.
I'm still better than Dew.
dan friesen
Yeah.
I watched a video during the break.
That, I think, won't play well.
jordan holmes
No, no, that's got a, Jesus Christ.
bad so this next you know a judge read that right Like, she knows that somewhere along the line, a judge is going to go, you tried to watch it when?
dan friesen
So this next clip has to do with an email exchange between Rob Dew and Dan Badondi.
So Dan Badondi had wanted to get clearance for some man on the street questions that he wanted to do a man on the street piece.
jordan holmes
Sure, sure, sure.
dan friesen
And Rob Dew responded, no, go to Newtown.
Cover Sandy Hook.
jordan holmes
Get the fuck out!
dan friesen
Right.
jordan holmes
Come on.
dan friesen
So here's how this goes.
mark bankston
Okay, so and then what we see basically here is just some proposed questions that he wants to ask random people on the street, right?
All right, and in the follow-up email from Rob Dew, he doesn't want Dan to do that, right?
daria karpova
Correct?
mark bankston
Right, it's going to be old by the time they can air it, correct?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay, so he says go to Sandy Hook, we will cover that, correct?
daria karpova
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
So it was an intentional choice by Mr. Dew to want to get Dan Badondi to go to Sandy Hook.
Correct?
daria karpova
Yes, because it was in the news and The nature of the beast, so to speak, in the news.
The 24-hour news cycle expires really fast.
mark bankston
How was Sandy Hook in the news on 7-7-2015?
unidentified
There we go.
mark bankston
What had happened?
jordan holmes
I was about to say.
daria karpova
I don't have the record of that right now.
mark bankston
Right.
So you don't know that it had anything to do with it.
daria karpova
Sandy Hook has been in the news despite the fact that Alex have not mentioned it in years, and it keeps being put in the news as if Alex is the one who is the purveyor of the Sandy Hook news, the Sandy Hook, and him talking about the parents, yet it's the mainstream media who keeps mentioning the parents and tormenting the parents and the entire situation.
mark bankston
When you say purveyor, when he's saying go to Sandy Hook, we will cover that.
InfoWars is being the purveyor through almost three years after Sandy Hook is being the purveyor of Sandy Hook coverage, correct?
unidentified
No.
mark bankston
What is that then?
Is he saying that we're going to cover it and not air it?
He intends to put whatever Dan Badanti does on the air, correct?
daria karpova
It depends if the report is good or not.
mark bankston
And then again, and answering this question, you speculated out of thin air that there was something going on around January 7th, 2015 that put this in the news.
That made it timely.
But that was pure speculation.
You have no idea what that might be, correct?
daria karpova
That's the nature of our news.
That's how we do news.
If there's something in the news, then we will cover it.
mark bankston
Yeah, y'all were going to make news.
unidentified
Do you understand that?
mark bankston
You're sending Dan Badandi there to Wolfgang Halbeck.
Do you know what they did there?
daria karpova
No.
dan friesen
That's not good that she doesn't know.
jordan holmes
I mean, if I were the corporate representative, I would definitely know that.
And I would have written some long explanation for why it's somehow okay.
dan friesen
Maybe some kind of rationalization at very least.
Because it's bad.
jordan holmes
It would need to.
Look, St. Thomas Aquinas would have been proud of whatever I had written to try and get out of that bullshit.
Because it takes a lot.
dan friesen
St. Thomas Aquinas is fun because actually Wolfgang Halbig was harassing people at a Catholic school.
jordan holmes
Ah, take that.
dan friesen
So it's actually appropriate.
jordan holmes
No, they were probably Cistercian monks.
dan friesen
So there's another email from Dan Badandi that leads to a little bit of drama in the room.
mark bankston
All right, what we have here is from TruthRadio 9990 at hotmail.com.
And this was something sent to Rob Dew at Infowars, right?
daria karpova
Right.
mark bankston
Okay, and so we have this email here from Dan Badondi stating, someone you may want to get in that documentary on Sandy Hook.
And it says forward, Dan, Alex announced that he is going to do a Sandy Hook doc film.
Sheila Matthews, who you met in Hartford at a Halbig hearing, is a friend of mine who lives in the next town.
And I'm going to guess that says over.
And we don't know what it says after that, but then it says, Sheila asked me to provide you with her telephone number.
It gets a telephone number, right?
daria karpova
Right.
mark bankston
Okay.
And then Rob sends it to you.
And this is April 24th, 2018.
daria karpova
Correct.
mark bankston
And he says, if Alex wants to go the Sandy Hook route, he may want to get this lady on.
unidentified
Oof.
mark bankston
Correct?
daria karpova
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
So this is just shortly after the company was sued.
Right?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
That's why he wants to make this documentary, right?
daria karpova
I'm not sure the exact reasons for Alex wanting to do a documentary.
mark bankston
What is the Sandy Hook route?
alex jones
What is that?
jordan holmes
You don't want to ask me.
I never heard of it.
What?
dan friesen
We have Dan Badondi suggesting a guest and writing an email where there's an awareness that Alex is wanting to or planning to make a documentary about Sandy Hook in 2018.
jordan holmes
Okay, so the Sandy Hook route.
All right.
Now, there's not a lot of beaches in Austin, but there are some.
And when you go to the beach, all right, there's sand everywhere.
And I don't know if you've heard about sand.
Sand is actually a bunch of crashed, you know, like it could be rock, it could be glass, it could be any number of things.
So there is sand, right?
And we were going to go fishing.
We were going fishing.
There is a sand.
We were going fishing.
There's a hook.
See?
Sandy hook route.
Completely different.
Completely different.
dan friesen
Alex was working on a sort of a scene, you know, like sort of a tableau, an art decorative piece where that sounds interesting.
Right, and it was Peter Pan versus Captain Hook.
Oh, all of the characters were Pecan Sandy's.
unidentified
Oh!
jordan holmes
That sounds like a delicious treat.
dan friesen
That is the route.
Yep.
So, no, her sort of response to this, generally speaking, is that, like, oh, no, it had nothing to do with the documentary.
It was just Rob was suggesting this person maybe Alex would want to have on the show as a guest.
Right.
I don't really understand how that helps that much.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
But she's just trying to evade answering or recognizing that there was at least some kind of an internally discussed plan that Alex wanted to make a documentary about Sandy Hook in 2018 and that Dan Badandi was sending sources.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that's not good.
dan friesen
The question about Dan Badanti sending sources, this is where things go off the rails.
mark bankston
If Rob Dew was sending to you a source from Dan Badandi, the truth warrior, we can be fairly certain that that guest was going to support the idea that Sandy Hook was fake, right?
That's a fair assumption.
brad reeves
Objection form.
Don't answer that question.
mark bankston
Why not?
brad reeves
Because that's extremely misleading.
unidentified
That's not a proper basis to object to that.
mark bankston
Go read the rule.
Madam Corporate, can you read my question back?
dan friesen
So it's pretty clear that the reason that this was a question that if you can pull off, you don't want your client to answer.
No, you do not want them.
jordan holmes
No, no, no, no, of course not.
dan friesen
It would be one thing for Dan Badanti just to be suggesting a guest, but for him to send in a guest on the subject of Sandy Hook, referencing a documentary Alex is thinking of making, and then for Rob to forward that on to Dariet, that indicates that there was internal action being taken on Badanti's suggestion.
It wasn't just something that they ignored, like they want to pretend they always do with Dan Badanti.
jordan holmes
You get 10,000 emails a day.
dan friesen
The implication is clearly that there was an interest in interviewing guests who would support that the Sandy Hook was a hoax narrative after Alex got sued in the case.
And that's why Brad, the lawyer, is saying, don't answer that question.
jordan holmes
Yeah, don't answer that question.
unidentified
If Rob Deere was sending to you a source from Dan Badandi, the truth warrior, would you be fairly certain that that guess was going to support the idea that Sandy Hook was fake, right?
That's a fair assumption.
mark bankston
Have her answer the question or I'll move for sanctions.
I will move to compel that answer.
That if you're having her not answer that question, it's very clear what you're trying to hide.
I wanted to answer the question.
brad reeves
I don't appreciate the threats when I'm.
mark bankston
It's not a threat, Brad.
brad reeves
It is a threat, and I don't really appreciate it.
You know what?
mark bankston
Look at where we are in this case.
brad reeves
Go ahead.
If you know the answer to the question, proceed with answering the question.
daria karpova
I get sent a lot of guests on a daily basis.
There's no way for me to know this specific guest would be pro-Sandy Hook conspiracy theory or the official version.
jordan holmes
No idea.
dan friesen
No, I don't think that's a reliable answer.
jordan holmes
You couldn't predict.
dan friesen
But I think that's fine.
It'll just look, you know, that just looks like obfuscation.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I'm a little confused as to what Brad's up to here.
I mean, maybe Brad's just like, I got to make it look like I'm working because if I was Brad, I'm just looking at hours, man.
dan friesen
I think he gets the implication of answering that question.
jordan holmes
Oh, totally.
dan friesen
And if you can pull off an objection there, you might want to.
jordan holmes
Totally, crucially.
However, again, you're going to be fired in like a month or two.
dan friesen
It's past his prelude.
Alex's lawyers are not long on the job.
jordan holmes
No, so just show up.
Why would you get into a fight with Mark?
Come on, man.
We both know what's going on here.
dan friesen
So this, it leads to an assessment of how Badandi, like what does he do?
What is he up to?
How is that guy?
mark bankston
You know what Dan Badanti believes about Sandy Hook, don't you?
You personally, Daria Caprova.
daria karpova
I do not.
mark bankston
You don't know?
daria karpova
I personally do not.
mark bankston
No, as an InfoWars producer here to testify as behalf of the company, you also didn't do anything to prepare to know what Dan Badanti did, right?
That's not part of the topics you were asked to talk about today.
daria karpova
I know Dan Badanti had questions and believed that there was a cover-up in the Sandy Hook case, which he did his hardest trying to investigate as a good reporter would.
mark bankston
You were testifying here right now.
Dan Bedanti is a good reporter.
unidentified
Is that what you're testifying to?
daria karpova
Insofar as him trying to investigate what happened and find the truth, that's what a good reporter is supposed to do.
unidentified
You seen any videos of Dan Bedanti in Connecticut, what he did?
mark bankston
You ever watched him?
daria karpova
Not recently.
mark bankston
You might not be the best person to qualify to talk about whether Dan Badanti was a good reporter in Newtown, are you?
brad reeves
Objection formed.
That's not what she said.
unidentified
That's what I'm asking her a question, Brad.
mark bankston
I'm asking you, you may not be the best qualified person to talk about what Dan Bedanti did in Newtown, correct?
unidentified
You, Daria Caprovo, Infowars employee.
daria karpova
My definition of a good reporter is somebody who seeks the truth and is going to great lengths in order to find it.
mark bankston
So you don't, but you can admit to me right now, you don't know what Dan Badani did in Newtown.
daria karpova
His specific actions, I don't know, but you just mentioned what...
mark bankston
Do you know about St. Rose of Lima Conflict School in Newtown?
unidentified
What Dan Bedoni and Wolfgang Hobby did there?
daria karpova
Not off the top of my head.
dan friesen
That's a Catholic school in question.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
So yeah, this, I mean, that's priceless almost.
Like, the corporate representative being unaware of what Dan Badanti did, but also saying that she was a- He's a great reporter.
jordan holmes
He's a great reporter.
He's one of the best.
dan friesen
Because you can just play he's a great reporter and then show the footage of him yelling at people in Newtown.
jordan holmes
I mean, I assume they think that's what a great reporter does.
dan friesen
I think so.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
The dogged persistence.
jordan holmes
Yeah, they are very, very shallow people.
dan friesen
So one of the questions in this case is regarding whether or not the Sandy Hook kind of materials were used strategically in terms of marketing or that kind of thing.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
And Daria says, absolutely not.
mark bankston
Has Infowars, when making its editorial discussions and decisions about the Sandy Hook coverage, has it ever attempted to use its Sandy Hook stories and videos in a strategic way to attract viewers?
daria karpova
No.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
The idea that we would make some video uploads about Sandy Hook as a strategic measure, that's not something that would be a would be a part of InfoWars editorial discussions.
daria karpova
Never.
mark bankston
Never.
Okay.
dan friesen
Never.
jordan holmes
All right, so I'm a quarterback in the pocket, right?
I'm starting to feel pressure.
Okay?
unidentified
You should.
jordan holmes
All of a sudden, I'm starting to see the defensive end running straight towards my face, because this question is not a calm and happy question that is going to end with your answer being accepted as okay.
dan friesen
It's a blitz.
You don't have a football, and it turns out all the rules have been lifted.
jordan holmes
Yeah, and it's 20 against one.
dan friesen
There is no offensive line.
jordan holmes
Nope.
It's just you getting your ass kicked.
mark bankston
I'm going to show you what I've marked as exhibit 15.
Can you tell me who at the top here?
Well, actually, let me start at the bottom.
At the bottom corner, you see there's a mark that says FSSTX-076069, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Now, can you tell me first, let's just look at the top of the email.
Who is Darren?
Darren McBreed.
His title in 2015, do you know?
daria karpova
Editor.
mark bankston
Okay, and Rob Dew, we've talked about, correct?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Louis S., we've talked about, right?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay, the next other person that's on here is Travis Knight.
You know who that person is?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay, and do you know what their job position is?
Editor.
Okay.
And then this email is being sent from Louis S. to Travis Knight, Rob Dew, and Darren.
And the subject is video files for Facebook upload on September 24th, 2015.
That's correct?
daria karpova
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
He asked them, can I get these video files for future strategic Facebook uploads?
unidentified
Correct?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
One of the files that he was asking for is why people think Sandy Hooks is a hoax.
jordan holmes
He didn't think they used the fucking word.
mark bankston
Yes.
Okay.
So we can tell from this email, and then Darren follows up and says, any luck finding these, correct?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
We can agree from this email that editor Darren and Louis S. were attempting to use a video about Sandy Hook being a hoax as a future strategic Facebook upload, correct?
daria karpova
It's one of the video, one of the videos out of eight videos that he's requesting.
mark bankston
Sure, so it is one of the videos being used for a future strategic Facebook upload, correct?
brad reeves
Objection form.
daria karpova
Yes.
dan friesen
But won't you consider that there are seven others?
jordan holmes
Oh, it wasn't just a sack, it was a strip sack, and the defense is running all the way for the score.
dan friesen
Well, I mean, like.
I think obviously you ask the question with the word strategic in it because you know that.
jordan holmes
Because you know the word strategic is going to be used.
dan friesen
Yeah.
It's not so much a magic trick as it is preparing.
jordan holmes
No, well, I just would never have expected them to really have used the word strategic.
dan friesen
I think that at a certain point there probably wasn't a concern about it.
jordan holmes
Yeah, no, they just didn't give a fuck.
unidentified
Amazing.
dan friesen
So Mark wants to talk a little bit about this idea of Wolfgang how big.
Because obviously he's a source for a lot of the stuff.
Sure.
And especially the way that Dari is presenting it, a lot of it's probably just how big stuff.
So the bio that she brought, it's time for it a little bit.
jordan holmes
Word for word.
mark bankston
Let's go on to talk about Wolfgang Halbig.
Would you mind opening up your blue folder for me?
unidentified
You see that article on top?
Yes.
mark bankston
That's something you brought today, and you were talking about how much you were talking about, like you wanted to read it today, right?
To talk about Wolfgang's qualifications?
daria karpova
Yes, his bio, specifically.
unidentified
Right, his bio.
daria karpova
Okay.
mark bankston
So this article that you've brought is what you believe you is.
Let me ask you this.
Is that something that InfoWars had before you went and looked for it for your deposition, or is that something that you got for your deposition to help you acquaint yourself?
daria karpova
The latter.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
So before this deposition, InfoWars did not have this document in its corporate files.
daria karpova
Correct.
So files that I looked through that I searched for Halbig's bio, I could not find anything, as well as seems like he's been memory hold on the internet as well.
So that's the only article that I could actually find in an archive.
unidentified
What?
jordan holmes
I'm sorry, what?
daria karpova
Actually, he listed his bio.
unidentified
Did you go try to search Wolfgang Halbig on Google?
Did you do that?
mark bankston
Yes.
Okay, and so when you say he's been memory-hold, I take it you're ignoring the dozens of mainstream articles about Wolfgang Halbig.
You don't want to use the mainstream article.
daria karpova
I'm talking specifically his bio and his credentials have been memory-hold.
mark bankston
Okay, there are mainstream articles that talk about Wolfgang's credentials or his alleged credentials, right?
Did you see any of those?
daria karpova
I've looked at many of them, and I did not see an actual biography of his accomplishments.
unidentified
Okay.
daria karpova
I was not seeing.
unidentified
So for this article, which is why I picked it up.
mark bankston
So you brought us instead this Exhibit 1F written by Dr. Eoin.
unidentified
Do you know who that is?
daria karpova
I do not.
I didn't bring it for the author.
I brought it for the bio that is including this article.
dan friesen
So now, if you're Daria sitting there, you have brought this.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And if the name Dr. Ewin, for example, is a pretty detailed small detail of this.
If that's being brought up, you probably should maybe recognize it's for a reason.
jordan holmes
Oh, no, I would be like, hold on, can I have that document real quick and then shred it?
dan friesen
Eat it.
jordan holmes
Yeah, absolutely.
Nah, you can't prove shit, man.
dan friesen
Yeah, because there's bad news about this.
mark bankston
Do you have any faith sitting here today that the information contained in that article is accurate?
daria karpova
Yes, because even the people who disagree with Wolfgang Halbig admit that he has a lengthy bio that's impressive.
mark bankston
Who said that?
daria karpova
I've read it in different articles when I was searching for his bio.
mark bankston
I thought you said his bio has been memory hold.
daria karpova
Well, exactly.
They failed to mention his bio, but they do acknowledge that he's got an extensive bio if that bio is covered accurately.
But I could not find the actual bio because the bio was not included.
mark bankston
Accurate means you think it's covered accurately there.
That's what you think?
daria karpova
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
And the person who wrote that, Dr. Eoin, do you know who that is?
daria karpova
No.
mark bankston
He doesn't have a last name, right?
daria karpova
I do not believe that's the person who wrote this article.
mark bankston
Go back and look at the first page.
daria karpova
No, no, no.
I understand that the article was posted by the said Dr. Ewen.
The bio that's been screenshotted here, it's not even typed, it's screenshotted from somewhere else.
mark bankston
From where?
unidentified
Oh, boy.
daria karpova
I do not have the source, the exact source where it was printed from.
mark bankston
You have no idea where the picture is.
daria karpova
But like I said, people who disagree with Halbig and who criticize him admit that his bio is impressive.
mark bankston
I'm still waiting to see that.
Do you have any information you can point me to that?
Anybody you say who's an opponent of Albig who admits that he has an impressive bio?
daria karpova
Yeah, I would have printed those documents if that's what I thought I needed for you, but to my satisfaction, I did the research, and to my satisfaction, this bio checks out.
mark bankston
Let's talk about what satisfies you, which is apparently a screenshot that you cannot identify where it came from, printed in an article by Dr. Eowen.
First of all, that's let me pull this question back.
jordan holmes
Do you know?
mark bankston
Did you know Dr. Eowen wrote chapter two of Jim Fetzer's book, Nobody Died at Sandy Hooks?
tom homan
There we go.
dan friesen
Ooh.
Uh-oh.
jordan holmes
Did you know that the doctor that you brought into here is only good for my case?
tom homan
Yeah.
dan friesen
Wrote a chapter of Jim Fetzer's book.
No one died.
unidentified
Do you want to be more closely associated with Jim Fetzer?
Let's get it.
dan friesen
You've created more trouble for yourself by bringing this bio.
jordan holmes
Bananas.
This is a bananas double decker of depositions.
dan friesen
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm going to skip a couple of clips here because they're long and they essentially achieve a very similar thing that you see in all of these, and that is this idea of like, if you'd known that Halbig was a bad source, would you have acted on it earlier?
Right, right.
And then, of course, Mark produces an email from March 2014 of somebody being like, this guy's credentials do not check out.
This is no good.
And then a Don Salazar responding to the guy.
jordan holmes
Oh, boy.
dan friesen
And so there's interaction with this person who's clearly bringing up long before they stopped having him on the show that he appears to be full of shit.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
And then they did nothing.
They took no action on it.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
Didn't double check his credentials or like whether he was a reliable source.
I mean, it looks bad, but it's something that we see kind of a bunch happen in these depositions.
jordan holmes
It feels like, and this is what is getting into my head.
It feels like neither Alex, nor, and let's face it, all of InfoWars does not understand that when they are in a deposition, the plaintiff is not asking them questions for fun?
For fun.
Yeah.
dan friesen
Like I said, with Alex, it's like he's not asking about your audience size for a puff piece.
jordan holmes
No, this is not because they know the answers.
That's the point of the deposition is for you to say some dumb bullshit.
And you're doing that.
dan friesen
Yes.
And oh my God.
jordan holmes
Oh my God.
dan friesen
So hold on to that idea.
jordan holmes
No, my favorite.
dan friesen
Because the emails from Wolfgang that were harassing the Sandy Hook families that Mark read to Alex in the Alex deposition come back up.
And we heard how Alex responded to them.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Now let's see how Daria does.
So this first one is about the dirty school email.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
So how could you let your daughter go?
jordan holmes
How could you let your daughter go to that school?
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
And here's Daria's take on it.
mark bankston
Okay.
So first of all, how does the company feel about this email?
brad reeves
Objection form.
mark bankston
What's your objection?
brad reeves
Vague.
How does the company feel?
Sure.
mark bankston
No problem.
That's good.
jordan holmes
Good work, Brad.
mark bankston
How does the company feel about this email?
daria karpova
Mr. Haubig is asking, seems to be concerned for the well-being of this child.
mark bankston
Thank you, Ms. Garcon.
Actually, I want to read this email into the record so we can talk about it.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
Mr. Halbig writes, Michelle, how could you and your husband, as responsible parents, even allow your precious child, Josephine, to attend that filthy and deplorable-looking school on December 14th, 2012?
dan friesen
So Mark's reading it afterwards because she was responding to having read it to herself.
She was like silently reading it.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And that was wild.
And listening to this all the way through, especially if you've heard Alex's deposition, you start to notice some really weird dynamics that only become clear if they're being asked about the same documents.
You know, it's really weird.
This document where Halbig is harassing this parent about how filthy the school was is read by Daria, and then she immediately responds that it sounds like a person who's concerned about the well-being of the child.
jordan holmes
It's just so great to know that someone cares.
dan friesen
Meanwhile, Alex reads it and is disgusted.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
There's a couple things that I could think of that might explain these different responses.
The first is that they may have prepared for the depositions differently, so Alex might have been slightly more prepared.
The second is a possibility that Alex has at least a modicum of emotional intelligence and can tell that he's supposed to not make excuses for an email like that, whereas Daria is just in like cover your ass and deflect mode.
As I was thinking about this, or as I call it, researching in my mind, I think I came up with another possibility.
This feels like maybe it's connected to Daria's bizarre comments about it being a function of optimism to promote the idea that the children from Sandy Hook were still alive.
jordan holmes
I jumped right to that immediately.
dan friesen
This is a fantasy reality where no one with a heart would want to believe that Wolfgang Halbig was an almost cartoon-level asshole who spent his free time harassing grieving parents.
Anyone with a heart would want to believe that he's just very concerned about the janitorial staff at the school.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Yet another option I considered is that it's really difficult as an emotional thing to confront, you know, to see the actions in the real world of a person who you were an active participant in promoting.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
When you see that he was harassing and stalking these parents and you know that your network and all your co-workers were whitewashing his reputation, raising money for him, and effectively enabling his behavior, that's got to be a bit of a gut punch.
And I can kind of see why you might want to pretend it's not real.
jordan holmes
Here's my take on it because I see where you're coming from.
And I'm going to be far less generous as is my want.
dan friesen
Yes, that is our roles.
jordan holmes
I see it more like in order to be the host, right?
In order to be on screen, in order to attract an audience, people have to be able to make an emotional connection.
Right.
They have to.
dan friesen
Sure.
jordan holmes
So whether or not you're a true psychopath or whatever it is you want to say, at the very least, you have to have the emotional ability to evoke emotion.
dan friesen
Well, I mean, you see that with Alex all the time, the fake and crying.
jordan holmes
Totally.
And I would say that for to work with Alex, it would require an abdication of general human sympathy and empathy entirely.
dan friesen
And that would kind of make sense why Daria's never been an on-air person.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
I mean, when I think about it, the more I think about people like, you know, listening to Daria's deposition, I think about fucking Tucker Carlson.
You know, like, Tucker Carlson can go on his show, and if he didn't have editorial people stopping him, he could easily, easily do all the same Alex shit.
He's just got a bigger network with people reining him in.
dan friesen
Lawyers.
tom homan
Yeah.
jordan holmes
And those people are fucking psychos.
It has to be.
Like, it's the only way that you can work with a fucker like Tucker Carlson and not kill yourself.
So I think Daria is just a stone-cold fucking psychopath.
dan friesen
You can say that, and I, I mean, like, obviously you're violating the Goldwater rule.
jordan holmes
Yes, I am.
dan friesen
I think that some of these answers and you know, this trend that you see of like kind of what if we pretend everything is good.
I think that it's it's a bizarre way to engage with the world.
And it does kind of at least speak to that difference, that dynamic of Alex knows what is expected of him to appear normal.
jordan holmes
In order to be, yeah.
dan friesen
And Daria doesn't care.
jordan holmes
She doesn't.
dan friesen
She doesn't need to.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
Because she's not somebody who's forward-facing.
jordan holmes
No, and she's not named in the lawsuit.
dan friesen
I guess she'll be out of job.
jordan holmes
She will be out of a job, but that was going to happen anyways.
dan friesen
Probably.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
So now we get her response to the email about the stalking, where Halbig showed up at these people's house and was talking about talking to their neighbors.
Right.
And I wonder what her response is.
mark bankston
That email doesn't creep you out.
You personally?
unidentified
Attraction form.
daria karpova
Creeped me out the way you were reading it.
tom homan
Yes.
unidentified
It doesn't creep you out to have Wolfgang Halbig showing up at these people's houses and describing their three-car garage and all that stuff.
mark bankston
Accusing them of being people they're not actually are.
unidentified
That doesn't have any, you know, I mean, strong feelings one way or another on that.
Traction form, correct Are you asking my personal opinion?
mark bankston
Yeah, your personal opinion.
daria karpova
Strikes me as a passion man who's doing an investigation, something he believes in his own heart and wants to get to the bottom of.
mark bankston
Thank you, Ms. Karkova.
dan friesen
That's a mic down.
That's a drop the mouth kind of moment.
jordan holmes
That's the type of psychopathic response that CEOs give to fucking Congress, where you're like, oh, you guys just are willing to watch humanity explode.
You don't give a fuck.
dan friesen
But that response from Mark, that thank you, Mr. Beautiful.
It's almost like you can tell it's a containing of elation.
Like, I can't believe you said something that's going to be so damaging.
tom homan
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
So again, Daria is steadfastly refusing to see these negative things in what Halbig did.
The other email was concerned about the cleanliness of the school.
And this one's a passionate investigator.
That's how they rationalize this.
I think that probably feels like good spin at the moment, but this is a huge mistake.
Because in a deposition setting, you need to be considering that your words are going to be played for a jury.
And you should account for them having basic human emotions.
Anyone in the jury who reads or hears that email is going to be disgusted by Halbig's actions because it's clearly a man stalking grieving families.
And when they see you making excuses for it or characterizing it as just a passionate investigator, that's going to look really bad for you.
Because it gives the strong impression that you're either lying to cover something up, or maybe you actually don't think that Halbig stalking these families was that bad a thing for him to have done.
So I have some suspicion that Alex is smart enough to realize that dynamic, which could help explain why he had the responses to those emails that's congruent with how you would want the jury to see you and how you know the jury is going to respond to them.
And I don't even necessarily know where that's a conscious decision, but it might just be like Alex gets that.
jordan holmes
I love the way that Mark set up these emails because you could have set it up in a different fashion and made some different points.
But I just love the fact that it's like a limbo bar for empathy that he keeps raising.
You know, like that first one, if you don't see that as monstrous, you know, wow, you just smacked the fucking limbo bar.
Mark then raises the limbo bar up a thousand feet of true monstrous behavior.
And she's like, I bet I can hit that bar.
dan friesen
And that limbo bar is really just asking, like, that's bad, right?
Yes!
jordan holmes
Hey, hey, you know, if somebody were lit on fire, that would be a bad thing, right?
Do you agree with that?
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
So there's a bunch of questions that come up about figuring out the size of the audience and trying to gauge metrics and traffic.
unidentified
Sure.
dan friesen
Basically, it all just boils down to Daria having, like, I didn't do anything to figure out.
unidentified
Nope.
jordan holmes
No.
Nope.
Okay.
mark bankston
Great.
jordan holmes
Great.
Good work.
dan friesen
Then we're hours into this deposition.
jordan holmes
Of course.
dan friesen
This question is damning.
mark bankston
You understand that the company produced documents from its own corporate files, right?
unidentified
Yes.
Okay.
mark bankston
And you understand that some of those document requests asked for documents about my clients, right?
daria karpova
Yes?
mark bankston
Do you know who my clients are?
Can you name them?
I have four clients.
Do you know who they're?
Yeah, it's on the notice.
I know.
I mean, from memory, you don't.
You've got to pull this up, right?
Yes.
Okay.
dan friesen
Ooh.
You're the corporate representative.
You don't know the names of the people suing you four and a half, five hours into this deposition.
jordan holmes
Do you know why we're here?
dan friesen
It's rank disrespect to not even take this seriously enough to know, like, even if you don't want to know their names as people, you maybe be aware of the names of the cases.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
You know?
jordan holmes
No, I mean, this is one of those things.
It's easy to laugh at how terrible they are in these depositions.
You know, it's very easy because they're garbage and they're just dumb on an astronomical scale.
But when you do hear that, it just reminds me all over again.
Like, that's why it's fine for them.
That's why they don't care is because they never cared.
That's why they will always go find another Sandy Hook because they don't care what the names are of the people who are going to bankrupt their fucking business.
They didn't even bother to know.
dan friesen
Well, because most of the time they won't end up bankrupting.
jordan holmes
But that's what I'm saying.
That's why it has to be.
It has to be a bankruptcy.
dan friesen
I see where you're coming from.
So we only have a couple more clips left.
And one of the things that was really mysterious in the Alex deposition is the questions about the giant background check of Leonard Posner.
So this comes up, see if we can get some more answers on that.
mark bankston
So, in terms of the document, the single document that was recently produced to me about Leonard Posner, you've never seen it.
daria karpova
And this is a single document?
No.
mark bankston
Okay.
You see where it says FSXTX-8085544?
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
mark bankston
You don't know what this is, do you?
If I wanted to ask you, what is this?
You couldn't tell me.
daria karpova
Just like the background information.
mark bankston
Right.
I mean, I can figure that out, right?
Like, we can look at the top at the table of contents right here, and it says for license investigator purposes only.
Do you see where it says that?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
And then you see where it says Leonard Posner comprehensive report.
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Do you see where it has all these entries about all this information about Leonard Posner?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
This is a lot of knowledge that the company has in its possession concerning Leonard Posner.
You'd agree with that?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And some of the information that the company has about Leonard Posner and its knowledge include his possible relatives, right?
Do you see that down near the bottom of the list?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
And possible likely associates and possible associates, right?
unidentified
Yes.
mark bankston
Okay.
And like, for instance, if we go to, do you see where it says page 66 for possible relatives?
Can you flip to page 66 in that document for me?
This is a bunch of people's personal information, isn't it?
daria karpova
Yes.
mark bankston
And you can't tell me why the company has this, can you?
daria karpova
I don't know.
dan friesen
No one has any idea.
I listen to these and I just wonder, like, who could answer that question?
jordan holmes
I know.
I mean, I genuinely believe them when they say they have no idea why they have it.
dan friesen
I would, I suspect that.
I mean, I don't have any reason to believe that they are lying about that.
Yeah, I mean, but it's who knows?
Like, who does know?
I'm not saying who knows.
I mean, who knows?
jordan holmes
I will tell you who knows.
dan friesen
Rob?
jordan holmes
You know who it is?
David Jones.
Oh, let's get him in.
dan friesen
Oh.
jordan holmes
Let's go get that guy.
The HR.
dan friesen
Not anymore, though.
unidentified
Oh, well.
dan friesen
That was actually a question that came up during Alex's deposition.
His dad is no longer HR.
And it turns out that it might not be that crazy that he was HR to begin with because he did some human resources for the dental company that he was a part of prior to this.
So there may be actually some.
jordan holmes
Sure, sure, sure.
dan friesen
So tip of the cap.
jordan holmes
Either way.
dan friesen
So this last clip is not where the actual deposition ends, but I would say it's where it kind of spiritually ends.
Okay.
And that is in an exchange where, so I got to give a little bit of a context, I guess, to this.
In the Connecticut cases, there's a guy named Corey Slenka, Sklanka, who's basically a partner of Wolfgang Halbig's, an associate in some of the nonsense that he was into.
And so part of the request for production of documents in these cases in Texas involved anything involving Corey Slenka.
Sure.
Sklenka.
That's hard.
jordan holmes
That is hard.
Sklenka?
dan friesen
Yeah.
So they obviously would know that there are documents involving him because he's a co-defendant in the case in Connecticut.
jordan holmes
They would know that.
dan friesen
Yes.
So Mark and these lawyers would know that there is something that would be respondent in that request for documents.
jordan holmes
Well, if they had done their research.
dan friesen
But of course, nothing came up.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And nothing was delivered.
And so this is where I think you can tell throughout this that there is a sense of growing frustration with dealing with this deposition.
And this is kind of where I feel like, well, this is, you know, what are we even doing?
mark bankston
You know who Corey Sklenka is, right?
unidentified
No.
mark bankston
Okay.
Corey Sklenka is an associate of Wolfgang Halbig, who was a co-defendant with Interwars in the Lafferty suit.
Does that refresh your memory on who Corey Sklenka is now?
unidentified
No, not really.
mark bankston
Okay.
You would admit being a co-defendant with Corey Sklenka in the Lafferty suit.
The company possesses documents about Corey Sklenka, correct?
brad reeves
Objection four.
Nothing to do with the Texas cases here.
mark bankston
It has to do with the documents produced in response to our discovery request and our discovery request for Corey Sklenka, which you would know if you ever answered them.
Okay.
dan friesen
Brett, Mark.
mark bankston
This is the most disrespectful deposition I've ever been in.
We've been in two depositions where you presented the same company's presented opponent who didn't know anything about what was being on these topics.
And now for you to come in and object to topics about I'm asking about documents produced to my discovery request and you tell me Corey Sklenka isn't responsible for this case.
Both of you all need to get up to speed on what this case is.
brad reeves
Excuse me.
First of all, I am objecting on the basis of you asking about the Connecticut litigation.
I'm not saying you have any, I'm not objecting to you asking any questions about your discovery requests.
Second of all, no one is trying to be disrespectful here.
She's doing her best job, and I don't care whether you think she isn't or not.
I don't really care what your personal opinions are on her or not.
If you have a problem with it, which I'm sure you obviously do, you're going to try to do something about it.
I know I'm going to, Brad.
And I want you to maintain for the record that everyone here has been working as hard as they can to actually get you answers that you want.
And I'm sorry that out of the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents that you're asking about specific ones that she doesn't have the exact answer to.
mark bankston
You haven't produced hundreds of thousands of pages.
brad reeves
Okay, man.
You know what?
mark bankston
I don't answer discovery, Brad.
So if you're going to sit here and lecture me.
brad reeves
I would like you to show me the ones you're saying have not been responded to.
mark bankston
What's that?
brad reeves
Which ones are you saying have not been responded to?
unidentified
You haven't responded to the Posner discovery in any shape or form.
brad reeves
Have I been compelled by a court order to actually respond to those documents?
Because I got defaulted, but I haven't actually seen a motion to compel.
unidentified
Right.
mark bankston
And I'm proving all that up right now.
brad reeves
I understand that.
But I'm unclear on if I'm defaulted on it, and I'm unclear of the obligation to actually supplement it.
But if you want to ask me to do that, then I'll do that.
mark bankston
I'm not asking that at all.
I'm asking her directly that they haven't produced me documents to my discovery request.
And I want them to admit that they refused to answer them.
And you've just kept interrupting me about it.
brad reeves
Okay, well, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to interrupt you.
I apologize.
That's not my intent.
And go ahead and answer the question to the extent you can, please.
tom homan
Right.
jordan holmes
Wow.
Yeah.
It was not hard to make that teenaged boy fall down.
dan friesen
That was really.
Oh, man.
I found that a bit tough because it is like obviously the boiling over of frustration of dealing with this nonsense.
jordan holmes
No, everyone there knows what's going on and they're furious.
dan friesen
And the response of Brad being like, yeah, everyone's doing the best they can.
jordan holmes
I'm sorry.
dan friesen
It's just kind of such a perfect button to end on these depositions.
It's like, no, everyone is not doing the best job.
jordan holmes
Brad, Brad, Brad.
Brad.
I mean, he's their lawyer.
You can't be a fucking lawyer for a goddamn corporate representative and come at me with what my mom would say if I got a C and my dad was pissed.
He's doing his best.
Shut the fuck up.
Yeah.
Unreal.
dan friesen
So I think we, I mean, we're almost, I mean, we're probably, I mean, including, we're probably over four hours now.
jordan holmes
Well, yeah, yeah, probably about that.
Unsurprising.
dan friesen
So I think one of the unfortunate things about this is that obviously there is, you know, the Alex deposition is like three hours long and the Daria one's like five hours long.
And, you know, there are things that we just obviously couldn't cover everything.
unidentified
Right, right.
dan friesen
And so there are little other tidbits that are that are, you know, of interest.
And obviously for someone like me, it's like everything is.
jordan holmes
There's catnip.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
There's a ton of stuff that I would sit you here for 12 hours and talk to you about.
No, you really would.
If I felt like it was an acceptable thing to do.
jordan holmes
If you felt like you could survive the encounter.
dan friesen
I don't think I could.
I think that your patients would wear thin right about four hours and two minutes.
That's about where.
jordan holmes
Is that where we are now?
dan friesen
Pretty close.
unidentified
I don't know.
dan friesen
So I found these really illuminating in many ways.
I think that obviously the Daria one as a corporate representative is it's not as funny as Dew, maybe.
And maybe that's because Dew's wearing the Kangle hat.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And he seemed scared.
jordan holmes
He, yeah, I mean, he was much more scared.
And he also had kind of an almost laissez-faire attitude about it, too, of like, hey, if I know something, I'll tell you.
But if I don't know something, I'm just going to say, I don't know, man.
dan friesen
His fear and confusion made it funny.
Whereas Daria's lack of preparation is clearly demonstrated in the deposition, it didn't have the same humor.
And the things that were interesting about it were upsetting.
jordan holmes
Terrifying.
dan friesen
that she said were deeply, deeply upsetting.
jordan holmes
No, no, no, no.
I mean yeah, that's wow.
It's, you know, that, okay, it's like that psychopath test thing, you know?
Sorry to bring up John twice, but it is like that story of, you know, like, oh, this psychopath goes to a funeral, meets somebody cool, and they're like, how do you meet him again?
And the psychopath thinks, oh, you kill somebody, that you only meet them at funerals.
That is exactly what I felt whenever Daria heard the email about Wolfgang fucking stalking people.
And she was like, oh, it's nice to know somebody cares about you.
He's committed.
You are terrified.
dan friesen
He's a committed reporter.
jordan holmes
You are terrified.
dan friesen
Passionate.
Yeah, these answers are incredibly bizarre.
And I think that certainly something that I wasn't as aware of before is the content of some of those emails that are just deeply upsetting.
jordan holmes
Fucked up.
dan friesen
And the relationship between the times that like when these emails are getting sent, when the harassment's being done, when there's pretty strong indications of negligence and just ignoring what they're doing and who they're promoting.
It just looks really bad.
jordan holmes
No, it does not look good.
dan friesen
Does not.
So I'm glad to be on the other side of this.
I'm glad that now we can, you know, it's out in the open.
jordan holmes
It is lovely.
dan friesen
It's a little bit of a weight off my shoulders.
jordan holmes
Yeah, you're not good with secrets.
dan friesen
No, certainly not.
But I am proud of not tipping the hand at all.
You should be.
I mean, we're almost two months now.
jordan holmes
I know.
No.
I'm proud of you for not tipping the hand, but more proud of you for doing it and all that stuff.
I'm not going to compliment you.
Mark already did that shit up top.
I'm just going to say good work.
dan friesen
Thanks, Barnes.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
So, hey, I guess that brings us to the end of this, but I think we may have another episode that's sort of deposition-ish next because of Alex going to the James.
jordan holmes
We'll see what happens.
dan friesen
So, we look forward to that.
But until then, we have a website.
jordan holmes
We do.
It's KnowledgeFight.com.
dan friesen
Yes, we are also on Twitter.
jordan holmes
We are on Twitter.
It's at Knowledge underscore FightNet.
Go to Bed, Jordan.
dan friesen
Yeah, we'll be back.
But until then, I'm Neo.
I'm Leo.
I'm DZX Clark.
I'm Daryl Rundis.
jordan holmes
And now, here comes the sex robots.
alex jones
Andy in Kansas, you're on the air.
Thanks for holding.
unidentified
Hello, Alex.
jordan holmes
I'm a first-time caller.
unidentified
I'm a huge fan.
jordan holmes
I love your work.
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