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Sept. 13, 2022 - Viva & Barnes

05:40:56

Alex Jones Connecticut Trial LIVE! Taco Tuesday with Viva & Barnes!

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	That this proceeding is anything other than transparent.
	And so we'd ask that those sidebars, unless there's some compelling reason identified by them, be live-streamed as they will be on the record.
	Thank you.
	I've never had a case where sidebars were made part of the public record.
	The purpose of the sidebars is no counsel.
	We'll catch up beforehand to address issues that may not be complicated and even misunderstood by the public at large.
	It would be of assistance to me in trying a difficult case to have sidebars not broadcast to the world at large.
	Otherwise, I'll have to posture on behalf of my client, and as your officer, I'd rather just cut to the chase.
	Alright, I think on further reflection that there's nothing said on the sidebars that can't be live streamed and I think that I agree with the plaintiffs on this issue so that we will live stream the sidebars.
	Most of the sidebar we just had was discussing the coffee set up for Mr. Ferraro's.
	I'm going to explain this as we go along.
	They are seeming to be covering preliminary motions in the Alex Jones trial, which is As it was in Texas, this is now in Connecticut with multiple plaintiffs, only on the damages because of the sanctions that have been imposed on Alex Jones, AL, free speech systems, etc.
	And he got some more sanctions this morning, which we'll get to in a second.
	Just want to make sure the audio is acceptable.
	Bad mic.
	Okay, thank you.
	USB, you're correct.
	So I got the good camera.
	Let's go to the good mic.
	Oh, yeah.
	There we go.
	So this is being live-streamed.
	There does not seem to be any publication ban on broadcast or rebroadcast of the Connecticut trial.
	Unlike Texas, I had a disagreement with Nate as to whether or not one could rebroadcast someone who was broadcasting the trial when there was a rebroadcast ban in effect by the judge.
	Order of the judge in Texas, not this time around.
	It looks like thus far today, the mic is the good mic now.
	Are you going to rumble again?
	I don't like it.
	Can't play in the background.
	I'm going to rumble in a bit.
	Audio's good.
	Good.
	Cover up the logo.
	Thanks for streaming.
	Let me see how I can do that.
	How can I do that?
	Let's see if we just go like this.
	No, I just covered it up entirely.
	Oh, how about...
	No.
	No, that's pretty good.
	Nobody cares if we see my ugly punim.
	Or don't, I should say.
	I'm not your buddy guy.
	Oh, hold on.
	Maybe if I do it like this.
	Hold on.
	Actually, let's just do this.
	Let's tinker with this.
	That might be too small.
	If I go like this, no, that's no good.
	If I go like this.
	Barnes is coming in at some point, I think.
	If I were to do this, and then if I bring up a chat...
	All right, so I'll just leave chats up the entire time.
	I'm not your buddy guy says...
	I fear the left globally have embraced fascism, knowingly or not, and are doing a mental dress rehearsal for what they are about to do.
	I think you said something along those lines yesterday during the stream.
	We're now waking up to confirmation that 30-some-odd-plus subpoenas issued to 30-some-odd-plus of Trump's closest allies, including counsel Giuliani, Jenna Ellis.
	Talking about fascism, talking about people not appreciating what they're embracing, foregoing the most fundamental privilege, constitutional rights, the right to an attorney.
	You have the right to an attorney, but if the Department of Justice says those communications are no longer privileged, the damage that is currently being done is immeasurable.
	So let's get back.
	We're going to have time to pause, I guess, or fast forward when the trial goes.
	On pause or something.
	This morning, from what I've seen, I was a little late.
	Preliminary motions.
	There was a motion to sanction for the same reasons that we saw in Texas.
	This Google Analytics document that apparently, apparently, the judge said Jones and the other defendants were cavalier in disregarding their discovery obligations.
	They didn't communicate this Google Analytics spreadsheet, aggregate data, whatever.
	When they were required to do so, which showed or would have showed that they did not make profit off their coverage of Sandy Hook, apparently defaults to do it, default to communicate it.
	From some of the representations of Jones's attorney, it looks like they might have known about this Google Analytics document or Google Analytics, whatever it is.
	Just so everybody knows, I'm totally ignorant as to what Google Analytics are.
	I've never in the life of my channel looked at Google Analytics.
	Once upon a time, I was looking at Facebook analytics when I was running ads for my political campaign.
	I don't know what it is.
	I don't know what it looks like.
	I don't know what it tells you.
	I don't know how you access it.
	And I don't know how you access it or if you can after you've been banned from a platform.
	So I don't know.
	But it sounds like Jones had access to this document recently, relatively recently, was required to disclose it or whatever, didn't.
	And now, according to the sanctions from this morning, is precluded.
	He's precluded from arguing that he did not profit from his coverage.
	And I say he is in all the defendants of the Sandy Hook events.
	We're just going to continue playing and pause periodically.
	And the Oreo cookies.
	Tell me if that's too loud, people, in the chat.
	Thank you.
	Just give me one moment and I'll go through the language on the charge.
	Let's see what here they're going.
	A charge sounds like contempt.
	I don't want to read.
	I have around a page and a half, so I think I'm just going to pull out parts that may be of interest.
	So I'm going to instruct a jury that a civil trial such as this generally has two issues, liability and damages.
	In this case, however, you are only considering the issue of damages.
	Why is that?
	Because the court has made that determination for reasons that you need not concern yourself with and you should not speculate about.
	Therefore, liability is established and you are not to consider liability instead.
	You are tasked with considering damages, fair, just, and reasonable compensation for the plaintiff's injuries and losses.
	Then I have a couple paragraphs that you don't really need to hear.
	Which are the agreed upon paragraphs that you gave me.
	I presume these are the instructions to the jury as to what they're doing there.
	And then the paragraph I think that matters to you is Alex Jones and free speech systems are therefore responsible for two kinds of damages under Connecticut law.
	The first are called punitive damages and these are determined by the degree of wrongfulness of the defendant's conduct.
	The court will determine the amount of punitive damages.
	The second are called compensatory damages, and these are intended to compensate the plaintiffs for their damages.
	I will give you further instructions on damages at the end of the case after the closing arguments.
	The parties categorically disagree on the amount of damages due.
	The plaintiff's position is that the damages due are substantial.
	The defendant's position is that only minimal damages are due.
	Your Honor, what are the chances they don't know about the 45 million out of Texas?
	The key issue about the court will determine the amount of punitive damages.
	There's two kinds of punitive damages.
	Yes, I realized that after I read it, so I'm very grateful that we just went through this process.
	So why don't you have a discussion with Attorney Pattis and give me some correcting language, or I can just delete that sentence.
	If I can delete the sentence, the court will determine the amount of punitive damages.
	I just read that.
	I have a lot of...
	Scribble, scrabble here.
	Yeah, I think if the court deleted that sentence and then...
	I don't think I even need to add anything else if I just delete that sentence.
	Right.
	So I think with that delusion, we're okay.
	With that delusion, that's...
	All right.
	So just timing-wise, I know that you'd all like to take a five-minute...
	Did you have something else, Attorney Sterling?
	Yeah.
	I'm sorry, Your Honor.
	Did you have something else or no?
	No, Your Honor.
	I was whispering and I forgot to sit down.
	That's all right.
	Just time-wise, how do you want to proceed?
	So I would say my comments are probably maybe five minutes, maybe ten minutes, if that.
	So that would bring us...
	I mean, I suppose we could take the...
	I don't really want to take the morning recess now, but that'll take us until around...
	11. Hurry up and wait is what court is about.
	We usually take the afternoon recess at 11.30, right?
	So how do you want to proceed with your openings?
	I hate to sort of interrupt them, but I'm just trying to figure out when we should take the morning recess.
	I don't want to break up your flow.
	I think certainly, yeah, I would not want the court to break up my opening.
	No, no, I don't mean break up.
	So I defer to Attorney Pettis as to whether or not he...
	Want to take a break or continue on?
	Attorney Pattis is Jones' attorney.
	Let's take a break now and then get the closing arguments done as a block and then come back for evidence.
	Opening.
	Yeah, sorry.
	We're not closing yet.
	I got hit.
	And it wasn't the morning, the afternoon recess.
	All right, so why don't we take a brief recess.
	We'll bring down the panel.
	And we will be back shortly.
	Alright, well, let's see here.
	They're going to live stream the sidebars.
	How is that going to work?
	I thought the whole issue about a sidebar, let me just see where we are if we go back to live.
	They're in recess, so we're going to take this out of the stream.
	I thought the whole issue about a sidebar was so that the jury doesn't hear what they're discussing.
	So as not to influence the jury on a disputed issue, not so that you can livestream the sidebar and hope the jury doesn't hear it?
	Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
	Viva Fry, so what was the reason for the default?
	Why does Alex get denied trial on the merits?
	The explanation is that, the official explanation, this is not my...
	Agreement or disagreement is that Alex Jones allegedly repeatedly defaulted on disclosure obligations, failed to communicate documents he was required to communicate, failed to comply with discovery obligations in terms of saying that he looked for text messages about Sandy Hook and didn't find any, and then allegedly there were text messages that he ought to have turned over.
	Basically, simply put, Alex Jones failed to comply repeatedly, and as this judge said, in a manner that was cavalier, failed to abide by respect obligations under discovery,
	and therefore was precluded from defending and had the ultimate sanction of ultimate sanctions, a default verdict rendered against him.
	I mean, that's This is where we'll have disagreements with people who say, oh, you know, just comply with discovery obligations and you don't have the problem.
	And you'll have, you know, Robert Barnes makes the argument that few people, maybe there's more, it's hyperbolic, but Alex Jones sat down for repeated discoveries, communicated millions of documents, emails opened, unopened, turned over servers, turned over inboxes, junk mail with emails that hadn't been opened.
	Turned over arguably everything, but some people say, well, you can turn over 9,999 documents, but not turn over the one, and it'll ruin everything.
	It'll destroy the file.
	It'll make it impossible for the plaintiffs to pursue their case effectively.
	The reality, and I'm speaking from a Quebec law perspective, but the standards are similar, is that you can get foreclosed from pleading, which is the ultimate sanction.
	It's to say you cannot defend anymore.
	And even then, however, even when you're foreclosed from pleading, you cannot defend.
	The plaintiff typically still has to prove their case.
	It's like, it's not even an analogy.
	This is a comparison.
	You have a contractual dispute.
	And the defense would have been, I never signed that contract.
	That signature is a forgery.
	Okay.
	You behave so badly.
	You shred the documents, you burn computers, you smash cell phones with hammers, use bleach bit to wipe things.
	You behave so badly, you make it impossible for the plaintiff to effectively pursue their case by destruction of evidence.
	You get foreclosed from pleading.
	Bad boy, not even a slap on the wrist, the ultimate sanction, you cannot defend.
	It doesn't mean as though, you know, like victory by default.
	Nonetheless, the plaintiff typically...
	Still has to come to court.
	Still has to prove to a judge, here's the contract.
	Here's the plaintiff's signature.
	Here's the defendant's signature.
	And they still have to submit the evidence that a judge or a jury then says, okay, you've proven your case even in the absence of a defense.
	Default as though the defendant was not there.
	Defendant says, I'm not even coming to trial.
	Go do your evidence without me.
	Piss off.
	Make your evidence.
	If you can make your evidence, I'm not even going to contest it.
	But you still have to make your evidence.
	You still have to prove the case.
	In theory.
	Typically.
	I mean, unless I, you know, what happened here is they got a verdict by default without even having to, you know, prove the elements.
	The judge says, okay, well, Alex Jones behaved so badly, you win.
	You don't even have to prove it.
	Default verdict.
	You don't even have to come to court and prove that the statements were made about you, that you were identifiable, that they were made within, you know, the requisite timeframe.
	No, don't even have that.
	It's just...
	Verdict by default.
	And that's what happened to Alex.
	It happened in Connecticut.
	And then what ended up happening, from my understanding, is he got a similar verdict by default in Texas because the Texas judge was relying on the alleged cavalier egregious default in other jurisdictions to support the verdict by default in her jurisdiction, that being Texas.
	So that's it.
	That's what's going on now.
	So we had the...
	Trial on damages alone because of the verdict by default or the default verdict in Texas.
	And we have a similar thing in Connecticut.
	Texas had two plaintiffs.
	Texas had two plaintiffs.
	And Connecticut has more than two plaintiffs.
	The breath smells.
	Verdict by default.
	And then, but it's not even, it was a verdict by default, which is, it's beyond the ultimate sanction.
	And then they...
	Proceed to a trial on quantum only.
	With instructions to the jury, he's already been found guilty on the merits.
	We are not here to contemplate his guilt.
	His guilt is proven by default verdict.
	His guilt has been proven.
	Now it's just a question of how much does he have to pay?
	And his defenses, even on the trial, on the quantum alone, were ridiculously limited.
	I don't know if anybody was watching the Texas case.
	Ridiculously limited in that he could not raise the fact that he apologized.
	He could not raise the fact that he issued corrections, that he didn't intend to cause emotional distress.
	He was limited from presenting evidence of mitigating factors in the trial on the quantum alone.
	So, I mean, I don't know who can think that this is how the judicial system is supposed to work.
	I was involved in a case.
	Okay, get down here.
	Annoying me.
	I was involved.
	Remind me to tell you about Pudge waking me up now at exceedingly early hours for food.
	I'll get there in a second.
	I was involved in a case.
	It's all public, but I'm still going to be very vague on the details.
	It's all public.
	It was an American who had a massive verdict by default rendered against them in the States, like in the orders of hundreds of millions of dollars by default.
	Similar sanctions to Alex Jones, precluded from even defending because of how egregious, allegedly, the court conduct was.
	They got a judgment by default in the States, took it to Canada, homologated it in Canada, which is had it recognized by the court, to seize assets in Canada.
	And Canada said, look, we don't issue judgments by default of this magnitude, of this quantum.
	As a rule, this would be violating our fundamental rules of justice to have a $100 million default verdict in the States brought over to Canada, homologated as though we would have ever issued such an order and as though we would have ever possibly issued it in such a quantum.
	And it led to a whole bunch of things, but that was the first time in my entire life.
	I'd ever seen a default verdict.
	And the conduct, I mean, I'm not going to get into whether or not the conduct was bad or good, whether or not it was foreclosed from pleading.
	I mean, there is no greater sanction.
	It's the death penalty of law.
	What do you have to do to get the death penalty?
	It's got to be pretty bad, and it's got to be pretty clear, and it's got to be pretty unequivocal.
	I was involved in cases where you actually had witnesses or parties destroying evidence.
	Refusing to...
	Okay, fine.
	You get a sanction.
	You get contempt.
	Civil contempt.
	Court seems to be back in.
	Okay, we're back in session here.
	Let's add it.
	Thank you.
	Let me just bring in...
	...are not entitled to punitive damages as a matter of law, that nothing in the default grants that, that's a legal question, and whatever material facts are deemed admitted as a result of the default, they don't reach to the question of punitive damages.
	That's at best a mixed question of law and facts, perhaps a question of law.
	You're going to move for a direction verdict on that issue as well, correct?
	I guarantee the judge is not going to...
	I just wanted to preserve that.
	Certainly.
	And Your Honor, just on that, The issue that we raised aside are all of the exhibits that I listed earlier today, which have been agreed upon.
	I can't recall if the court formally admitted them as full, but if you could just put that in order.
	Thank you.
	Anything else before we bring the panel out?
	All right.
	So the game plan is I'll do my introduction and we're going to go through both your openings and then take the morning recess, correct?
	The lunch recess, I presume.
	Maybe.
	That's fine.
	If something changes Attorney Pattis and you need a break after Attorney Madden opens, you just let me know.
	So, Madden is Jones.
	Pattis is...
	No, sorry.
	Mattis is plaintiffs.
	Pattis is Jones.
	How is the audio balance between me and the court?
	Let me know in the chat.
	We'll be following the chat in Rumble as well.
	This is crazy.
	Somebody's writing to me.
	I hope they know that we can hear them.
	I'm watching the chat in Rumble as well.
	We got a $5.
	Rumble rant says, once again, I'm not seeing Neria Taco in sight.
	Self-loathing lib.
	Second Amendment or Die says, Keith Hutchins is using.
	Chanting, lock Viva up.
	Don't worry about it.
	You can ignore.
	Volume is good.
	Good.
	Morning all sounds fine.
	Okay.
	So there's going to be one more.
	It looks like preliminary motion on whether or not the plaintiffs are entitled to punitive damages as a matter of law.
	And then opening statements, I guess.
	And I'll see how long we keep this live on YouTube for.
	I'm reading the chat.
	Seems to be a dog here.
	Let's see if we can hear something good.
	Okay.
	It is interesting.
	You don't know what the judges are like when the cameras are not live streaming a trial, but they definitely seem to have a demeanor when they know that this is being live streamed for the world to consume in real time.
	time.
	So Alex Jones is already guilty in this trial too.
	Yep.
	This was the precursor to the default judgment in Texas.
	I'm fairly certain the Texas judge relied on the default in other court filings, in other court cases, to come to her finding of default as well.
	Good morning, Jamie Lee McFadden.
	Normal-minded people like Viva.
	Normal-minded people like Viva.
	Or normal-minded people like Viva.
	Or normal-minded people like Viva.
	I'm joking.
	Okay, so what's going on?
	Good morning.
	So now they're bringing up the jury.
	Good morning, welcome.
	They are.
	Good morning.
	Good morning, ma 'am.
	Good morning.
	So morning, I think.
	Welcome.
	That joke never gets old.
	Good morning.
	Declaring bankruptcy and starting a new business Will not-Mr. Farah will do the roll call.
	not resolve anything we are in our six regular jurors and our four okay so it's a jury trial and it's six i guess in connecticut first for the regular jerks when your name is heard please enter here rise and remain standing Okay, did the audio just go from one side to the other or am I having an aneurysm?
	Okay, now they're muting out the audio so that we don't hear the names of the jury.
	That makes sense.
	Alex needs to declare bankruptcy and start a new business.
	Let me tell you something.
	I know I don't look like a standard lawyer, but I also did a lot of bankruptcy, and I had one file that went on for years.
	Declaring bankruptcy is not a solution to certain problems.
	It's actually just another can of worms that you're opening.
	When a corporation, an entity, an individual declares bankruptcy, it exposes them up to...
	Basically a forensic audit as to whether or not they made any preferential payments, whether or not they took excessive salaries to the detriment of creditors.
	It allows for a full bending over and a full body cavity search of the corporation.
	Tina Brevard, welcome to the channel.
	Same thing.
	Newbie at Viva is an awesome stream.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, they can go into preferential payments.
	They can, you know, go after the individual to say that they were conducting business knowing that they were insolvent.
	It's a can of worms.
	That we will decide this case between the plaintiffs and defendant, based on the evidence given in court and on the laws of the state that's explained by the judge.
	That we will not talk to each other about this case if we call instructed to do so.
	That we will listen to and consider what the other jurors have to say in deliberations about this case.
	That you will not speak to anyone else or allow anyone else to speak to you about this case.
	And that when you reach a decision, you will not disclose the decision until it's announced in court.
	Well, until the decision.
	The decision is only how much now.
	It's not even if.
	It's how much.
	Ladies and gentlemen, as you may recall, I'm Judge Bellis.
	We are starting trial in the civil case of Lafferty v.
	Jones.
	And I ask for your indulgence.
	As I have to read to you some opening remarks, please listen carefully as I read these very important preliminary instructions to you.
	As I said, we're about to start the trial with a civil case, Lafferty v.
	Jones.
	The party who brings a lawsuit is called the plaintiff.
	Here, the plaintiffs are Robert Parker, Erica Lafferty, David Wheeler, So how many is that?
	The party against whom the suit is brought is called the defendant.
	Here the defendants are Alex Emerith Jones and Free Speech Systems LLC.
	Now, you just took an oath that will govern your conduct as jurors between the time you take that oath and the time that you are discharged by May after you have rendered a verdict in this case.
	That oath and the rules of court obligate you to do certain things and to avoid other things.
	These are called the rules of juror conduct.
	You were given a copy when you were selected as a juror.
	Important.
	First, you must decide this case based only on the evidence presented here important.
	It's only on quantum.
	Do not make up your minds about what your verdict will be until after you have heard all the evidence, the closing arguments of the attorneys, and my instructions on the law.
	And after that, you and your fellow jurors have discussed the evidence.
	Keep an open mind until that time.
	Keep an open mind.
	Guilty.
	There are some rules that flow from these obligations, and I'll go over them now.
	You may not perform any investigations or research or experiments of any kind on your own, either individually or as a group.
	Do not consult any dictionaries for the meaning of words or encyclopedias or Google for general knowledge on the subject of this trial.
	Do not look up anything on the internet concerning information about the case.
	I'd love to know the jury questionnaire.
	Let's see if I can find that.
	Do not get copies of any statutes that may be referred to in court.
	I will not make fun of her accent, but it's kind of Connecticut.
	Why?
	Because the parties have a right to have the case decided only on evidence they know about and that has been introduced here in court.
	If you do some research or investigation or experiment that we don't know about, then your verdict may be influenced by information that has not been tested by the oath to tell the truth and by cross-examination.
	The same thing is true in any media reports you may come across about the case or about anyone connected with the case.
	If you do come across any reports in the newspaper or on magazine or on TV or on internet or on a blog, you may not read or watch them because they may refer to information not introduced here in court or they may contain inaccurate information.
	You may not discuss this case with anyone else.
	Including anyone involved with this case until the trial is over and you've been discharged as jurors.
	Anyone else includes members of your family, your friends, your co-workers.
	If you wish, you may tell them that you are serving as a juror, that you may not tell them anything else until I have discharged you.
	You may not talk to any of the court personnel, such as marshals and clerks, about the case.
	The feedback is not mine.
	The feedback is in court.
	Because they haven't heard the evidence you have heard.
	And in discussing the case with them, you may be influenced in your verdict by their opinions, and that would not be fair to the parties, and it may result in a verdict that is not based on evidence and on the law.
	You may not communicate to anyone any information about this case.
	That includes any means such as text messages, email, internet chat runs, blogs, social media websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok.
	Long Island?
	The parties are entitled to a fair trial rendered by an impartial jury.
	This all seems somewhat academic since he's already been found guilty by a verdict.
	When you have rendered a verdict and have been dismissed by the court, you will be free to discuss the case with anyone you wish.
	Though remember, you are not required to.
	Until then, you must be focused solely on the evidence presented in the courtroom and your obligations to the fairness of the proceeding.
	In addition, you may not talk to each other about the case until I tell you you can do so.
	And that will not be until you've heard all the evidence.
	You've heard the closing arguments of the attorneys and you've heard my instructions I don't know if it's my bias.
	I find this patronizing.
	The problem with that is when people start discussing things, they take positions on them and express opinions, which are often hard for them to change later on.
	So if you were permitted to discuss the case while it's going on, you might reach conclusions or express opinions before you've heard all the evidence or heard the final arguments of counsel or heard the law that you must apply.
	Your verdict in the case might then be improperly influenced.
	by the conclusions or opinions you or your fellow jurors have reached before you know about all the evidence of the law that will help you put that evidence in the proper context for your verdict.
	What happens if these rules are violated by a juror?
	Oh, tell us.
	In some cases, violations of the rules of juror conduct have resulted in hearings after trial at which the jurors have had to testify about the conduct.
	In some cases, the verdict of the jury has been set aside And a new trial ordered because of jury misconduct.
	So it is very important that you were violated by these schools.
	Important.
	That's the very interesting word.
	If someone should attempt to talk to you, please report it to the clerk immediately.
	If you see or hear anything of a prejudicial nature or that you think might compromise the proper conduct as a trial, please report it to the clerk immediately.
	These communications with the clerk must be in writing.
	And do not discuss any such matters with your fellow jurors.
	For those of you who are presently serving as alternate jurors, all these instructions apply equally to you.
	As in the event that one of our regular jurors becomes sick or otherwise incapable of serving, under our law, the regular juror will be replaced by an alternate juror.
	Those of you who serve as alternates play a crucial role and may be called upon to replace a regular juror at any time.
	Thus far, you've missed nothing.
	Preliminary motion.
	Sanctions.
	And what comes next.
	Here, listen to this.
	Opening statements are not proof or evidence.
	They are merely statements of the claims of the parties so that you will be aware as you hear the evidence of what equal claims each party is trying to establish through the evidence.
	After the opening statements, the plaintiffs will present their evidence by On what?
	for the defendants may cross-examine each witness.
	Unless they're not allowed cross-examining on certain issues.
	After the defendants have presented all of their witnesses, the defendants will have an opportunity to present witnesses if they choose to do so.
	Any witnesses presented by the defendants may then be cross-examined by the plaintiff's lawyer.
	Thank you.
	Once all of the witnesses and evidence have been presented, I can't stand court.
	are that apply to the claims that have been made and the evidence that has been presented.
	That instruction is known as the charge to the jury.
	Your function as jurors is to determine what the facts are and to apply the rules of law that I give you to those facts.
	You are the sole and exclusive judges of the facts.
	The facts that I allow you to see.
	You must make your own evaluation of the testimony given by each witness and determine the way you choose to give to the testimony.
	You must use all your experiences, knowledge of human nature, and knowledge of the motives which influence and control human nature to test the evidence in the case and to render your verdict accordingly.
	Now, a civil trial such as this generally has two issues, liability and damages.
	In this case, however, you are only considering the issue of damages.
	Why is that?
	Because the court has made that determination for reasons that you need not concern yourself with and that you should not speculate about.
	The judge said guilty?
	Bypass the jury.
	Instead, you are tasked with considering damages.
	Alex Jones is the principal of a for-profit corporation known as Free Speech Systems.
	After the Sandy Hook shooting happened, Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems stated that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax.
	That no one died at Sandy Hook, and that the families of the victims were actors.
	Mr. Jones used multiple channels to distribute these statements to his audience, including the Infowars family of websites, Mr. Jones' nationally aired radio broadcasts, and social media.
	You will hear more about the defendant's business practices during the evidence in this case.
	Now, as I've mentioned, this is a hearing in damages.
	It's a hearing in damages, but she just gave a summary of her evidence.
	Immoral and unscrupulous business practices resulting in damage to the plaintiffs.
	Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems are therefore responsible for two kinds of damages under Connecticut law.
	The first are called punitive damages and these are determined by the degree of wrongfulness of the defendant's conduct.
	The second are called compensatory damages and these are intended to compensate the plaintiffs for their damages.
	I will give you further instructions on the law of damages at the end of the case after the closing arguments.
	The parties categorically disagree on the amount of damages due.
	The plaintiff's position is that the damages due are substantial.
	The defendant's position is that only minimal damages are due.
	Based on the evidence you will hear and the instructions I will give you.
	Let's hear what she has to say about whether or not they agree on the guilt.
	Are they allowed to say they disagree on the guilt?
	It bears repeating.
	You must wait until you have heard all of the evidence and have heard my charge to you on the law that applies before you make up your minds about any issue in the case.
	The evidence upon which you will base your decision will come to you from the witness box or in the form of photographs, documents, or other exhibits introduced during the trial.
	And again, and I'm repeating this, you may not begin to discuss the case even with each other until after you've heard the charge on the law, because your duty is to wait until you've heard all of the evidence and the applicable law before making up your minds and discussing the claims and issues.
	There are no claims and issues.
	He's guilty.
	Now during the trial, the parties may or may not be present in the courtroom during each day of trial.
	Absence from the courtroom is permitted unless a party is under subpoena to testify on a particular day.
	In general, I instruct you to draw no inferences for or against any party based on the presence or absence of that party.
	If a witness is absent on a day when they are under subpoena to testify, I will instruct you further.
	You may also notice that on some days, some counsel may not be present.
	I instruct you to draw no inferences for or against any party based on the presence or absence of some of their counsel on any given day.
	As in most trials, only the lawyers, and at times the judge, asks questions of the witnesses.
	And the jurors do not have any opportunities to ask questions.
	However, you may, if you wish, take notes during the course of the trial.
	We will distribute notepads after the opening statements.
	When you receive them, you will write your name on the notepad if you are interested in taking notes, and they'll be collected during each break.
	Notice the facts that she gave the jury.
	Some jurors find that taking notes is helpful in keeping track of the proceedings, and some do not.
	You should remember that your main job as jurors is to listen to and observe the witnesses.
	If taking notes would distract you from that job, then don't take notes.
	There is no need to try to take down a testimony word for word.
	If during your deliberations at the end of the case, you'll need to hear what a witness said, we have an official tape recording that record that will give you an accurate record of all that testimony.
	You should not allow note-taking to interfere with your attention to the testimony or your task of sizing up the witnesses as they testify, but you may take notes if...
	Thank you very much.
	Thank you very much.
	Your notebooks will be collected at the end of each break and kept secured by the clerk.
	No one will look at your notebooks.
	I take notes because I may be asked to rule on issues during the course of the evidence.
	Your decision whether to take notes at any point should not be influenced by my note-taking.
	You should not disclose your notes to anyone else during the trial.
	It will be up to you to determine whether to disclose them to your fellow jurors During your deliberations at the end of the trial.
	I just want to briefly go over the schedule again.
	As you will recall, on the day you were called in for jury duty, you were required to be at the courthouse 8 or 8.30.
	During the trial, generally speaking, you will be required to be here Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
	We always have our lunch recess between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.
	And we generally have a 15-minute morning break and mid-morning and mid-afternoon break.
	If there's any change in that schedule, I will let you know.
	And as we told you during our year, we expect that the case will last approximately five weeks through mid-October.
	Now, with respect to the breaks, if at any time...
	Even this morning, anyone needs a bathroom break, just simply raise your hand.
	They would be kicked off as a jury member and replaced with an alternate.
	That means that we need to get back and break, and we'll always be happy to take a quick five-minute back and break.
	During the course of the trial, you cannot have any communications with me except in open court on the record.
	So if there's some issue, such as a sudden issue, occurs while the trial is in progress, you should write a note, give it to Mr. Ferraro, and then he will give it to me and I will respond on the record if need be.
	If some emergency occurs...
	When the court is not in session, you should call Mr. Ferraro, whose phone number was on that sheet of paper that you were given when you were selected, and indicate what the problem is.
	Obviously, since you've been selected as a juror, it is your duty to be here every day that the case is on trial, on time, and you can imagine the inconvenience to everyone else if a juror fails to be here punctually.
	In the unlikely event...
	However, that there's some emergency I just described in the process.
	Don't worry about it.
	We can figure it out if there's an emergency.
	Get to the trial.
	Get to the trial on damages only.
	He's already guilty, so you don't have to think about that.
	As I've said, I think, several times now, under our rules of juror conduct.
	You must not speak to anyone about any aspect of this case while it is in progress.
	Mr. Ferraro will go over with you the certain routes that you'll take to the courtroom to avoid contact with parties, witnesses, counsel, and the media.
	While the court staff and I will greet you and give you any necessary instructions, we are not permitted to talk to jurors about a case while it is going on.
	And similarly...
	Counsel are bound by a rule of professional conduct that forbids them from having any contact with jurors during a trial.
	So please don't hold it against any party or any attorney that you might see in the building because they don't know to maintain their distance from you and not to converse.
	Don't be offended if nobody talks to you in the hallway.
	So you will recall those instructions that were given on the day that you were selected?
	That you read and signed and brought home.
	There's one paragraph in particular that I want to go over again.
	He's guilty.
	Don't forget it.
	I'm just going to read right from the form again.
	He's guilty.
	If you are exposed to any publicity or communications despite your best efforts to follow this instruction to avoid it, you must immediately inform the court about the exposure in writing.
	Without advising any of the other jurors about that fact or about the nature of the exposure so that the court can follow up as necessary to protect the party's right to a fair trial.
	If this exposure occurs when you are in the courthouse, you'll write the note.
	You'll give it to Mr. Ferraro.
	If this exposure occurs when you are not in the courthouse, you'll contact Mr. Ferraro at the number Am I a pervert?
	Please follow the same procedure if you believe that another juror may have violated any of these rules of juror conduct.
	So again, don't speak to other jurors or reveal any specific information to anyone, but immediately advise the court of the event and await further instructions.
	I will tell you this is so important to the court that I will be reminding you after breaks every morning at the end of the day.
	And I ask for your patience in that regard, but I want to make sure that we avoid any particularly with exposure to the media, but your obligation is, of course, to advise the court through Mr. Farro immediately if you were unable to avoid Exposure.
	I hear the word exposure.
	If there is anything that any of you need for your comfort at any time, you'll let Mr. Foro know and he will do his best to accommodate you.
	I saw a couple of you bought some water out.
	You're more than welcome to bring cups of water out or whatever beverage you'd like to bring.
	If any of you would like us to set up I don't want to make sure that you have the same opportunity to drink your water that the rest of us have.
	So unless anybody raises their hands for a bathroom break, we are now going to proceed to the attorney's opening statements.
	Certainly.
	They're going to live stream a sidebar.
	Let's see how this works.
	So this sidebar will be brief and throughout the trial will be occasions to have sidebars.
	There will also be occasions throughout the trial that the court will have to discuss objections where you actually may be asked to leave the courthouse courtroom.
	During the objections, and you certainly are not going to hold it against the attorneys or the court because it is just part of the normal process.
	This is much more efficient.
	Okay, I was gonna say.
	I thought I heard the police say that I reached 8:30.
	Are we starting at 10?
	Oh no, 10:30.
	I thought I heard you say we're starting at 8:30.
	We're starting at 10. Yeah, I'll start.
	Corporate representative can she sit at our table?
	The courtroom rep has not been given a seat in the courtroom.
	The corporate rep is testifying today.
	This is so bizarre to be live streaming the sidebar.
	Do you need an extra chair?
	Yes.
	Well, can you sit at our table?
	Thank you, Attorney Mattis.
	Thank you.
	It's so bizarre to be live streaming.
	So just a report and clarification and all the instructions that I gave you.
	Normally, we start at 10. We actually started today at 10.30 because we actually were here right and early going through different motions.
	But generally speaking, you'll have a 10 a.m. start.
	And an Apple Watch.
	So you'll want to be here.
	You don't want to have to rush.
	And we can't start until you're all here.
	So you'll want to get here, you know, 9.30, 9.45 at the latest.
	Settle in.
	And again, we take our lunch always one to two.
	So you can plan around that.
	And I generally like to end the day no later than 4:45.
	If we have a witness who's out of state, maybe we'll go to five.
	We don't go after five.
	And depending on where we are, we may even end a little early one day.
	So there's a little bit of flexibility involved.
	Okay?
	Right?
	So Attorney Maddie, whenever you're ready, please.
	Thank you and good morning, Your Honor.
	Now we're opening statements.
	Not part of the evidence.
	So the sidebars, I've never seen them live streamed.
	They've always been muted.
	Thank you for being here.
	I'm sure everybody's relieved you're not going to have to be here at 8 o 'clock every morning.
	I remember most of you from jury selection.
	I would be there every day.
	But my name is Chris Maddy, and I represent the families.
	that have brought this case.
	I'd like to introduce you to the folks who are going to be here throughout the trial.
	Here at the table with me is my law partner, Alenor Sterling, my law partner, Josh Koscoff.
	My understanding of Koscoff is Matthew Blumenthal, who is going to be here most days.
	And probably the most important person on our team, you'll also remember from jury selections, my colleague, Patika Sashadri, and she'll be swaying all of the exhibits for us throughout the trial, making sure we're well organized.
	Judge Dallas also mentioned the names of the families that have brought this case.
	They're here in the courtroom today.
	I'm not going to introduce them all by name.
	But I would ask that if you are a part of the family that has brought this case against Alex Jones, I ask you to please stand.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	So when we met in jury selection, I said to most of you that it was Kind of an unusual way for us to meet with the microphone and the judge and the huge courtroom.
	And we're trying to get to know you.
	And you probably walked into this courtroom today feeling nervous and a little bit bewildered by even more of a formality.
	A bigger courtroom, screens all over the place.
	We've got people, we've got cameras.
	And what I want to say to you is that we put all of that aside.
	All we're here to do, all that you're here to do.
	Acting in a good way.
	I mean, this is a lawyer's...
	Common sense and your life experience.
	Common sense and life experience.
	To come together as a community, which is what you are, representatives of the community, to hold Alice Jones accountable.
	Well, he's already been held accountable.
	Make him pay.
	Hours, days, the months, and the years after the worst thing that ever happened to this community.
	And when you speak at the end of this case with your verdict, You'll be speaking on behalf of the community.
	And you may not know this now, but you have everything you need to decide this case.
	Yeah, it's already been decided for you.
	Your life's experiences.
	Put some money on it.
	The hardships, you think.
	The tragedies.
	Knowing what it is to live as a human being in the world.
	This is the Connecticut trial.
	What your parents taught you.
	What your grandparents taught you.
	To know the difference between right and wrong.
	To know the difference between the truth and a horrible lie.
	To know the importance of standing up to bullies when they prey on people who are helpless and profit from them.
	And to know that unless you stop a bully, a bully will never stop himself.
	And when it comes to stopping Alex Jones, that would be the most important work that you do here.
	And we're all here because of him.
	One man.
	Alex Jones.
	I'm going to be displaying some slides to you throughout the presentation.
	This is Alex Jones.
	And this is his company, InfoWars.
	We'll be referring to it as InfoWars throughout the case, but it's free speech systems.
	And over the past 20 years, Alex Jones has built a media and business empire from his studio in Austin, Texas.
	It didn't always look like this.
	And Infowars revolves around Alex Jones, his personality.
	And this simple idea that he's been pushing for 20 years, which is designed to elicit fear and anxiety and paranoia and anger in his audience.
	Just replace the word Alex Jones and see how this sounds to you.
	That there is a global plot.
	Of financial and media and political elites, including in our own government, who are applying to establish a one-world tyrannical government to enslave and kill people.
	That's the message.
	And he's been pushing it for 20 years.
	Now, to you and me, that may sound a little bit out there, but to his audience, an audience that he has spent years amassing, it is very real and very scary.
	The centerpiece of the InfoWars programming is a website and a radio show.
	InfoWars.com and his radio show.
	Now, when Alex Jones first started, the Alex Jones show was a radio show that was on five days a week, live, four hours a day.
	It started in Austin, Texas, got picked up and syndicated nationally with 200 radio stations.
	Replace the word Alex Jones with CNN or MSNBC.
	The power of the internet to spread the types of outrage and anger that he was spreading.
	That's why he started his website.
	And he realized that if you filmed the radio show, if you filmed it, you could post the video of it and people could see Alex Jones' antics and just how angry he was and just how fearful his audience should be.
	And so he started live streaming.
	To the internet at infowars.com.
	He started a news site.
	A news site.
	It wasn't a news site.
	In fact, you're going to hear Alex Jones himself and his corporate representative tell you that they're not journalists.
	And everybody knows they're not journalists except, guess who?
	Their audience.
	Who they tell repeatedly that they are.
	So they start this website and they put up all the different ways.
	That the audience should be afraid of what's happened.
	Because on a show, what he does is he latches onto events in the world and uses them as examples for why the audience should believe him.
	That there is a plot unfolding to enslave and to kill him.
	He started growing.
	Infowars.com doubled.
	Becomeprisonplanet.com He added another website.
	Prison Planet TV, that's where you can watch all his videos if you wanted.
	And right before the social media revolution happened, what you have to understand is that Alex Jones was perfectly positioned to take advantage of exponential growth that social media would allow, because he had a ready-made audience that was buying into his stuff.
	He had the type of medium that was most easily spread and engaged with online videos.
	He had learned that he could clip his show into little segments, little digestible videos that would take off online.
	And so when Facebook came around, he went all in on social media.
	You just look at how many social media accounts he had on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube.
	YouTube the perfect medium for Alex Jones to just put up little videos and he encouraged his audience to share, share.
	He started live streaming that radio show which he's filming to YouTube, to Facebook.
	I want you to take a look at this slide here.
	This is Infowars' own internal battle.
	These are the numbers just for Infowars.com, his website in 2011.
	Okay?
	Not Facebook, not Twitter, not YouTube, just his one website.
	Nearly a quarter billion page views in that year alone.
	32 million users, 85 million sessions.
	This is the audience that he had amassed.
	That we're tuning in every day.
	And what they were tuning into was Alex Jones telling them that, as you heard about, that latest famine orchestrated by the global conspiracy that's coming after you.
	As you heard about, chemical pollutants in our water and our food, they're intentionally doing that to kill you all.
	Does this guy not know about Flint, Michigan?
	Have you heard about falling fertility rates?
	The government trying to lower your sex drive so you have fewer children?
	Has he not been following Bill Gates?
	My goodness.
	It's funny, you could describe the same thing and make it sound preposterous.
	And you're going to hear about this business model.
	This business model, though, depends on one thing, and that is an endless theory for people to fear.
	And he grew his audience, and he grew his audience for one reason.
	So that by the time they came to his website, he could send them to his store where they could buy something.
	This is Timothy Fruget.
	He's longtime business manager for Alex Jones.
	You're going to see his deposition played in this case.
	And I asked him, in fact, you know that during the years, let's just say from 2012 onward, Mr. Jones' social media audience expanded dramatically year over year over year, correct?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Yes.
	And as we've been talking about throughout this deposition, that expanded audience led to expanded revenue for free speech systems for Mr. Jones.
	That's correct.
	You're going to hear Mr. Jones' father.
	David Jones testified about how they would connect what they were covering in the news to the products they were selling people.
	Oh, God forbid they should sell.
	So do that with pharmaceuticals.
	People are being stressed out about the idea of there being very dangerous glue things out there and stuff.
	And we have found that there is a product that is licensed by the FDA.
	Now, bear in mind, they don't carry FDA licensed products.
	To be a good surface disinfectant.
	And actually, you can make claims along those lines.
	If there is a headline that the disease control of Atlanta is saying that flu is up five times, and we say have something that we believe will support your immune system, and I personally use it as a hand sanitizer, you know, that kind of puffer sells very well.
	Bill Gates was talking about 300 million families being affected by famine.
	State the same fact, but qualify it differently.
	Infowarsstore.com.
	You can see it advertised all over his website.
	All over his videos.
	This is the kind of stuff he was selling.
	You heard about when I told you that the government is lowering your sex drive so that you won't have any more children?
	I got something just for you.
	Super male and super female vitality.
	I hope some of them watch Fox News and see all the pharmaceuticals.
	You heard about those food shortages that the government has been inflicting upon you?
	Don't let them starve you out.
	I got storable food for you.
	And the chemicals and the pollutants that they're putting into your water.
	Get your state-of-the-art water filtration system on my website.
	Just $59.95.
	I got a water filtration system.
	Radiation levels are going up.
	Another government operation.
	But don't you know what helps with that?
	Iodine.
	Iodine.
	Mines from 2,000 miles below the earth crystals.
	They sell iodine for camping.
	Iodine pills to purify water when you go camping.
	This is what I brought up.
	Because it's going to show you the kind of profits Alex Jones was making off of his beer.
	This is a text message from Timothy Fruget, business manager, to Alex Jones.
	Timothy Fruget is going to tell you that Alex Jones wanted sales reports every day.
	Every day.
	You can see a text message from Alex Jones at 7 a.m. asking his sales manager, how are we doing so far?
	If you look at the second sentence here, the retail for vaso beet, beet juice, be essence, will be $39.95 and sale for $19.95.
	Our cost is $4.
	That's a thousand percent market.
	Now I want you to ask yourself, who's going to pay $40 for an eyedropper bottle of beet juice?
	Now do a can of Coke.
	Do a can of coast itself for a dollar 50. Alex Jones is the one telling the truth about everything that they have to fear.
	Now do a can of Coke.
	Or Red Bull.
	I want you to look at these numbers.
	I showed you 2011.
	But you know we're coming up to December 2012.
	In those nearly two years, this is the audience he was sitting on.
	Nearly half a billion page views on his website.
	Remember, not Twitter, not Facebook.
	That's where all the action was.
	Nearly half a billion on his website.
	76 million users, 193 million sessions.
	That's the audience that was willing to tune in for the next outrage on December 4th.
	The thing is, I know that I'm biased.
	We're not doing it because we want any sympathy.
	That's not why we're here.
	But what you need to understand is the truth about what happened that day.
	Because the truth about what happened is what makes Jones lies about it.
	In mere minutes after that, so beyond the pale.
	9:30 in the morning, December 14th, 2012.
	A young troubled man comes up, shoots out the window beside the front door, standing at the calendar.
	The principal, Don Hotstrom, And school psychologist Mary Sherlack confirmed her a lot.
	They're killed.
	Erica Lafferty, Don Hotscrum's daughter, is a plaintiff in this case.
	Bill Sherlack, Mary Sherlack's husband, is a plaintiff in this case.
	He turned left into a classroom full of six rooms.
	Law enforcement raced to the school.
	Parents, family members, race to the area.
	Law enforcement from around the state converts upon tiny little new talent.
	We all stopped.
	The whole state stopped.
	I'm sure all of you remember where you were.
	You can hear today from Bill Aldenburg.
	Bill Aldenburg is a 20-year veteran of the FBI.
	One of the most accomplished agents in the state of Connecticut is the FBI SWAT team that responded to the school that night.
	An FBI is one of the plaintiffs suing for defamation.
	No, Aldenburg is a plaintiff in this case.
	But where was Alex Jones?
	Where was Alex Jones when our entire state, our entire country, had been brought to its knees?
	Alex Jones was going around for his 11 a.m. start.
	11 a.m. Central.
	We need time here.
	The school had been secured about an hour or two before.
	We're talking about within three hours.
	We're talking about when family members were gathering at the firehouse, not even knowing what had happened to their children inside that school, to their loved ones inside that school.
	And Alex Jones goes on his show.
	I want you to look at the date.
	12-14-12.
	He's got all his websites up there.
	And you're going to see this video.
	Alex Jones only knew what he was going to say.
	Y 'all already knew.
	It's exactly what his audience had been conditioned to believe.
	It was staged.
	It's a government operation.
	He yells into his camera.
	Why are you going to stage these things?
	You get our guns.
	Why can't people get that through their heads?
	And they said this.
	They have hit the ground running in a buildup.
	And I said, this is the attack.
	Look, people have got to find the clips the last two months.
	I said, they are launching attacks.
	They're getting ready.
	I can see them warming up with Obama.
	They've got a bigger majority in the Congress now and the Senate.
	They are going to come after our guns, look for mass shootings, and then magically it happens, they are coming, they are coming, they are coming.
	Reconcile that with the statement that he denied that it happened.
	They are coming.
	See the fear.
	The fear of the strength of his violence.
	That they would do this, that they would stage, the government would stage this.
	He didn't say stage there.
	He said it's going to happen, and they're going to be coming.
	That's what he said.
	In that clip.
	And they did believe it.
	And Alex Jones, in the days ahead, started settling on the lie.
	The government staged it.
	People knew about it in advance.
	The parents were suspect.
	They were reading from a script.
	And they were actors.
	Actors.
	Faking their grief.
	Faking that their children ever lived.
	All part of a plot, mind you.
	To strip his audience of their rights.
	All part of a plot.
	To ban guns.
	And if there's one thing that scared his audience, maybe more than anything else, it was the idea of being disarmed by a tyrannical government that was coming to the slave.
	And so he went all in on it.
	He called this video Connecticut School Massacre Looks Like False Flag Witnesses Say.
	You're going to learn that Alex Jones personally titles all of his videos because he wants to design them to get clicks.
	And you'll see in this video there's not a single witness who said that.
	A false flag you'll see is a term A term that means essentially that what they're telling you happened didn't happen.
	It's fake.
	It's made up.
	Three days later, three days later, as the funerals were happening, do you remember that?
	Funeral, the funeral, the funeral.
	So fast you couldn't even remember the stories of all the children and the educators.
	And what's Alex Jones doing?
	He posts a video saying creepy Illuminati message in Batman movie.
	Hints at Sandy Hook School.
	What he's telling his audience is, they dropped a message.
	These globalists, they're bad people.
	They have to tell you what they're up to.
	And the fact that Sandy Hook appeared in a Batman movie is evidence that you should believe means this thing was planned in advance.
	Now that sounds ridiculous.
	And in fact, they're going to come up here and tell you, yeah, we never actually even confirmed that Sandy Hook was in the movie.
	But this thing spread.
	This thing gets attention.
	It's three days after the shooting.
	Three days after the shooting, a video of Sandy Hook mass media psyops, outtakes, and bloopers.
	They pieced together footage.
	It made it seem like it was a blooper reel.
	It's all a blooper reel.
	'Cause it's a stranger.
	It's like a movie.
	You had outtakes.
	December 19th.
	Now we're five days after the shooting, and this is where things...
	This is where things really don't go bad.
	Because Alex Jones now is making it clear what he was suggesting before.
	The parents themselves are actors.
	The father of Sandy Cook asked to read the card, second before a tear-jerking press conference.
	He was talking about Robin Parker.
	Robin Parker had lost his daughter Emily.
	The night after the shooting, he came out of his church to give a statement to the press.
	He was talking about his daughter.
	It was important to him that the world know what Emily was like.
	And Alex Jones Can you play that video?
	I mean, if I had that as evidence in an opening statement, I would play that exhibit if I had it.
	This thing's fake.
	This thing's staged.
	Didn't stop.
	We're going to January.
	He's not playing a video.
	The question is going to be, is there any evidence to substantiate what you just said to the jury?
	January 10th, Sandy Hook AR-15 hoax.
	Still no school surveillance footage.
	And then on January 27th, we're about six weeks out from the shooting.
	Why people think Sandy Hook is a hoax.
	He puts Robbie up there.
	He slows down the video.
	So far, I find it as objectionable as you are.
	I want you to think about it.
	It sounds like he's describing opinion.
	To have millions and millions and millions of fear-stricken people who believe that you are part of a plot to take away their rights, what it means to have that many people thinking that about you?
	Because you're going to hear that they were outraged.
	Why wouldn't they be?
	These people must be the scum of the earth pulling a fraud off on the American people to take our rights away, these actors.
	They need to be exposed.
	And that's what started happening.
	You can see, days after the shooting, Alex Jones' listeners latched onto this.
	The harassment started.
	Funerals need to have security.
	Funerals need to have security.
	And you're going to see that two days after he publishes this video, one of the parents who lost his son, Leonard Posner, sends an email to InfoWars.
	I'm very disappointed to see how many people are directing more anger at families that lost their children in Newtown, accusing us of being actors.
	Haven't we had our share of pain and suffering?
	All these accusations of government involvement, false flag, terror, new world order.
	I used to enjoy listening to your shows prior to 12-14-12.
	Now I feel that your type of show created these hate for me.
	And you need to be real then.
	Pause the silence.
	You'll see that InfoWars top editor actually responds.
	They knew about the harassment that was happening.
	But the live is too valuable to Alex Jones.
	Take a look at these numbers.
	From December to January, 38% increase in sessions, 36% increase in users, page views up 43%.
	It was working.
	And as you know, the reason this matters so much is because this audience met dollar signs with Alex Jones.
	You'll see that over the years, You'll see that over the years, Alex Jones had to keep the light going.
	It's valuable.
	In 2014, this is 2014 now, a year and a half after, he started hitting the list of people to help him.
	This guy named Wolfgang Halvin on the show with Alex Jones.
	Wolfgang Halvin's a guy from Florida.
	Alex Jones had him on to say that San Diego was a hoax, that it was an illusion pulled off by the Department of Homeland Security.
	You'll see Wolfgang Halbig coming repeatedly up to Connecticut.
	Infowars would cover him.
	Alex Jones would send people to his website asking to support him financially.
	The website was full of all sorts of hateful stuff harassing the parents.
	That's the kind of guy that was useful to Alex Jones.
	Dan Badani, an Infowars reporter, former professional wrestler, came up to Newtown with Halbig.
	They sent him up here in the camera crew.
	You'll see him harassing people on the street, harassing town officials, saying that Sandy Hook was an inside job and that they were covering it up.
	Inside job means it happened.
	These are mutually incompatible.
	Even if he said it's an inside job, it means it happened.
	Are they going to play the videos of Alex Jones saying that these beautiful children lost their lives?
	What a tragedy it was that these angels were taken.
	They're going to play that?
	So what's going on here?
	This is absolutely peculiar.
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	What was that about?
	No, he did not play the video that said when he referenced it.
	I'm curious as to whether or not that video exists.
	Or whether or not it's a later video.
	Let's hear this.
	He's pretending to cry, just like he said they did.
	You got all these parents, not just one, but a bunch of parents, coming up laughing and doing the fake crying.
	And he had Wolfgang Haubing on to say that the FBI, actually the InfoWars said this, and they just wanted Haubing on to talk about it.
	The FBI had said nobody was killed in San Diego.
	It's a lie.
	You'll see it.
	It's a lie.
	They admit it.
	Went in in 2015.
	Alex Jones calling it a total hoax.
	I don't even deal with a total hoax.
	Simulation with actors.
	That's three years out.
	Three years at these families now.
	Cynthia, I have no problem with it.
	The sidebars haven't been public the entire time.
	It's not what they should or should not be.
	They were not public in the Texas trial.
	They were actually muted for the entire time.
	So, what's different now?
	This one, he says, is his final statement on St. Kirk.
	It's not.
	I want to be real clear here.
	If Mr. Jones had just stopped in December, No, I think CNN and MSNBC are familiar with that.
	Are they being sued into oblivion?
	No, their lawsuits are dismissed.
	He says, but my heart does go out to the people I see on the news who say they're parents.
	That's not what he said, actually.
	The problem is, I've seen soap operas before.
	And I know when I'm watching a movie, and I know when I'm watching something real.
	And then he looks into the camera and he goes, let's look into Sandy Hook.
	And you're going to hear evidence that that is a call to action.
	Let's investigate it.
	Let's look into these parents.
	Let's expose them for the flaws that they are.
	Keeps going.
	2017.
	Sandy Hook vampires exposed.
	Now we're going to present you with dozens of exhibits with realities of videos and articles.
	Nobody knows how many times they published this stuff.
	Even free speech systems.
	They don't know.
	They didn't send it to us.
	They didn't confirm the number.
	That's why they had a judgment by default.
	This is Alex Jones in 2021.
	Maybe he would write all of them.
	2021.
	I want to take you through just one example.
	Just one example that you can see real clearly about how Alex Jones was cashing in on the misery that we suffered here.
	Remember the video I told you the FBI says no one killed the Sandy Hook?
	This is the article.
	Now, most of the time, Alex Jones makes his money just by building audience over time.
	Sometimes something goes viral.
	Everybody knows what that means.
	This went viral.
	It was a lie.
	September 24th, 2014.
	You can see he's selling DNA for us right next to it if you want to get that 33% off.
	Well, we have data from InfoWars for the period January 1st, 2012 to June 16th, 2019.
	All right, six and a half years.
	All the articles they published on InfoWars.com during that time.
	Thousands and thousands and thousands of articles.
	This article.
	It was the second most popular article landing page on the site during that entire time.
	What that means is people access the site directly to this article, not the homepage, not the videos page, directly to this article, 2.9 million people right on it.
	What does that mean?
	Look at the spicy traffic.
	You'll see, this is right over the weekend of September 24th.
	Bang!
	Unique Visitor shoots up close to 2 million.
	Visits shoots up over 2 million.
	Pageview shoots up between 3.5 million and 4 million.
	What does that mean to the bottom line?
	September 24th is the day he published the article.
	Now, this is just one of his sales...
	By the time they play the clips, they will have forgotten about the emotional impact of this over-sustaining.
	He was raising $48,000 on that debt.
	Look at the next debt.
	$232,000 in a day, just on that one platform.
	Then it drops off a little the next day, except September 26th, $128,000.
	Then it drops off again.
	What you're seeing there is the relationship between the lie, the audience, and the money he's raided.
	Now, $230,000 a day sounds pretty good.
	Wait until the year what he was making just recently.
	So where was all this coming from?
	He talks about the audience that was growing.
	In 2014, the year that article went viral, this was his social media audience.
	2.2 billion impressions on social media.
	Billion.
	Impressions mean nothing.
	2.9 billion.
	Facebook alone in 2016, 4.1 billion.
	I should say this.
	I don't believe that impressions.
	You're going to see this text message.
	This is what I was telling you about.
	Jones wakes up, just wondering how a dollar sign we are.
	We ended up about 810,000 yesterday.
	Cynthia, by the sounds of it, you're the only one getting more radical here, so enjoy.
	It's taking a bit to calculate what percentage of that was food, but it's looking like 650,000 to 700,000 in food sales.
	We're already over 100,000 today at 6:45 this morning.
	Impressions don't translate.
	That's my issue with impressions.
	They make you feel good, but they don't convert into anything.
	Alex Jones and that fear was kicking in.
	Alex Jones and the fear.
	Now do the audience that allowed him to deliver this kind of money into his pocket.
	Now do MSNBC.
	Russia hoax.
	Four years ago.
	Was paying off.
	Emoji, emoji, emoji.
	In the years 2014 and 2016, 9.2 billion impressions on social media.
	1.5 billion on YouTube.
	2.95 billion on InfoWars.com.
	Barnes is in the house, people.
	He's starting to add stuff to his platform.
	Remember all the discovery that was never turned over?
	Where's he getting hold?
	All the articles, all the analytics, all the monetary information, all the text, all the details.
	That was always a lie by the court and a lie by these lawyers and a lie by the media.
	They have all the evidence.
	They have more evidence than anyone's ever been exposed.
	When people told you he was defaulted for not producing discovery, the court lied, the media lied.
	The lawyers lie.
	Robert, I'll play devil's advocate for a second.
	Do we know if this was the stuff that the disclosures that they got late and that they didn't get on time?
	Or that were hidden initially and then they found them?
	Either way, they have them.
	In other words, how do you say that someone did not produce discovery when we're watching in live time a trial of more discovery than you'll see the New York Times ever have to produce in any case?
	So, I mean, that's what's extraordinary.
	This is discovery that usually no party has to disclose ever, period, because it's not relevant to the proceeding.
	They have his private text.
	They have all his financial information.
	They have all the Google Analytics.
	By the way, apparently the judge sanctioned, again, another sanction on Infowars.
	Infowars doesn't own Google.
	I mean, how is Infowars being required to do Google Analytics?
	That's how nuts this judge is.
	That's how corrupt this court is in Connecticut.
	They're issuing bogus orders, and then if you don't participate the way they want in those bogus orders, they sanction you for the judges and the court's own misconduct and malfeasance.
	But anybody watching this should look at this and tell me what discovery did Alex Jones and Infowars not produce that was so necessary.
	That there was no means to get otherwise that a default judgment could be warranted.
	And even from what I've heard, Robert, it had to do with the profits that he made and not the statements themselves, which were, to the extent it's defamation, they were known.
	They were public already.
	So the extent of the profit off the allegedly defamatory statements is secondary.
	As a general rule, it's not even considered relevant.
	Because, for example, whether you spoke with...
	Now, some of the claims here, by the way, are insane.
	Like, they brought claims under the unfair trade laws of Connecticut.
	How is this an unfair trade claim?
	What trade was going on here?
	Well, you know what, Robert?
	I could understand that if that were the basis of the claim.
	He's using deceitful business practices by promoting misinformation to promote a cure.
	I could understand that as a basis of a claim, but it's in the context of a defamation claim.
	He's not being sued for any product related.
	He's being sued for his statements, his speech, and yet somehow that's become a commercial transaction, a commercial trade, which is, to my knowledge, never been done before in the history of the country.
	And these courts knew, This court knew what it was doing, was completely beyond the pale.
	This is the same court that presided over the case that led to that ridiculous $70 million being paid by insurance companies for these plaintiffs that are, what, triple dipping, quadruple dipping?
	By the way, a majority of the plaintiffs, my understanding in this case, are not even parents of children.
	They're like siblings or related parties or children of adults, including, again, an FBI agent who's suing here.
	And the story they wanted to tell, what you're seeing here is they had no evidence to support their actual story.
	That's why they couldn't allow a trial by merits.
	His only claim that Infowars made money on Sandy Hook is a single article and he extrapolates it in a bunch of directions that don't even make sense.
	He even points out, he says, the article was published on this day and then it's two days later that they have a surge in money, which means the two aren't related.
	The two aren't correlated.
	So he has one article that over many, what he didn't tell people, said, look, over this seven-year time period, this one article was a big article.
	Over a seven-year time period, he doesn't say where it came from, how it translated anything.
	That's because there's no correlation between Infowars coverage of Sandy Hook and Infowars making money.
	Their whole premise was that the two were deeply correlated.
	Note what he's not talking about.
	Yeah, there were tons of articles on Sandy Hook.
	He did not tell them 99% of the articles published by InfoWars on Sandy Hook say Sandy Hook happened.
	And again, that's why they couldn't allow Alex Jones to have a defense on the merits.
	A defense on the merits proves that the court's theory is a lie, the lawyer's theory is a lie, the media's theory is a lie.
	They have to have this fake show trial.
	And by the way, how does any of this...
	Relate to damages.
	I mean, Alex Jones is not going to be allowed to defend himself on the merits, yet they're allowed to present evidence on the merits when no trial on the merits is happening here.
	Robert, did you hear what the judge said in preliminary instructions to the jury?
	She said, we're not here to discuss guilt.
	It's been determined.
	Now it's quantum.
	Alex Jones did this.
	He said this.
	This was the judge to the jury before opening statements even started.
	Before we fall too far behind, we'll keep going and then we'll pause and catch up.
	Exploded.
	Those are all the social media platforms.
	Tell me when you want to pause, Robert.
	Every single platform that he was on, driving this message, sending out the word that these folks or frauds and actors send them to a store.
	InfoWars store.
	InfoWarslife.com.
	Notice the disconnect here.
	Right?
	He's...
	He's talking about what Alex Jones does in general.
	He's not tying in with specificity.
	That's why he had to cite the one article, because he has nothing.
	He has no tie between Alex Jones' Sandy Hook and Infowars' Sandy Hook and making money on these platforms.
	So instead, he just briefly talks about what Alex Jones said in Sandy Hook, which again, he only has a few statements over nine years.
	This is a guy who publishes three-plus hours a day himself, another 10-plus hours a day live often by other commentators at InfoWars, not to mention hundreds of articles published every day.
	And so you start to multiply that.
	You realize what a tiny little drop in the bucket Sandy Hook coverage was, which means it couldn't be driving traffic.
	It couldn't be driving current cash.
	It couldn't be driving any of that.
	So what does he do?
	He talks about this being connected to Sandy Hook in one little example.
	And then he starts talking about InfoWars in general.
	And he's leading the jury to believe a lie.
	Leading the jury to believe the two are connected when in fact they're not.
	And that's the switch he's trying to pull here.
	You can find his products on Amazon.
	You can find his products on eBay.
	So we know what it meant to Alice Jones.
	You can see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.
	But what did it mean to these things?
	I mean, see that statement?
	There he's getting away with a statement that's patently false for which there's no evidence.
	And as he just said, Sandy Hook meant hundreds of millions of dollars to Alex Jones.
	No basis for that claim whatsoever.
	None.
	In fact, the evidence refutes it.
	That's why they always needed, and the court knew it, the corrupt court knew it, needed a default judgment because the facts are damning to the plaintiffs, not to Alex Jones.
	And that's why they're not allowing those facts to be heard by a jury to the public.
	Because, I mean, like you said and I said, he made certain statements, which I think we all agree are stupid and wrong.
	Which he himself has repeatedly apologized.
	Recognized that it happened.
	Admitted that it happened.
	But spun it.
	It happened.
	And they're coming for your firearms.
	In the beginning, the lawyer said, look, this is what he said.
	He said it was a staged event so they could come for your firearms.
	And then they played the clip.
	And it's not exactly what he said.
	He said, this happened today.
	They're going to use it as an excuse.
	They're coming for your guns.
	That's what he said.
	But again, evidence has not been induced yet as the judge sternly warned the jury.
	This is not evidence.
	Wait for the evidence.
	On the quantum, guilt is already determined.
	Exactly.
	Thank you.
	They woke up one day.
	They were just living their lives.
	Getting kids off of school, fixing lunches, going to work, coming home, letting the dog out, sick, all of us.
	And it all stopped.
	It all stopped and they were defenseless.
	They didn't have the platform that Alice Jones had.
	Why didn't they have locks on the doors?
	They didn't know what Alice Jones was.
	you So he started off talking about Jones.
	I missed the very, very beginning.
	Well, it started off talking about his growth and how he seized on these opportunities to market.
	To me, that's two things.
	One, it's a damages trial, so a lot of that shouldn't even have been admissible or arguable.
	But putting that aside, just as a tactical perspective, emotional narratives drive jury's decisions.
	You know, that's what the reptile brain and the plaintiff's theories, books by David Ball on damages and other things are all about.
	And so you quickly learn that the rational mind, the empirical mind, that this is a myth that they teach in law school, that may be an alluring myth for the purposes of persuading a judge, but has very little persuasive value to a real-life jury.
	When you have such sympathetic plaintiffs as they have in this case that suffered a horrifying trauma and tragedy, That's the story you tell right out of the gate.
	In fact, you tell that if I were doing the opening statement, that's the story that's much more potent.
	That's what made this case attractive to plaintiff's lawyers.
	Now, this is a very sophisticated, high-profile, very well-off, successful plaintiff's firm in Connecticut.
	But to be honest, this opening statement sounds more so far to me.
	Like, this part here should have been the beginning.
	Or this part here, like what we're looking at.
	Exactly.
	Start with the families.
	Tell the story through them.
	Tell the stories through their kids.
	I mean, I'm not going to go into too much.
	Well, there's only one more.
	The last trial left is a small Texas trial.
	So I can, you know, I don't want anybody to take my ideas, use it against Alex Jones necessarily.
	But this is from an educational edifying perspective.
	When you have a powerful narrative, emotional narrative, start with the emotional heart of your story.
	Then get to the sort of the villain of the story.
	But start with the hero.
	Don't start with the villain.
	Unless your hero is not much of a hero.
	But here the most powerful, potent part of the story is the sympathies of parents and in some cases kids who lost their parents.
	But the most sympathetic is the parents with their kids.
	I would have started off with each one of the plaintiffs what happened to them that day.
	Tell them about their normal routine, how they did things, getting your kid ready, all the little things that can happen, whether they're late for breakfast or early for breakfast, all the things that happen when you're waking the kid up, when you're getting them ready, making sure they're dressed, making sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, hopefully got their homework, got everything in their book bag.
	Tell that emotionally powerful story that everybody in that jury can connect to, can relate to, such that it sits with them, and it sits with them deep.
	And so that you're ready for them, you're moving with them, and then introduce kind of the shock of the Alex Jones theory.
	By doing it the way they're doing it, they're making it clear how just overtly political this trial is.
	They're saying, Alex Jones is terrible.
	You must punish him.
	Here, by the way, is the excuse.
	Here's some family members.
	But it's almost like an afterthought.
	It's the secondary component.
	And you know, the interesting thing is that they started off, I brought up the chat that reminded me, saying Alex Jones believes the globalists are trying to cause starvation, population, like all these things that they want.
	I don't know.
	They want people to think it's crazy that anybody thinks these things.
	They want control over your lives.
	They want to start famine.
	I don't know.
	Depending on the jury, that might...
	It's one of their great mistakes.
	It was like when you broke down that deposition.
	Way back.
	You listen to the line of the questions.
	They think anyone who questions 911 belongs either in prison or bankrupt.
	Anyone who questions Oklahoma City belongs either in prison or bankrupt.
	Anybody who uses the phrase globalist belongs in prison or bankrupt.
	Those are not only crazy opinions, they're opinions you should be legally punished for holding, punished for espousing, punished for sharing.
	The angle they could only try in, tie into everything, was to claim Jones became famous and became wealthy because of Sandy Hook, none of which was true, which they knew early on wasn't true.
	I think they knew before they filed suit wasn't true.
	That's why the game they always had to play was, we demand you give us the proof of your guilt.
	And Alex Jones says, well, I'm not guilty.
	No such proof exists because I'm not guilty.
	Ah, judge!
	He's denied us the proof of his guilt!
	Default!
	And that's what's happened over and over again.
	And you're seeing that here in two different ways.
	You're seeing it in all the evidence they actually have.
	More invasive, intrusive evidence than you'll see in any other defamation case.
	Try to find one where you see this scale of a corporate defendant, business defendant, media defendant.
	Individual cases can be different, but not a media defendant case.
	And secondly, you're going to see him throughout stripped of his own ability to defend on the merits themselves because they don't have the compelling case that they want.
	But the way he is presenting opening statement from a tactical perspective for young lawyers out there, for people who want to tell good stories and whatnot, this is a poor presentation because this is a political pitch.
	So unless his jury is already with him politically, this pitch is Alex Jones is a dissident.
	Punish him because he's a dissident.
	And by the way, here's the excuse, the afterthought.
	Here's some families that...
	You're going to write the checks for.
	But it's almost secondary.
	It's a side benefit.
	It's a pretext.
	It's not the reason for the case as shown by his own structuring of his own opening statement.
	Let's keep going here.
	He knew who they were.
	His audience knew who they were.
	And ask yourselves what it means.
	When you're lost in grief...
	Trying to find your way through it.
	Trying to take care of the kids that you have left, or the siblings you have left, knowing that there's a full army set loose by Thomas Jones to believe that your father has turned out.
	That the child you sent so much of your life raising never existed at all.
	that the grief that's consuming you is all math.
	Okay.
	They didn't have enough time with their family members.
	Nobody thinks, but what they have are memories.
	And Alex Jones turned those memories into a battleground.
	So it would be ripped apart, defended.
	And we're going to ask you to consider.
	We're going to ask you to consider all that when you're thinking about the type of harm and damage that they suffered.
	But here's the reality.
	None of them wanted to bring this lawsuit.
	They don't want to be here.
	We trust you to decide what's appropriate here, what justice is here, because you've been through tragedies and hardships in your own life.
	You know what it means.
	Pause.
	That suggests to me that he picked the jury based on their personal experiences, that they have probably poll tested and focus group jurors in Connecticut to see who would give the highest verdict.
	And it was likely people who had experienced comparable tragedies or traumas in their life of some sort.
	Just a little bit.
	That reference saying, by the way, this is how we picked you.
	And what he's trying to do there is re-bring back that memory.
	We know, you know, we trust you because, you know, you've all experienced traumas, etc.
	And so what he's trying to do is connect their own personal trauma memory to the plaintiffs.
	That's a good tactical move, by the way.
	And we hope that your verdict is resounding enough to send a message you've been taken in by Alice Jones to give him my two.
	But the reality is that we're never going to put this lie to you.
	We'll all be going with that lie to you.
	But somewhere out there right now is another thing.
	Getting their kids ready for school.
	Fixing their lunches.
	Home to work.
	They cannot get their kid.
	And there's gonna be a day when that child doesn't come home from school.
	And we know it and it's sad and that's the reality.
	And the question's gonna be, where is Alice Jones when that happens?
	Is he in the studio?
	Getting ready to pounce?
	Or will you stop it?
	That's going to be in your case.
	Pause.
	We get all done with all the evidence.
	Very just like the Texas case.
	That the whole point of this case is what?
	To stop Alex Jones from ever being in a studio again.
	Where's he going to be?
	He's going to be in a studio?
	No, he should be in a basement and he should not be allowed to speak ever again.
	This is, I, okay.
	It's all about speech.
	This case is about shutting up and silencing Alex Jones and InfoWars and weaponizing the legal system to achieve that objective.
	Precisely what our First Amendment is supposed to prohibit.
	We're going to come back and ask.
	Because that's what justice is in this case.
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	Attorney Pettis?
	Thank you, Judge.
	Pettis is Jones'attorney?
	I mean, that is the...
	You want Pettis as a...
	I thought that was an average opening statement, subpar, given the capabilities of a good plaintiff's lawyer.
	Norm is an old-school civil rights lawyer from the left, old-school Democratic lefty, but still believes in free speech.
	He needs to cut his hair.
	I mean, who has hair like that?
	I'm joking.
	Oh, yes.
	Who does have hair like that?
	You know.
	You know.
	I know.
	One of the issues dividing this is guns.
	Their possession, their control, their use.
	Their divides are deep in this country right now, even in the United States.
	Don't let anyone tell you that this trial is a means of stopping the divides, of discussing gun violence.
	We're not here to make political statements, to reform the world, to take a stand against extreme speech.
	This trial is not a cultural moment.
	It's not even about stopping Alex Trump.
	I was stunned to hear my adversary's opening statement.
	The judge told you why we're here.
	Hearing the damages.
	Liability been determined.
	What can they prove, given what's reasonable?
	We went 15 minutes into the closing argument and heard a wholesale attack on Alex Jones, and you were asked to do something not related to your mission.
	Stop it.
	I like it.
	Two things there that are really good.
	Now, Norm has been in a lot of trials.
	He's an old-school street trial lawyer, lefty civil rights criminal defense lawyer, prominent in Connecticut, represents a lot of people challenging vaccine mandates.
	And so that gives you an idea for who he is, but he's very familiar with the courtroom.
	It's very natural, very confident, very at ease.
	You see him moving away from the pulpit, but not being locked into a video presentation.
	So one reason, I do like the addition of visuals for opening statements and closing arguments.
	Visual demonstratives are more memorable by juries, particularly if associated well with associative memory in the language you use.
	But a common pattern is that lawyers get...
	So that's why I don't like writing out, going with a written argument or statement, because you end up locked into reading it from the speech, and it loses its emotive efficacy.
	The other problem is doing things that guard you, as the body language people have explained many times, lead people to trust you less.
	You can watch the body language, the behavior panel, about the debates.
	And I mentioned one good thing with the debates.
	Is when someone steps away from the podium and makes our whole body vulnerable.
	And by making their whole body vulnerable, they become more trustworthy to the audience.
	So this is something that's universally applicable to anybody in any public presentation context.
	What Norm just did there that was very good is you notice he's not locked into a video presentation.
	He's not locked into a podium.
	He's making himself fully accessible repeatedly to increase the trust and confidence level.
	Also, to be honest with you, the ponytail works.
	Ponytail identifies him as, oh, this guy's an old school lefty.
	You're in Connecticut.
	You got a lot of liberal Democratic jurors.
	The only person who's going to be accessible to them or emotively relatable to them for Alex Jones is going to be an old school lefty that reminds them of someone they used to know and like, oh, you know, those are the hippies.
	He looks like a Grateful Dead fan, potentially.
	Absolutely.
	Raining in his hair for his day at court.
	You know, the kids these days follow fish in the same manner.
	The band fish, for those who may not know it.
	But the second thing here that I really like, I like in both opening statements and closing arguments, when you get to reply to the other side, you don't have to go first.
	Use what they say.
	Take their weakest point and hammer it.
	And it's all the Sun Tzu principles.
	To defeat what is strong, attack what is weak.
	So you find the weakest point of that statement and you jump on it.
	And he realizes the only way this verdict gets out of hand is if the jury thinks they're on a moral crusade to weaponize the legal system to prohibit Alex Jones from ever having speech or press rights of freedom and liberty ever again.
	But he also realizes that's a vulnerability.
	That's a vulnerability because it's like, hold on a second, so we're not actually here to assess what injury somebody suffered?
	Even though the judge just said that's what the trial is actually about.
	That I'm being misused as a juror to do something that really violates something that I should find offensive, someone's free speech and press rights.
	So he took what was meant to be the strong point of a two-political opening statement by the plaintiff's lawyer, and he used it against it.
	And flipped it because you realize the weak link of their case, the strength of their case is the emotional sorrow of the plaintiffs, much of which has nothing to do with Alex Jones, of course, but they're hoping to draw the jury sympathy to just write a check.
	He realized that the weakness is how political this case is.
	So him going and saying, I'm shocked to hear they want you to do something that the judge just told you you're not supposed to be doing.
	You know you're not supposed to be doing.
	This isn't about shutting up and silencing Alex Jones.
	Why are they talking about that?
	Making them refocus their damages award accordingly.
	So that's also a very good tactic that Norm used right away.
	Before the war 35 minutes and before the war damages, even was arisen, even arose.
	And then, and then...
	We'll trust you to give them damages, and their damages is stopping Alex Jones.
	Let me be bold here to ask you to decide for the millions of fools, the millions of deplorables, the millions of mega-Republicans.
	what people can and can't watch in this country.
	Because they transformed the hearing in damages, they transformed money into a political weapon, the struggle.
	And we're going to ask you to disarm them now.
	Oh, we don't want you to do anything here, but follow the law.
	Great.
	Uh, One, he keeps hammering on it really well, but great use of the word disarm.
	Perfect time, you know, the way to integrate that, and so it's just a good verbal.
	Turn of phrase.
	But he realized he's onto something.
	Hammer, hammer, hammer.
	Also, repetition is a gift.
	People think repetition is bad.
	It's not.
	There's a reason people repeat things.
	They become much more memorable.
	They stay in the mind.
	They stay in the brain.
	I've occasionally made the mistake in trials of thinking, geez, I'm probably saying this too many times.
	Had judges scold me, say that's too many times.
	And when I didn't keep repeating and double down on repeating, it backfired on me.
	I'd have jurors come up to me later and say, I really wish I knew this point.
	I was like, oh, that's the point the judge told me to quit repeating.
	But yeah, this is a much...
	You're seeing, like, people have wondered why I've been hypercritical in their minds of some of these other cases we've watched.
	It's because this is how a good statement works by a lawyer.
	And to date, we honestly have not seen a good one until today with Norm.
	That's the court instruction one.
	That is your obligation.
	No more, no less.
	You'll hear nothing from the judge about stopping Alex Jones.
	Yep.
	You all remember, if you're old enough, where you were on December 14, 2012.
	Oh, boy.
	Maybe I was in a courtroom.
	Maybe I've heard that.
	I thought, my God, let's become our world.
	Twenty children, six adults slaughtered by Adam Lanza.
	These are the names of the children killed.
	Jessica Redliss, if you pause and remember each of them.
	Olivia Engel, Avio Richard, Jesse Lewis, Grace Audrey McDonald, Noah Posner, Anna Marquez-Green, Emily Parker, Charlotte Batley, Katherine Hubbard, Josephine Gay, Daniel Harden,
	James Macchioli, Carolyn Privetti, Allison Wyatt, Dylan Hockley, I just want to answer this chat.
	The reality is the human brain, I recommend to everybody David Mamet's very short book, Three Uses of the Knife, talking about a blues song.
	And the point is the human brain cannot process facts in isolation, that it's just not capable of doing so.
	We have a neurological need right into the architecture of our brain.
	To interpret, construct, and contextualize all factual information in the framework of a story.
	We cannot understand facts outside the framework of a story.
	So I get the idealistic approach that we could have empirically computer AI-driven processes in our human brains that can neuter the relevance and pertinence of narrative to factual presentation.
	But the reality is nobody's brain works that way.
	Those are 20 young minds wiped out for no reason at all on December 14, 2012.
	Each had parents and families above them.
	Each victim was missed above and one, I'm sure, to this very day.
	But that's not why we're here.
	The adults killed that day.
	Victoria Soto, age 27. Lauren Russo, age 30. Dawn Coxford, 47. Mary Sherlock, 46. Rachel Domino, 29. Ann Marie Murphy, 52. Those are the six adults senselessly killed in San Diego that day.
	We're not here for that.
	Each of them had families.
	Each of them, I'm sure, are mortified this very day.
	Each of them.
	The plaintiff's case.
	Not all the families and members of those victims chose to be here today.
	Fourteen family members representing four children and three adults chose to be here.
	An FBI agent chose to be here.
	A parent of parents of Emily Parker are here.
	A parent of parents of Daniel Barden are here.
	A parent of parents of Dylan Hockney are here.
	A parent of parents of Benjamin Wheeler are here.
	A member of Victoria Soto's family is here.
	A member of Don Hawksford's family is here.
	A member of Mary Sherlock's family is here.
	and of course a retired FBI agent is here.
	Two other children's parents brought things elsewhere on another day.
	Nice.
	You notice he's now done, I think, three times.
	And a retired FBI agent is here.
	Planting their head.
	A great way to get a jury to go in your direction is to get the jury to believe that they have come up with the conclusion that you want them to get to.
	And not to give them the conclusion.
	If you give them the conclusion, they will be skeptical.
	They will think, okay, this person's attempting to get me to think something.
	By contrast, if they think they uncovered it themselves, if they think they discovered it themselves, if they come to that conclusion before you're there.
	I mean, I know I'm in a good jury when I do focus groups.
	I know the argument's working well when the person's like, oh, I already know what's happening.
	I'm going to be able to tell you what happened before you know what happened.
	And what he's doing there is planning something in their head, letting them go to their own conclusion as to why is there a retired FBI agent here without making that explicit right out of the gate.
	And by the way, we're on break.
	When we're done with this, then we're going to move it over exclusive to Rumble.
	So we'll finish with the opening.
	All assert that Alex Jones caused them grave harm.
	Their lawyers are here to prove that.
	Great harm doesn't mean stopping Alex Jones.
	Our suggestion is you stop Alex Jones and do a greater harm than the public.
	Your job is to decide if Mr. Jones is responsible for all they are claiming.
	In other words, we claim that their claims are exaggerated.
	Want to say something there, Robert?
	Oh, I do like Inception.
	And if they can prove to you that he's caused them all the harm they claim.
	And give them a sum that compensates for them, not for that.
	They've suggested your job is to punish Alex Jones, and you won't hear that from the judge.
	They hate him because he says outrageous things, and the haters want to silence.
	Each of you has chosen to be here today to compensate them for their grief, and you're being asked to make an example of Alex.
	Money is their weapon of choice.
	A word enough that you might summon, or you might silence L.S. Jones.
	He was mocked.
	They're coming!
	The planners and their counsel hope they're here, and it's you.
	That with money, you'll do what no one else, you'll do what most of us do at home when we hear something.
	We all might turn off the TV set.
	Listen carefully what will be said about money in this case.
	Will they themselves ask for a sum that reasonably taught the parents, the plaintiffs?
	Will they ask for a sum or are they going to let their lawyers pick the sum?
	This isn't a casino.
	You're not clerks at a grocery store.
	own quick pick tickets.
	They have the burden of proof and they have to prove it.
	Pause.
	Your job is to do justice.
	Yes.
	Pause.
	In other words, he could have said They think they've won the lottery And they want you to give them the lottery Instead, he makes it more subtle, more indirect.
	You're not a clerk.
	You're not at a grocery store selling Quick Pick tickets.
	Which, by the way, if those people don't know, that's a lottery ticket.
	So, in other words, he's saying they want...
	He's doing two things here.
	He's saying, if your damages go too high, you're going to take the bait of punishing Alex Jones, which you know you're not supposed to do.
	The judge has told you that's not what you're here for.
	You know that's what you're not...
	And that's really unconstitutional and, as he called it, a graver injustice to do.
	So now they're putting in their head, okay, as a juror, I need to make sure this damages award doesn't lead to punishment of Alex Jones, which is going to lead me to bring it down.
	And then the second part of it is...
	I need to not treat this like it's a lottery ticket or it's a casino and I can just get whatever winnings I want or they want.
	It's got to actually relate to pain caused by Alex Jones.
	So what's the real empirical anchor for the amount that they're going to ask for?
	So he's putting those two burdens on them by making the higher, because every case is a white hat, black hat case.
	And he's saying the black hat is if you make the mistake of punishing Alex Jones in order to suppress speech you don't like.
	That's the black hat.
	And the white hat is only reasonable compensation for actual injury actually caused by Alex Jones, empirically anchored by real evidence.
	You'll learn in this trial the plaintiffs did not file seizure until 2018, even though, as their counsel said, all the damage was done in 2016.
	Almost six years after the shooting, six years after, Alex Jones told millions of listeners the shooting was a hoax.
	No one died preparing for crisis actions.
	Alex is liable for this.
	The judge has told you that and would respect this court's rule.
	In the prior proceeding, the court determined Alex was liable.
	If you don't know why, you must not speculate about why.
	It is not an issue for you.
	You're here to determine whether the parents, family members, and FBI are entitled to more than nominal damages.
	Listen carefully to the evidence.
	At the end of the case, we'll tell you that they are not.
	We'll tell you why the evidence supports that verdict.
	Yeah, I'll get back to this.
	I agree with you on that stuff.
	Alex will testify and he'll tell you that by the time this lawsuit took place, he'd long since talking about the suit.
	He was broadcasting four hours a day, about 10,000 hours since then, six days a week.
	The plaintiffs will show you the most hurtful videos and articles they could find after years of litigation.
	You'll hear from employees of Alex's show, InfoWars.
	No one, not the plaintiffs, not the Alex Jones, no one, knows how many videos he produced.
	In part, that's because there was a culture war going on in 2018.
	We had a deplatformed election, Your Honor.
	What's the basis?
	So the judge is not allowing him to explain that YouTube deplatformed him.
	Yeah, so that he could not comply.
	And the problem with the judge, you see the judge's quick ruling.
	This is her prejudice and her bias wearing it on her sleeve.
	Immediately not allowing it, not even allowing a sidebar argument to be heard.
	Normally that's the protocol.
	He doesn't even state the grounds for the objection.
	So you see the judicial bias right in action right away.
	This is not following regular protocol.
	This is not following regular procedure.
	This is not following regular custom and practice.
	This is not in conformity with the rules of evidence or the rules of argument.
	Rules of evidence somewhat apply here as well.
	And in my view, the plaintiffs opened the door on this because they specifically said...
	That they talked about them, Infowars, not knowing how many videos they produced on this.
	So in my view, they're entitled, implying it was so many that they couldn't even keep count of them, knowing, by the way, that that's a lie.
	Plaintiff's lawyer allowed to mislead the jury by this corrupt court.
	So instead, you see...
	Patis tried to answer that and it being precluded and excluded.
	Now, let's say you're Patis and you know there's a chance, given the judge's bias in the case, that will rule that way.
	You're doing two things here.
	One is you're planting the thought into the jury's mind.
	And so when things get cut off, you let the jury...
	Why is it I'm not allowed to hear certain things?
	Why is it I'm not allowed to...
	That there's something about this case that seems wrong.
	In the jury's mind.
	So you're letting that seed be planted.
	Secondly, you're establishing, and the best way to do this is if this happens to you live, I've done this on occasion, but different lawyers differ in strategy.
	I will often go up and make a proffer.
	Say, here's the rest of the statement I would make.
	I believe it's permissible.
	Here's why.
	Just to establish the appellate record.
	Some lawyers do it after.
	The opening statement.
	They request reopening for the purposes of clarifying that.
	There's ways you can do it.
	It depends on the lawyer's personal style, which is the way to do so.
	But that's why the judge is trying to preclude the jury from knowing.
	The reason they don't know the scale of their videos is two reasons.
	One, they didn't keep digitized indexes of a sophisticated form.
	InfoWars is a talk show.
	Most media networks don't.
	They don't have that kind of record.
	Only your big corporate media networks do.
	And then secondly, what were they using as their main mechanism of storing videos and broadcasting during this time period was almost all on YouTube.
	And so what he was about to explain was that YouTube, at the request of the plaintiffs, due to the nature of the case, YouTube not only deleted his channel, but they wouldn't give him any of his archive.
	And he no longer had access to his own archive.
	It was gone forever.
	And that's why they can't search it, because YouTube even transcribes different things.
	They couldn't get access to that.
	That's the reason.
	Not because there were so many videos and stories done on Sandy Hook, which is a big, fat lie.
	It's because they, in fact...
	And by the way, in a libel case, how can you sue over statements you didn't hear and you don't even know exist?
	Someone should ask themselves that question.
	But this is why the court, it doesn't want the jury to know the real reason, because it also exposed the judge, right?
	This judge has issued a default judgment, misleading the world into believing Alex Jones didn't participate in discovery.
	In such a meaningful manner that her only remedy was the extreme death penalty sanction of stripping him of a jury trial, right, under the Connecticut Constitution and United States Constitution.
	And she doesn't want the world to know, oh, by the way, the reason why it wasn't easy to find and access videos and information is because of YouTube's deplatforming that happened because of what the plaintiff's lawyers were demanding.
	I will tell you that storage was removed.
	Usually he didn't have access to his own archives.
	Why these parents?
	Why not the children of America?
	Now that's pure natural skill as a trial lawyer right there.
	He got the statement out that the objection related to him.
	So he let the lawyer object.
	He let the judge sustain it.
	He acted like, okay, and by the way, here's the rest.
	And the others who never filed suit in Connecticut or Texas, you will learn that each of the parents and family members here transformed their grief and rage over the death of a loved one into a powerful and effective motive for opposing gun violence and promoting school safety.
	And who can blame them?
	Who can blame them?
	They're members of interest groups.
	They hold vigils.
	They testified before Congress and state lawmakers.
	They've become partisans.
	They walked into a device of the debate about guns in the Second Amendment and the extent to which the state should be more impressive and be making a state for madmen.
	Do they overstate the harm that Alex caused them because they want to silence him for political reasons?
	Because he disagrees with their point of view?
	I would suggest to you that is the case.
	We'll argue that at the end.
	Sustained.
	Maybe a sidebar, please.
	Oh, let's hear it.
	Okay, quickly, Robert.
	We've got to hear that.
	Well, we're behind anyhow, but what were you going to say?
	Yeah.
	So that was a really well done aspect.
	So how do you take a case that, according to the plaintiffs, it's these nice, quiet, private parents who are being harassed by a so-called army, where Alex Jones is the general, for his own personal profit?
	That's the plaintiff's story.
	To what it actually is.
	Say, these are people who, for understandable reasons, became political partisans.
	They became advocates for legislative reform, about issues related to guns, about issues related to schools, about issues related to public safety.
	And in the process, they entered a politically divisive culture war.
	And that's where Alex Jones comes into the equation.
	Not in the context of them being private parents grieving, But them being public partisans advocating.
	And he's on the opposite side.
	And the real reason for this case is because of their partisan disagreement with him, not because of personal harm caused by them as private parents.
	Now, the objection, I'm sure, is they don't want...
	Now, I don't know how that isn't pertinent.
	This is about damages.
	Did they actually suffer emotional distress from Alex Jones?
	And what would compensate for that?
	Clearly their motivation.
	Clearly their other approach to him.
	I mean, all these things would be relevant.
	And notice how quickly the judge is ready to say, sustain!
	Sustain!
	The plaintiff's lawyers could blow a leaf across this lazy, corrupt judge's desk and she'd rush to sign it.
	That's how pitiful and disgraceful this court is.
	Well, let's hear the sidebar because we're going to hear an interesting sidebar now.
	They've been doing this...
	The sidebar's live, Robert, but the jury's not supposed to hear the sidebar, right?
	Correct.
	So we're not either, right?
	This is objecting.
	There's something about no bearing on damages.
	Yes, it does have very high-I think motive and bias I'm sorry, I'm paraphrasing I think motive and interest and the outcome are never collateral and I think that We can't argue that they're exaggerating their damages claims for ulterior motives.
	I think that's what it is.
	Okay.
	Okay, he made a good point.
	He did.
	He made the exact point I made.
	She's going to sustain the objection.
	Look at that fake smile.
	Didn't she come across as a mean, vindictive...
	Her opening instructions to the jury irritated everybody in the chat.
	Our contention, to be clear, is that the damage claims here are exaggerated because of the idiosyncratic motives of the plaintiffs, transforming their griefs into political weapons.
	You'll have to decide why that's true.
	But here's what...
	Great phrase.
	Transforming their grief into political weapons.
	I mean, that is exactly what the case is about, but that's a great cap depiction of what, that's just a very good phraseology.
	It's a memorable phraseology, and it takes, how do you take grief and make sure it doesn't equal a big monetary amount when that grief isn't the real reason we're here?
	You take, you make it, and then Alex Jones is not the source of that grief.
	You do exactly what he just did.
	You hear the word grief and you think political weapon.
	And all of a sudden you go from wanting to go up in damages to wanting to go down.
	As you learned in 2016, Alex Jones became a household name again when a presidential candidate used him to derake her opponent and talked about Sandy Hook, Hillary Clinton.
	She never got sued.
	Objection, Your Honor.
	Sustained.
	Can we stop this, please?
	Sustained.
	Move on, Attorney Patterson, please.
	How many times did you notice how many times I objected?
	Pause.
	So what's the one person this corrupt hack judge won't allow to be named in this proceeding?
	The one person who put Alex Jones and Sandy Hook on public blast?
	Hillary Rodham Clinton.
	If this doesn't expose what a corrupt court this is...
	Nothing else better does.
	I like the fact that he doesn't even look back at the judge before moving on.
	Head back to her, looking at the jury.
	Let's hear what he says.
	Letting them tell their story.
	Attorney Pattis, that is improper and either finish your opening or be seated.
	In 2017...
	There's a word for this judge and it rhymes with Rick.
	Totally ignoring her.
	He's just back to the judge.
	Megyn Kelly didn't get sued.
	Objection to your honor.
	Sanctions.
	Sanctions.
	People wrote these folks hate me.
	People stopped them.
	Is he going to do it?
	Is he going to let him make him sit?
	Each slight, some of them will tell you, was as though a scat had been torn from a wound that will never really heal.
	They blame Alex for all of it, all of it.
	You'll hear, you've heard some of the things that Alex uses to strike fear.
	When Alex testifies, he'll tell you, you know, he had on his show a man named James Tracy.
	He's a co-conspirator with Alex, as they'll say, a professor who questioned it.
	James Fetcher, who wrote a book, No One Died in the Book, another co-conspirator that Alex is responsible for.
	You've already heard about Wolfgang Kolbeck, another co-conspirator that Alex is responsible for.
	Steven Piesnick, a man with shade of view, who claims ties to the intelligence community, another conspirator that Alex is responsible for.
	And all the unnamed and unknown persons that they will tell you about that won't be able to identify.
	At the center of this web of lies and deceits is Alice Jones, the bag man for the conspiracy theory, and poster child for the battle for the truth.
	Meanwhile, Alice will tell you the internet remains awash for folks.
	The CIA killed Kennedy.
	9 /11 was an insight.
	Covid was a "pretext" for government control of our lives.
	At the end of the case, you'll be asked to evaluate the evidence and ask what exactly they've proven.
	That it hurts to lose a loved one.
	The world is filled with unhinged people.
	We're becoming a failed state.
	Alex is bold, loud, brazen, often offensive, and a liar.
	We score on our side how many times they use the word lie.
	Eight so far.
	Liar, liar, pants on fire.
	I can't shout enough.
	We could respond by saying, and I ask you to consider this each time you hear the words, six stones may break my bones, but fours will never hurt you.
	When did political debate become toxic?
	I like this guy.
	What will they prove and how?
	You will see videos of Alex ranting, raising questions, poking whole of things we all accept.
	You'll hear and see news stories.
	You'll hear and have heard about his reach and spreads fear.
	Does Alex go out and create his viewers or see the canary in the coal mine responding to something you feel like in the world, that something's not right?
	They get to turn them off for you.
	Is this not stopping Alex Jones or just after proving their damages?
	We have to conclude that because he caused the anonymous and almost always unnamed person to arrest, they need millions and millions, maybe tens of millions of dollars.
	Seriously?
	Who's Alex Jones?
	He's a mid-40s, that is the Mesh.
	Remember, cartoon character.
	The kid who was always in trouble doing more things than he could.
	That was Alex.
	Now he's in his mid-40s.
	He's got a television station.
	Some people find him entertaining.
	Some people find him informative.
	Most of us just ignore him.
	Most of us just ignore him.
	In Dallas, Texas, Boston, Texas, is a young man who became a cable TV female.
	Soon he was broadcast coast to coast, questioning what we all know to be true about the government's killing of 80 folks at the Branch of the Indian Com-Com in Waco in 1983, 1993, excuse me.
	What happened at Ruby Ridge, where government agents killed Randy Weaver's wife and child in 1992?
	He raised questions.
	Did Timothy McVeigh act alone, or did he even cause the devastating bombing at the Murrow building in 1995 in Oklahoma City?
	He killed many children.
	He worked on a danger center.
	He called the bombing in the World Trade Center before Osama bin Laden and he bombed it in 2001.
	And he'll say, what was the government not seeing that I could see from a small radio studio in Austin?
	And he'll tell you, if he's permitted to, How do I do it?
	There we go.
	Very good line there.
	You see how he got that in?
	He said, he'll tell you if he's permitted to.
	In other words, now he's incorporating.
	This is a political case.
	They told you it's political.
	They told you their definition of justice is to punish Alex Jones' speech.
	This isn't about compensation.
	This isn't about families.
	This isn't about grief.
	This is about political weaponization of this case for legal to do something the Constitution prohibits and is now integrating the court's sustained objections into part of this political case, saying there's things he wants to tell you if he's permitted to.
	And he timed this after three different times she scolded him and cut him off.
	Saying, see, even the court doesn't want you to know what the whole truth is.
	And if the truth will set them free, why is the court so scared of even a liberal Democratic Connecticut jury hearing the truth about what Sandy Hook and Alex Jones said and did and the whole story of it?
	And he did a great job.
	And notice how he, right after he did, if you're permitted to, he did it quickly and then moved out.
	Didn't drag it on.
	Just quick, boom, in and out.
	And then he transitioned to some of the hottest topics.
	Here he's doing a good job of what, honestly, the lawyer, I wish he would have done in the Austin case.
	Now maybe that judge might have locked him up forever, so who knows.
	But here he ties in these other issues.
	Ties in Waco.
	Ties in Ruby Ridge.
	Ties in Oklahoma City.
	Ties in 9-11.
	And then he transitioned into that, and this is the week, you know, Sunday was just 9-11.
	And then, in terms of the anniversary date.
	And then ties in, if he's permitted to, and what does he go to?
	The Trilateral Commission.
	These big things that a lot of, what the plaintiffs probably don't know and understand because they live in this tiny little political bubble, is an ordinary person, an ordinary juror, believes at least one major conspiracy theory.
	The average person in America believes at least one.
	These elites think that nobody could credibly believe any of these.
	They're the idiots.
	They believe in some of the dumbest conspiracy theories known to man.
	So that's smart.
	Then that's relatable, right?
	You want the jury to be able to relate.
	How do they relate to this Austin, Texas radio talk show guy?
	This over-the-top personality.
	He's making him relatable in two ways.
	One, he's kind of the out-of-control kid, always doing some crazy stuff and acting up, and everybody kind of knows somebody like that.
	Maybe they were that way themselves at one point.
	So that makes him relatable, and it puts him in a whole different context.
	And that's why he said, look, some people love him.
	Some people listen to him.
	Maybe he's really the canary in the coal mine on some stuff, by the way.
	But, hey, most of us ignore him, right?
	So he's saying, is this someone you would take seriously?
	Is this someone you would get upset or offended?
	Bye.
	Bye their statements.
	Really?
	And maybe we really want that speech because it does present, oh, maybe I should look into that and double check.
	And while doing the kid story and then incorporating the politicization of the case.
	So very good personalizing Jones in an accessible, relatable way and making the broader topic protecting speech because it can be the canary in the coal mine and this whole case being a political hit job.
	He'll tell you about globalists.
	He'll tell you that he thinks there are big money, big tech people seeking to exert control over how we live our daily lives.
	Long before you were reading news stories about artificial intelligence and big tech, Alex was screaming about it.
	He's an angry populist warning you about the loss of significance in your own life.
	Great, great definition.
	Ever heard about the House or the World Economic Forum?
	He'll tell you about that.
	Or Klaus Schwab.
	Okay, very nice.
	The answer to 1984, Orwell's class, he tells you, is 1776.
	It's a serious message.
	It's not a lie.
	We live in deeply divided times, and plenty of people think 1776 is the answer to the 1984 we are becoming.
	He's also the guy who worries that the chemicals in our water might be turning frogs gay, that weather balloons are secret government weapons, that trails from airplanes are seeded with toxins that are destroying and controlling us.
	Here's a good thing, because here he's saying there's one of two possibilities with you as a juror.
	One, you either think these things are totally wacky, crazy, almost comedically crazy, in which case, would you be bothered and offended and upset and emotionally distraught by what Alex Jones has to say?
	Or you actually believe one of the things you're talking about, and you're thinking, that's not so crazy, that's not so nuts.
	I want someone to be able to voice that opinion.
	That's why it's win-win, no matter which side of that aisle you fall on.
	And the number of people who believe one of the things he's talking about right here, and he's covering his mouth, which is like, geez, I'm not even supposed to talk about this.
	That's the subtle hint.
	It's because some of those jurors are thinking, well, I know that they're turning the frogs gay.
	I know they're poisoning the water.
	I know there's something.
	Not all of them by any stretch, but chances are, I've seen the public opinion polling date on this.
	I've studied this for a long time, independent of Alex Jones.
	People believe at least one thing that mainstream media thinks is crazy.
	They believe at least one conspiracy theory that mainstream media thinks is crazy.
	And they're personally attached to them.
	And that makes them think, okay, so Jones is a guy that comes from this very distinct perspective.
	And either I think it's crazy such that I don't pay attention to anything he says and wouldn't be emotionally distraught because he said it.
	Or two, I think I really believe some of those things and I want other people to be able to listen and hear to those ideas.
	That's how it's win-win.
	That Hillary abuses children, that pedophiles run the government, and that people actually eat babies to remain forever young.
	Which of these messages do we take serious enough to regard them as a threat we should shut off, and at what point do we regard them as the crank on the village green, the person we can walk away from if we choose to?
	He's an ordinary populist who fears the rights of ordinary Americans will be swallowed whole by big business globally billionaires.
	He thinks we are on the cusp of slavery, I'll tell you.
	But to be enslaved, we must first disarm the people.
	The Second Amendment must be dismantled.
	You saw yourself the controversy over the U.S. Supreme Court's decision just the other day.
	He fears the government will seize any pretext to disarm this, and so on 1214, 2012, he saw a plot, and he did the unthinkable to a grieving parent.
	He questioned the pain of defining it, and for this he must be silenced.
	That's what this case comes down to.
	We silence and historically have silence.
	Unusual, a seer, mad men who tell us things too uncomfortable to bear.
	If you try to silence Alex Jones in this case, You'll be asking big oil to silence Greta Thunberg and her concerns about climate change.
	Don't fall for the political narrative.
	Object to the continuing suggestion that...
	Sustained.
	Thank you.
	The continued suggestion that their own opening statement is somehow what the case is about.
	He made the opening statement.
	He made the opening statement that said justice...
	Equals taking Alex Jones off the air, not letting him go back into that studio ever again.
	He chose to make that, and now he realizes how damning and damaging it is, and he wants it not to be allowed for the defense to actually do a defense, which is that's a microcosm of this entire case, stripping and silencing and gagging Alex Jones in the courtroom so that they can permanently gag him outside it.
	He's apologized.
	He will tell you that he's grown weary of the expense and time this litigation has consumed.
	You'll see a video of him of interrupting on air.
	So frustrated he's beside himself.
	I killed the children.
	I killed them.
	I went into school.
	Bam, bam, bam, bam.
	Shot each one of them.
	Yep, that's right.
	When I go out on the street, people forget Adam Lanza was the killer and they think it's me.
	It made a scapegoat to Alex Jones, a whipping boy.
	We will ask you for justice here and put an end to our 10-year preoccupation with Sandy Hooker.
	No one on my side of the island will minimize for a moment what these people lost.
	It is unthinkable.
	But what you stand to lose for the verdict that silences Alex Jones is unthinkable as well.
	It's a marketplace deprived of a voice you should have the choice to hear.
	You will make the world a better place by returning a modest verdict here.
	A verdict acknowledges the distress the parents felt, but a verdict that also states an inconvenient truth.
	All that these parents have suffered does not transform them.
	into oracles that let them determine what you should and should not be able to hear what you say.
	Money is their weapon.
	Exactly.
	That statement is what these cases are about.
	That suffering this Terrible trauma or tragedy doesn't give you the right to censor and suppress speech you don't like.
	One doesn't equal the other.
	If someone caused you injury from making false statements about you, that's recoverable.
	What's not is the right to use their speech because you don't like it to censor it and suppress it forever.
	He's done this throughout.
	Don't let grief become a political weapon.
	Don't let trauma...
	Don't let this be this case about reasonable damages proportionate to actual harm inflicted by Alex Jones, not suppressing and punishing free speech and press in America.
	Follow the law, yes.
	Disarm them.
	First day came for Alex Jones.
	Who's next?
	Great line.
	Great way to conclude.
	As you will recall from my preliminary instructions, opening statements are not proof.
	They're not evidence.
	They are simply statements.
	Well, it's obvious why she's not.
	Ignore the defense.
	Ignore the defense.
	A lawyer has the right and sometimes the obligation to object, and you should not hold it against Attorney Maddy or Attorney Paterson.
	See how these mean judges, they can't even hide their meanness in their...
	See, this is why a lot of judges, in the federal system especially, never want there to be cameras in the courtroom.
	Because when you see, when ordinary people, like a lot of people thought, oh, Barnes likes Alex Jones, he supported, he once represented him, he's, you know, exaggerating about these judges.
	And then people see them and they send me messages and say, you understated it.
	These judges are some of the worst human beings I've ever seen in my life.
	I wouldn't want this judge to judge anything.
	Not my landlord, tenant, dispute, nothing.
	She's saying, don't hold the objections against him if it's him or Pattis, except Pattis didn't object.
	So what she's basically doing here is she's playing defense for the plaintiff's attorneys because he's the only one who objected.
	And don't hold it against him.
	Sometimes he has the obligation to do it.
	He's actually doing his job well.
	And if Pattis didn't object, he's not doing his job well.
	And you're seeing a gender dynamic present.
	These sort of maternalistic...
	I mean, the rising statism of political beliefs comes overwhelmingly from women with college and post-college degrees.
	But it's not just that group.
	If you study it more psychologically, you find, by the way, higher levels of mental disorder.
	This is just...
	The studies.
	So take it up with the studies, folks.
	Liberal women report higher levels of mental health problems than pretty much anybody in the political spectrum as a demographic.
	But what you're seeing is they can't even hide it in their facial posture.
	The hostility, the meanness, the vindictiveness, the power madness.
	They are physically what you imagine them to be.
	And this is why a lot of them don't want the world to see them on full display.
	He objects if the lawyer makes objections, regardless of whether the court sustains or overrules the objection.
	So we are going to take a 10-minute recess.
	I'm going to excuse the jury first, Mr. Ferraro, and I am going to stay on the record to deal with some housekeeping issues.
	All right?
	During this recess.
	Remember, you are to abide by the rules of juror conduct that I went through in excruciating detail.
	So we will see you shortly and I will remain on the record.
	Robert, I think we're going to bring it over to Rumble in two minutes.
	It's been two and a half hours, not half an hour.
	People, here's the link.
	Rumble, link.
	I think she's going to chew out the judge.
	She's going to chew out the lawyers.
	He's going to chew off the lawyer for having not listened to her objections, but not in front of the jury, because she's objective and fair.
	Let's see what happens here.
	Mr. Pattis.
	Please be seated.
	So, 10-minute break gives us 25 minutes.
	I plan to start and go that 25 minutes before the lunch recess.
	I'm going to maximize each day the best that we can.
	I do want to state on the record that in the overflow, It came to my attention that someone was in violation of my court order, filming and photographing the opening statements and apparently posted it on Twitter.
	I did confiscate the device.
	I had the individual removed from the courthouse.
	I'm not playing here.
	If anybody in this courtroom or the overflow courtroom is using their device.
	In an unauthorized manner, I will confiscate it, and it will be removed from the courthouse.
	So only the individuals who have been previously authorized may do so.
	Mr. Farrell, I think the one juror in the front row in the black sweater, I didn't see her juror sticker on her.
	I don't know if it fell off or if it was hidden, but can we please make sure that it gets on her?
	Okay?
	20 seconds.
	We're going to rumble, people.
	Your Honor, we have a request for a curative instruction.
	I expect when Alex Jones comes up here, he's going to violate the court's orders.
	I expect that.
	I do not expect Attorney Pattis in his opening to unwind the default by repeatedly stating and suggesting that Alex Jones was just questioning, are we going to silence the crazy person in the town square for just, he was doing it by referring to the other events that Alex Jones has questioned.
	The jury is going to be instructed that Alex Jones intended these statements, knowing that they were false.
	And so we need a curative instruction at the outset because what Attorney Pattis has done has injected not only politics, but he's injected this idea that Alex Jones was merely questioning when the jury is going to be instructed in the courts, determined that he intentionally inflicted emotional distress, that he intentionally lied, that he acted with Mal.
	I hadn't intended to go as far as I did until I heard the opening statement that my adversaries gave.
	I could have objected at the first sentence.
	This has nothing to do with stopping Alex Jones.
	This is a compensatory damage claim.
	And they went 15 minutes.
	You know, stopping Alex Jones is not an element of their damages.
	They went 15 minutes before they even turned to anything related to Mr. Jones.
	35 minutes before they mentioned the family.
	And then they gave a passing reference to damages.
	Alex Jones must be stopped, they said.
	And it is our contention that Mr. Jones, that the plaintiffs in this case exaggerate the harm that he caused to him, or that he caused them, and they exaggerate it for political reasons.
	And so if they had not come in and said stop Alex Jones, that objection and request for curative instruction might have some teeth.
	I don't intend to give a curative instruction at this point, but as things develop, and especially if there are issues, further issues, then renew your request.
	And I would be inclined to do so right in the midst of the witness.
	And I am going to deal with Mr. Jones when he testifies.
	That's understood.
	Oh, I'm going to deal with him when he testifies.
	I do expect, as I discussed, Attorney Pantatis, and I thought you were on board with it, I expected to canvas him on the issues that were off-limits.
	The law of the case is not complicated, but I do think the court is...
	We might object to a case.
	And I did tell you that if there are issues, I will...
	Address contempt on the spot.
	I believe you said the last time that you can't remember your exact words, but something along the lines I thought that you weren't going to be able to control what he said.
	So I'm just laying it out here now, putting everybody on notice.
	I know you'll do your job, Attorney Patterson, and explain to him what is off limits.
	All right, so we will Go over to Rumble, people.
	Now just take a five-minute recess, which is basically a bathroom break, and we will have 25 minutes before the lunch break.
	All right, people, I'm ending it on YouTube, going over to Rumble.
	You know where to go, people.
	Five, three, two, over to Rumble now.
	And remove it?
	Oh, yeah, remove.
	Here we go.
	We're on Rumble, Robert.
	Okay, now we're way behind, by the way.
	So let me see where we are if I go live.
	Yeah, no, no.
	Pattis is good.
	Pattis has got balls because I thought she was going to sanction him or threaten sanctions the third time he did it because it was obvious what he was doing.
	That's an article about the trial that I might bring up afterwards.
	Robert, you're still there?
	I'm still here.
	Okay, good.
	Where is my feed?
	It's right here.
	The feed is right here.
	Sorry, not my feed.
	The feed.
	Do I click live and take a chance?
	We're well behind.
	Here, I'll skip right ahead to...
	Yeah, just skip to wherever our witness is on the stand.
	Robert, I'm going to go to the little boys' room.
	Anybody who's wondering how I've held in pee for two and a half hours.
	Okay, so here we hear...
	We don't hear anything.
	Okay, hold on.
	Here we go.
	Okay.
	We're not yet back to...
	How far behind are we?
	Oh, 30 minutes behind.
	Okay, but then there's a lot of...
	Sure, they're going to be in any second, but okay.
	By the way, notice...
	They're obsessed with not allowing Alex Jones to defend himself in court.
	Or that they're threatening him with contempt.
	If you talk about anything, we don't allow you to talk about it.
	It shows what a show trial it is.
	And that's your classic example of a show trial.
	Welcome back.
	Okay, Robert, you're going to man it for 30 seconds.
	Yeah.
	Some of you have water now.
	Yeah, sure.
	Notice, by the way, the disparity of presentation.
	So I'm watching you with particular inference.
	There's two types of jurors.
	Judges love to embrace each other.
	Those who take the same seats every time are those who mix up a little bit.
	The lawyers know this, so I was sort of wondering.
	I think I have you guys figured out.
	So let the record reflect at the entire jury panel.
	It's in the jury box.
	We're just about to start the evidence.
	And this jury is made up of only six.
	There's four alternate presses.
	It's only a six-person jury that will decide.
	But what we'll do at this point is we will hand out the notepads, Mr. Ferraro, and utensils for anyone who's interested.
	If you're undecided, you can take one.
	And not use it, you'll let Mr. Faro know.
	The only thing is, please make sure that you write your name from the outside cover.
	And as I said, after every break, every recess, end of the day, Mr. Faro will get them, secure them, and no one will look at their notepads.
	And just take a moment when you get your notepad, if you're taking one, to please write your name on the cover so we don't have any issues redistributing them.
	Thank you.
	All right, you may call your first witness counsel.
	You may call your first witness.
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	The plan is to call Bill Aldenburg.
	All right.
	What did I miss?
	Who's the witness?
	Bill Aldenburg.
	I don't recognize it.
	Probably, if they go with the Texas script, it'll be somebody who reported it.
	My name is William Aldenberg, A-L-D-E-N-B-E-R-G, and I live in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.
	Thank you.
	All right, sir, I see you've brought your own water.
	Otherwise, I would offer you to do this refill if you need or should be.
	Is there a picture down there?
	Yes, sir.
	Thank you.
	Help yourself at any time, and you may inquire whenever you're ready to counsel.
	Thank you, Your Honor, and good afternoon, Bill.
	Good afternoon.
	Bill, I just want to orient the jury.
	Am I correct that on December 14, 2012, you were a member of the FBI SWAT team in Connecticut that responded to the San Diego School?
	The FBI agent.
	Law enforcement response.
	Bill, why don't we start by having you tell the jury a little bit about yourself.
	Oh, and I should also say, Damage his reputation?
	You're not here in your capacity as an FBI agent.
	He's not a reputation actor.
	To clarify, people keep saying I'm retired.
	I'm not retired.
	You're not retired.
	No, sir.
	Right.
	But I'm here in my personal capacity, but I am an FBI agent.
	I'm here in my personal capacity.
	Okay.
	And I just wanted to make that clear.
	So please, would you please tell the jury a little bit about yourself, both your personal background and your professional background?
	Yes, sir.
	Pause.
	Hold on a second.
	Still can't figure out how to pop chat.
	I don't think I can raise chat in Rumble, which is very frustrating, but we're going to resolve that.
	Okay, sorry, Robert, go ahead.
	Just that this is really not a good way to open a direct examination.
	You see this in state courts, and particularly when you're the favored side.
	You get away with asking questions that your first-year law professor is a first-year law student.
	Doing mock trial or trial practice would tell you not to do, would fail you for doing.
	You're kind of like this, right?
	So when he starts over the leading question, you're not allowed to lead your own witness.
	It says, weren't on this date, weren't you this person at this time in this position?
	You know, it's like, what?
	Now, I guess he's trying to do that to tell the jury quickly who he is.
	And then he gets wrong that the guy's retired.
	The personal capacity issue is actually a giveaway.
	Because they probably could not get an enforceable subpoena against the FBI.
	This is because under Tui principles, a U.S. Supreme Court case, the government, if they're not a party to a case, is almost impossible to use judicial process to force to testify in a case.
	Which is ridiculous to me, but the Supreme Court basically carved out an exception for them.
	So he's not here on the FBI's dime.
	Or FBI's time.
	He wants to emphasize here personally.
	But that suggests a personal motivation.
	A personal prejudice even.
	So I don't know if I were him as a witness and if I prepped him as a witness, I would not have had that be the first thing the guy says.
	Is he a witness or is he one of the plaintiffs?
	He's just a witness.
	To my knowledge, he's no connection to that.
	And so the...
	But the other thing is these kind of, hey, man, will you just tell us why you're here?
	That's where a lot of ordinary people would like to have a question asked, but that's not a proper question.
	Who's your name?
	You go off and you establish the foundation.
	What's your name?
	Where do you work?
	How long have you worked there?
	What kind of work do you do there?
	What are you trained to do?
	Were you employed there on X date?
	What happened on X-State?
	Or were you tasked to a particular place?
	So on and so forth.
	Rather than this kind of, hey, I mean, that kind of informality is generally disfavored in court.
	Because it invites what they call narrative.
	And you're not supposed to be witness storytelling.
	You're just supposed to be answering questions.
	Let's see what this guy's going to testify on.
	I grew up in northern Washington, a town called Linfield.
	I grew up in a town called Linfield, Boston.
	Now, for those people out there watching that have heard us talk about trials before, how do you know this guy is a professional witness?
	Looking at the jury automatically without no prompt, unless he's been prepped.
	I get into debates with other lawyers about whether a witness should look at the jury.
	And my counter, and I was like, I get, you know, it depends on the witness, their ability to communicate naturally and the rest.
	But, you know, Amber Heard did it in kind of a weird way.
	But that's because of Amber Heard.
	I don't know if there's a way to avoid that.
	But my counter has always been, if looking at the jury is a bad idea, why does every professional law enforcement witness do it as a natural habit and customer?
	Because they think, at least, it works.
	That it leads to personal engagement and increased level of trust and confidence because of the eye contact.
	It also allows the witness to get a certain emotional and other observers, jury consultants, etc., to get a certain vibe of where the jury's mindset is, etc.
	But what this guy really is, is a professional witness, likely here to tell the dramatic trauma of Sandy Hook on that day, which once again...
	Doesn't clearly correspond to these plaintiffs' damages.
	University, graduated in 91, degree in criminal justice, was commissioned in the Army Reserve.
	Spent 14 years in the Army Reserve as an infantry officer.
	I, in 1998, went to the police academy and became a police officer in my hometown.
	And in 2002...
	July 2002, I went to the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia, and became an FBI agent.
	I'm married.
	My wife and I have been married for 24 years, and I have three children.
	Sons in graduate school, a daughter that's in college, and my youngest is in seventh grade.
	What in the world does this have to do with it?
	I'm trying to make him personable, I guess, but it's...
	It's patently irrelevant and immaterial.
	And it's why judges don't like these open-ended questions.
	The witness is not there to just tell you a story.
	Now, you can argue whether that's the way the courtroom should or shouldn't be, but when they say he's narrating, Judge, that this is precisely what they're saying is not allowed under the rules.
	So the very first question, very first set of answers, in violation of the rules.
	Of course, the court is magically mute because it's the cleaners.
	Just want to hear where he's going with this.
	What's he there to testify on?
	He's there in his personal capacity, but he's an FBI agent or FBI law enforcement.
	Bill, I can see that just taking the stand is emotional for you today.
	You can take a break at any time that you'd like.
	Thank you.
	You've testified many times as an FBI agent in the past, right?
	Well, then I can testify in multiple trials.
	Pause.
	Multiple grand jury's state.
	Professional witness?
	So he's known about this for years.
	He's a professional witness.
	He's here in his personal capacity, so he's personally committed to it.
	It's been 10 years since thereabouts, since Sandy Hook, and he's already got the tears ready to go.
	Do you naturally believe him or not believe him when you know he's a professional witness who's testified so many times he can't care to count?
	And he's already crying as soon as he starts talking?
	But Robert, I mean, are we blackpilled?
	Are we cynical?
	Or does a reasonable, impartial observer have this response?
	Because to me, it's a no-brainer.
	That I don't know.
	But it tells you where the plaintiffs are going.
	Cry, cry, cry, cry, cry.
	Get mad, get mad, get mad, get mad.
	Cry, cry, cry, cry, cry.
	Get mad, get mad, get mad, get mad.
	But you've never testified in a setting like this?
	No, not in my personal capacity.
	No, sir.
	How long have you been married, Bill?
	24 years.
	Bill?
	Pause.
	Should you join the FBI in 2000?
	Go for it.
	That's a patent violation.
	The rules almost universally require you only refer to a witness by their last name.
	Why would he be so cordial with them?
	Are they best friends?
	Unless this guy's the plaintiff.
	Maybe he's the FBI plaintiff.
	I thought it was an ex-FBI plaintiff.
	So maybe that's who he is.
	But we'll find out soon enough.
	I assumed he was a law enforcement guy there to introduce the Sandy Hook story, but maybe he's both.
	Maybe he's the plaintiff.
	I don't remember the name of the plaintiff.
	I don't remember the name of the FBI agent.
	Why did you decide to go into public service?
	Like a lot of us say, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a police officer.
	When I graduated in 91, there weren't a lot of police jobs like there are today.
	And so I did some private night work for a while and still couldn't get a police job.
	And so then I decided to go to law school.
	And I went to law school.
	I graduated law school in 98. So he's a lawyer.
	So that's how he got a gig.
	He got a lot of hurt.
	Okay.
	So somehow this guy didn't qualify to get a cop job anywhere.
	It's a law degree and now he gets elevated to the FBI.
	This is why our FBI is so pitiful.
	Too many lawyers.
	I've had the opportunity to work a number of investigations over my career in the wide ranging.
	The way he's crying so often, he must be the point.
	Gang cases.
	I'm going to go just double check here.
	Drug cases.
	I've had a number of successful public corruption cases.
	Civil rights investigations.
	And I've had a wide range of experience in the FBI that treated me very well.
	Have you considered it part of your own personal mission to do what you could to protect the public?
	Yes.
	Yes, sir.
	Is that why you tried to become a member of the FBI SWAT team?
	Yes.
	Can you tell the jury a little bit about that?
	What that entails?
	Sure.
	In 2004, I tried out for the FBI SWAT team in New Haven.
	You have to meet certain qualifications, physical qualifications, tactical firearms.
	I made it through the training.
	FBI's New Haven team from 2004 to 2019.
	He's one of the plaintiffs to the suit.
	As part of the FBI, in particular, as part of the SWAT team.
	Tactically, I think major mistake to start the trial with your least sympathetic plaintiff.
	Because this is someone who has no one to my knowledge who died.
	This is someone he's saying he suffered personal trauma from Alex Jones questioning San Diego.
	Now this exposes how problematic this case is.
	How is it that law enforcement now gets to sue you if you question what law enforcement did?
	People should understand that this precedent is meant to set up a precedent to sue anyone challenging elections.
	Can election officials now sue us if we say the election was stolen?
	There was election fornication?
	That they stole the 2020 election or any other election?
	On these grounds, the answer is yes.
	As Norm Pattis said, Alex Jones first.
	Who next?
	Are we next?
	Second, can the FBI sue for anyone exposing FBI corruption?
	Talking about FBI corruption.
	Discussing FBI corruption.
	Could J. Edgar Hoover have sued back into the day for the statements made about him on these grounds?
	To start off the case, this makes it clear how political it is.
	And how tied to Trump it is.
	Because you're saying, look, you're the great FBI, and you've been defamed by Alex Jones.
	Right?
	And shut up, Alex Jones, forever, because he defamed the great FBI.
	By the way, to my knowledge, this guy's being allowed to sue, even though to my knowledge, Alex Jones never talked about him at all.
	I mean, the parents' argument is derivative.
	Well, he made certain broad claims that somebody could infer.
	It was about us that if they looked us up on the internet, they might find us.
	Only case in history that allowed that to be grounds for defamation.
	But this guy, that's not true of at all.
	This guy's suing on the grounds that Alex Jones questioned Sandy Hook.
	That means he questioned the FBI.
	I was in the FBI at Sandy Hook.
	Hence, I get to sue Alex Jones into oblivion.
	How insane is that?
	Non-family member plaintiff.
	Yeah.
	Let's hear where he goes with this.
	that he was targeted by conspiracy theories why i've lost my window darn it where's the window hold on one second people i can't find there it is okay Can you tell the jury a little bit about how you consider the importance of your own personal integrity and professionalism?
	Yeah, this is ridiculous.
	This guy should have been the last witness after you've done family members.
	I mean, obviously, as an FBI agent, you have a lot of responsibility as a SWAT team member.
	What kind of question is this?
	You're taking on the responsibility.
	Sorry, I was just trying to clarify.
	Yeah, you're just trying to testify for him.
	Tell the jury the role that integrity and professionalism plays both in your job as an FBI agent and as a SWAT team member.
	See how they think the FBI is the greatest thing?
	They're bad timing.
	They're hoping the jury is all a bunch of liberal Democrats who also work at the FBI.
	Everything we do is based on our integrity.
	Oh my God!
	Everything the FBI does is based on their integrity.
	They don't have any integrity.
	They're the definition of the lack of integrity.
	Everything but integrity is what FBI stands for.
	Where were you first thing in the morning?
	It was a SWAT training day.
	We were required to train so many days a month.
	That particular day was a SWAT training day.
	We were at the range in Middletown, Connecticut.
	So I would have gone from my residence directly to the range.
	Okay.
	And when you say the range, you're talking about firearms training range in Middletown?
	Yes, sir.
	Okay.
	And that's a state police facility that's also used by the FBI for that?
	Yes.
	Were other members of your team there that morning?
	It's actually a Middletown police facility that's used by the FBI, sir.
	Okay.
	There were other FBI team members there that morning.
	How many?
	Altogether, I would say approximately nine, maybe ten.
	Did you have a doctor who's also part of your team there?
	Yes.
	We have a doctor assigned to the team.
	He works for UConn Medical.
	Part of his job, he's assigned to tactical teams in the state.
	And why does a doctor get assigned to the SWAT team?
	The missions you do are extremely dangerous.
	For example, you're arresting the most violent people or the most dangerous situations where something really bad could happen.
	So we have a doctor on the team in case something happens to one of us or to someone in the building or residence.
	You mean unless you go all Waco on them?
	Unless you go all Ruby Ridge on them?
	It gives you a sense of calmness to have an emergency doctor with you when you're hitting a door and people could possibly get shot or killed.
	That morning, when you were at the range in Middletown, did your team receive a call to respond to a location?
	The team doctor received a call from what I believe to be the medical speculation hearsay.
	We're not offering anything for the truth, Your Honor.
	We're offering you to.
	Thank you.
	You can continue.
	The team doctor received a call from one of the paramedics from the state police team.
	It was something about...
	This guy's going to cry every five seconds.
	But he does look damaged.
	He's an FBI.
	He's an FBI swat.
	And he can't cry every five seconds.
	Robert, he looks totally traumatized.
	He looks broken, as I think most people would do.
	Do you and your team understand that you were to go to Newtown?
	Yes.
	Basically, there was some type of active shooter situation at a school in Newtown.
	I mean, I don't think he's acting.
	I think he looks totally broken.
	My first thing was, well, where's Newtown?
	I didn't.
	FBI, 10 years, Swatshaw, professional witness?
	Bridgeport covers Newtown.
	And 10 years later, you can't even talk about any of it without crying uncontrollably?
	Paramedic needed Rich to come to Newtown.
	Rich is a doctor.
	Yes.
	And if that is the case, he probably should be in the FBI.
	So at some point it was decided by my bosses or some objections, speculating, non-responsive at this point.
	It's okay.
	I'll take it step by step.
	I take it that as a result of that call, your team was dispatched down to the active shooter situation in Newtown.
	Yes, sir.
	Now, obviously you weren't expecting that that morning, correct?
	No, sir.
	Expected to do training at the rate.
	Okay.
	For reasons that we come clear to the jury later, I want you to tell them about what your gear situation...
	About the purpose of the question, Judge.
	What was your gear situation that day, Bill?
	So, I had just received...
	His name is William...
	That day or so before.
	And you're supposed to use Mr. or Mrs. or Miss in their last name.
	A couple years.
	Bill, it seems totally...
	Because the material breaks down.
	So I received a new vest.
	I was in the range house, which is a small room with multiple folding tables.
	I had my stuff laid out on the folding tables.
	And I was moving my equipment from my old vest to my new vest.
	And when you say your equipment, would that include, for example, a patch identifying you as an FBI squad team member?
	Yes, sir.
	Would it include communication systems like a radio?
	Yes.
	What else?
	Medical kit, ammo pouches, flashbang pouches, insignia, flashlight holder, different pouches for different things.
	When you got the call, To report down to the active shooter, how quickly did you guys get out of there?
	We probably left the range with it in less than five minutes, if not quicker.
	Did you have a chance to move over all of your gear to your new vest?
	No, I just grabbed my stuff and threw it in the trunk of my Bucar barrel vehicle.
	Now, do you recall whether...
	You realized at the time you were initially called or some point thereafter that the location you were responding to was a school?
	I'm pretty certain that when we were leaving the range, I knew we were going to a school.
	How did you all get down there?
	We had a caravan of four or five vehicles, maybe six.
	Can we pull up Exhibit 402, which has been admitted as full, please?
	What was the number, sir?
	402.
	Thank you, sir.
	Can you just blow that up?
	Please, Pratik, if you wouldn't mind.
	Special, I'm sorry, Bill.
	It's a little bit hard to see here, but obviously you see that this map depicts the area from Meriden down to Newtown?
	Yes.
	Which route did you all travel to get down to Newtown that way?
	We left the range and got on to 691.
	May I pro-tronk?
	Now we're going to have a sidebar.
	I mean here, given that this is just on damages, how much of this evidence relates to damages?
	I mean, let's see.
	It depends on where he's going.
	They want to show this.
	I mean, the reason they're doing this is to dramatize the trauma of the incident of San Diego.
	How fast were you traveling to get down there?
	Relevance jet is how I take it.
	It's much more likely to be confusing and prejudicial than it is to be materialized.
	Did you have the sirens on?
	Yes.
	Lights?
	yes When you got off the exit to Route 10, am I correct that at that point you were traveling to San Diego Elementary School?
	Sorry, sir.
	You were traveling to San Diego Elementary School?
	Yes, sir.
	Can we pull up exhibit number 401, please?
	Just if you can...
	You see the intersection there, Bill?
	Yes.
	You recognize this intersection?
	Yes.
	What's this intersection on?
	It's the...
	That right down to the right is the access road to the school.
	So...
	Were you and your team coming this direction on Riverside Drive?
	Yes.
	I gotta hop off.
	I'll hop back on a little bit.
	What's this building here?
	Let's do it, it's the fire hose.
	Fourth exhibit number 399, please.
	Thank you.
	If you're looking here, Bill...
	Exhibit 399, you recognize what's depicted here?
	Yes, sir.
	The building you just referred to as the firehouse, is that this building here in the upper left quadrant?
	Yes.
	Coming down from the access road here?
	Yes.
	It's the same to go to school.
	Yes, sir.
	Am I pointing here to the front of the school?
	Yes.
	Do you know what time you arrived?
	Within 30 minutes of when they called.
	We were there, I think within 30 to 40 minutes of the shooting.
	As you approached the intersection of Riverside and Dickinson, the access drive up to the school.
	Do you remember what you saw there?
	As we were coming up the access road after we got our gear?
	No, no, no.
	When you were approaching the intersection at the firehouse.
	Oh.
	I just remember there was a lot of cars and a lot of people.
	And what did you all do next?
	There were four of us that pulled our vehicles in at the bottom of the access road by the firehouse.
	And then what?
	We geared up and we're waiting for directions on what to do.
	We're waiting here for our team leader.
	They instructed us to go.
	Up the access road to the school.
	When you say you geared up, that would include, I take it, all the tactical equipment you had?
	Yes, sir.
	Rifles?
	Yes, sir.
	Helmets?
	Yes.
	Kevlar vests?
	Yes.
	Did you have all the equipment you would normally have on you at that time?
	There was stuff missing from my vest, because I went with my old vest.
	I just grabbed the old vest, and that's what I used to do.
	Okay.
	And as you approach the school, tell me...
	What happened next?
	After we, the four of us, FBI agents, we moved up the access road to meet the rest of the team.
	The rest of the team had pulled up to the parking lot.
	Did you see any other law enforcement personnel that you recognized as you approached the school?
	At first, as Excuse me.
	Coming up the road, I see a uniformed trooper.
	And again, I wasn't really sure what was going on.
	I just know that whatever it was, they'd been shooting.
	And I came up the road.
	There was a uniformed Connecticut trooper.
	Who's being led away by his co-worker or someone else.
	And he was like in hysterics.
	What's going on?
	In our world, it's not unresponsive at this point.
	It's not unresponsive, actually.
	I would not have objected at this point.
	That's unusual.
	Most law enforcement guys are law enforcement.
	People are, you know, don't get too emotional.
	And I just saw that and I thought, what's going on?
	What's happened?
	And then we got past him and we got to the front of the school and I saw another state trooper that I had worked cases with over the years.
	Chad, who's wondering, it's witness William Aldenberg, non-family plaintiff.
	I said, "Dave, what's going on?" He said, "Oh, it's bad." Or something like that.
	I'll paraphrase it.
	It was bad.
	Let me stop you right here, Bill.
	We just started from it.
	May this be a good time, Judge Blake?
	This will be a fine time, Judge.
	Thank you.
	So we will take the luncheon recess now, one hour.
	It is imperative that you abide by all the rules of juror conduct that I told you.
	For those of you, I don't know if it's raining anymore, but for those of you who are venturing outside of the building, make sure that you take the route that Mr. Ferraro tells you about, and you'll avoid, of course, anyone connected with this case through the media.
	Mr. Fora will collect your notepads and writing utensils and he will give them back to you when we start again at 2 p.m.
	So we will take the recess.
	What's amazing is you have a witness who's literally breaking down on the stand and a judge who couldn't look less phased or less interested.
	I'll be called a bunch of names or whatever.
	I don't think this witness is faking.
	I don't think he's acting.
	I think he's, in my humble assessment, a broken individual.
	And as anyone who went through his experience would be a broken individual.
	I mean, I, Yeah.
	So let me just make sure that we're up to speed here and I'll just...
	Okay.
	Okay, I'm on break here.
	Okay.
	17 minutes left.
	I might have to stop streaming at some point before the afternoon, but I'll bring this out.
	Bring this out.
	Bring this out.
	And then I can...
	How do I get rid of this comment?
	Okay, there we go.
	Yeah, people...
	I believe that that witness is genuinely a broken individual.
	I'm not going to accuse this guy of crocodile tears the same way people accused Rittenhouse of crocodile tears when he had his breakdown on the stand.
	This looks sincere, and the man looks broken.
	And I think anybody who had gone through that would be traumatized for life, to put it mildly.
	Now, what's going on here in this trial, though?
	Strategically, I tend to agree with Barnes.
	Absolutely.
	I would, you know, potentially not have started with this particular witness.
	It's very easy for everybody to play Monday morning quarterback and, you know, what they would have done, etc., etc.
	But starting with someone who's not going to be the most sympathetic of plaintiff witnesses, plaintiffs, are, you know, arguably the best strategy.
	The judge, totally unfazed, as this witness is breaking down, she goes right into giving instructions to the jury.
	That's telling but irrelevant.
	This is the issue.
	I mean, the story, the facts, they're difficult for people who didn't go through it directly to think about, to talk about.
	It's pure horror.
	That's the bottom line.
	The entire incident is pure horror.
	Now the question is this.
	Who's responsible for it?
	And are they going after Jones for being the, you know, are they treating Jones as though he was the perpetrator of this horror and not one of many commentators, analysts, whatever you want to call it?
	The entire thing is pure horror.
	And I've got family in the area.
	I've got my brother, family that live in the area.
	Or closer to at the time.
	Not so far removed from this.
	It's pure horror.
	The issue now is Alex Jones not being used as the scapegoat.
	Is he being used as the whipping post for the horror that was this thing?
	He said, look, we'll get into the evidence in as much as they're ever going to get into it, but they're not going to get into it.
	They're just going to be content with the judge saying Alex Jones said it was a hoax.
	They were crisis actors.
	It didn't happen.
	Whether or not those are contextually accurate summaries.
	Of three statements that Alex Jones made, he also repeatedly said, it happened.
	It's horrific.
	It's going to be politically weaponized.
	Referred to the children that were murdered as angels, and they were.
	Repeatedly.
	And they're going to go after Alex Jones.
	I don't know.
	They went after the gun manufacturers, or the manufacturer, Remington.
	They went after, I don't think they went after the school to any meaningful extent, whether or not their school had implemented proper safety protocol to ensure that something like this could not happen, even if there is a depraved mind out there who wanted to do this.
	Did they go after Lance's family?
	I'm not actually sure offhand.
	I think some may have tried.
	Of course, you know, judgment proof makes for no good defendants in a civil suit.
	They're going after Alex Jones as though he's responsible for what happened, as though he's responsible for the horror, as opposed to, Potentially, after the fact, having said, entertained certain things, entertained certain guests who said things that might, in fact, have been very hurtful, made certain statements that might have turned out to not be true.
	And what I think is clear, and it's what people might refer to the exploitation of the tragedy, is using this tragedy and all of its horror to silence someone who might have said outlandish, idiotic things.
	After the fact, as though they were responsible for it having occurred in the first place.
	And that's what we see.
	That's what we see.
	It's not hyperbolic.
	I mean, the bottom line is it's not hyperbolic.
	They're bringing out an FBI agent as one of the plaintiffs, no family members involved, on the basis that he was defamed by statements that Alex Jones made questioning the incident, Let's operate on the basis he made certain statements which were factually incorrect.
	Now you're going to have an FBI agent who responded to the incident.
	He's already got a verdict in his favor.
	It has already been declared by a default verdict that an FBI agent, first responder, police, what are they, law enforcement, with no direct family involved, has a...
	Default verdict in his favor for intentional infliction of emotional distress because, call Alex Jones a shock jock.
	I know some people call him a prophet.
	A shock jock, prophet, conspiracy theorist, social media internet commentator, questioned the response of law enforcement.
	And so now what's going to happen?
	If people question the response for law enforcement at Uvalde, if they say the response was, Negligent.
	If they say the response was arguably criminal.
	Getting stand-down orders for over an hour.
	If people start saying that, is the chief from Uvalde going to now have the right to sue online commentators who say such things?
	This is not hyperbolic anymore.
	This is where it's at.
	I'm going to read some Rumble rants because I haven't read any of them.
	Viva, do you think Stephen James would break down on the stand like this?
	The point is that...
	This guy breaks down like this decades later.
	He shouldn't be FBI SWAT.
	Okay.
	This is self-loathing lib.
	I don't know who Stephen James is or Stephen L. James.
	I don't know if it's a typo.
	$5 rumble rant.
	Do you think Stephen James would break down like this on the stand?
	The point is, if this guy will break down like this decades later, he shouldn't be FBI SWAT.
	I'll agree with you.
	Now what?
	He was, for whatever the reason, and maybe he is no longer because he simply cannot deal with it.
	I don't know how any human...
	These are...
	I had trouble dealing with law files that dealt with bad things.
	I don't actually know how people in law enforcement, first responders, deal with what they experience in the course of their profession.
	I don't know how humans can get over some of the trauma that humans endure.
	I don't know.
	So maybe he shouldn't have been an FBI SWAT.
	Okay, doesn't matter.
	Maybe he's more fragile than other people on FBI.
	Maybe he's...
	Too fragile and should never have been there.
	Okay, now what?
	I mean, that doesn't change anything.
	His response to me seems genuine, broken.
	But then the question is this.
	He is broken.
	He is traumatized.
	He is devastated from what he experienced that day.
	What role did Alex Jones have in the events of that day that broke this man?
	The answer is strictly none.
	He's going to say that...
	Alex Jones went on air three hours later to commentate on it and argue as to how it was going to be weaponized politically to come after Second Amendment rights.
	That traumatized him.
	If the FBI agent comes out, or this guy, sorry, William, what's his name again?
	William Aldenberg.
	If Aldenberg comes out and says, Jones's comments on this broke me and traumatized me, then I might have a much bigger issue with his testimony.
	The day, the events of that day, We'll horrify and traumatize this man for the rest of his life.
	What does Alex Jones have to do with that?
	He came out three hours later, and even if that clip that we saw is contextually accurate, they're going to use this to come after your Second Amendment rights.
	If that's what broke this man of that day and not the events of that day, I will then question his testimony.
	I took a bunch of pictures of previous Rumble rants.
	Let me get to them.
	There was Max from Zurich says, first post ever on Rumble.
	Max, are you from Zurich?
	Thank you very much.
	We got...
	I'm not your buddy guy says, thank you for doing this stream, Viva.
	I hate...
	Nobody can enjoy doing streams on these horrific, horrific incidents.
	They're traumatizing.
	Indirectly for people who were not directly involved, but for anybody who has the slightest degree of empathy.
	The issue here, really, it's one where people have to dissociate the horror of the event from the actual issue at law.
	What responsibility does Alex Jones bear for the events of that day or for any damages he caused afterwards for his commentary, analysis, reporting, coverage, however you want to call it, of the events of that day?
	And what precedent will this set and the precedent in Texas?
	What will it set?
	It's not going to stop here.
	De-platforming, unpersoning Alex Jones didn't stop with Alex Jones.
	It went right to the president of the United States of America while he was sitting president.
	WCN2315 says, okay, broke up the laptop so I can holler.
	If you could put up headlines, why can't Def, and I think he might have hit send too quickly.
	Andris Burdens says, the masterclass from Barnes is worth the money.
	Thank you, gentlemen.
	Barbisa Ariane, how's it going?
	9-11, Americans died in the 2012 Benghazi attack.
	Ambassador Chris Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA operatives Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods, both former Navy SEALs, no justice.
	Sage Off Our Wins says, Any chance we can get the Viva breakdown of the ruling in Antoniok versus Bruin?
	Not right now because I'm going to have to go look at it first.
	Self Loathing Lib says, Can I pop this chat out?
	Don't you own Rumble Viva?
	They need to fix that or you can't follow the wisdom of your viewers.
	I agree.
	And then Second Amendment Ordai says, I'm a veteran.
	It makes me physically sick to watch this abomination of a trial.
	And the freedom haters will amplify this as much as possible in hopes that these will just be standard trials.
	Dawn189, the data that they are actively refused to look at, the science, medical, government, and leaked data doesn't count.
	Cool.
	I have personally emailed data to countless government and health experts.
	And I think that might have been something else.
	Okay.
	Jules Verne 23 says, you don't get banned from every platform all at the same time because you said something questionable.
	You get banned for supporting Trump.
	Well, it was a known fact, or at least an admitted statement, that Alex Jones helped Trump get elected.
	His support certainly contributed to Trump's victory.
	And for that, some politicians will never forgive and will never forget.
	Okay, well, while we see what goes on when this comes back on, I wanted to bring up something the other day that I actually forgot to bring up.
	Speaking of Department of Justice, the Justice Department.
	No one's above the law, people.
	No one's above the law.
	You've got to read this because it's almost satirical in its drafting.
	This is an actual, this is the report.
	I mean, I tweeted this out the other day.
	This is the investigative summary from the Department of Justice, the Office of the Inspector General.
	Now, to bear in mind, excuse me, who they're prosecuting, how hard they're prosecuting them, how hard they're sentencing them upon conviction.
	Just throwing that out there while we read this.
	Investigative summary, 22-103.
	There's no names in it, which I actually prefer, at the very least for this type of...
	Analysis.
	Finding of misconduct by an assistant United States attorney for indecent exposure, sexual assault, and lack of candor.
	I hope that doesn't go in proper order.
	Sexual assault, indecent exposure, and at the very end, lack of candor.
	Because that, among the three accusations, is by far the least important, as far as I'm concerned.
	Department of Justice, Officer of the Inspector General, initiated this investigation upon the receipt of information from the Executive Office for the United States Attorney, alleging that an assistant United States Attorney had exposed the AUSA's genitals while in a public place and had sexually assaulted a civilian while on a date.
	The OIG investigation found that the AUSA's genitals were exposed in public and that the AUSA forced the civilian's hand to touch the AUSA's genitals in violation of state law and federal regulations governing off-duty conduct.
	The OIG also found that the AUSA lacked candor in discussing this incident with the OIG.
	Seems like a slam dunk.
	This seems like more of a slam dunk than Michael Sussman's case.
	Criminal prosecution of the AUSA.
	Yeah, we've come to the conclusion you broke state and federal law.
	We've declined to prosecute.
	It's not we've sentenced you to 10 years and it's too much.
	We've declined criminal prosecution.
	Thank you, your request for criminal prosecution, notwithstanding the fact that we found you violated state and federal regulations governing off-duty conduct.
	Criminal prosecution of the AUSA was declined.
	The OIG has completed its investigation and provided some reports of the EOA, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
	Unless otherwise noted, the OIG applies the preponderance of the evidence standard in determining whether Department of Justice personnel have convicted misconduct.
	Oh, so preponderance.
	So I presume then this is not exactly a criminal investigation.
	Preponderance.
	No, but I think in terms of bringing charges, in terms of bringing charges, it has to be...
	You have to be able to prove the crime.
	They found that he violated state and federal regulations governing off-duty conduct, but declined ever so politely to prosecute.
	Makes total sense.
	No one's above the law, except some people are more above the law than others, and others are more below the law than others.
	Kim Kimba says, $25 rumble rant, rumble is the future for freedom.
	I agree.
	They're going to work out their glitches, people.
	I'm like literally texting people in real time.
	I want to be able to bring up comments.
	Like I want to be able to bring up a highlighted comment so I can see it in the chat.
	And I can't do that.
	And that frustrates me because that also makes it a little more difficult to engage and discuss.
	All right.
	What was the other thing that I was going to talk about?
	I'm going to pull up another article on the trial.
	We'll get the rundown.
	People were saying, can you give us a 30,000-foot overview?
	And I took for granted everybody knows what's going on in this trial.
	There's 9,000 people watching.
	I think 8,000 know what's going on.
	And to the 1,000 who are new, welcome to Viva Frye.
	I am a Montreal litigator turned YouTuber turned rumbler.
	13-plus years of active practice.
	No ethics complaints, untarnished reputation, untarnished practice.
	In fact, the only ethics complaint I ever got was two years after my last file because of a Twitter tweet.
	Not in the practice.
	It was a request to investigate because someone online didn't like a tweet and thought that the responsible, appropriate, and judicious thing would be to file a complaint.
	Or request an investigation with the Bar Society?
	Because that's how things are done these days.
	A political tweet about a prime minister.
	It hurts someone's feelings so much.
	They thought the appropriate remedy is an ethics complaint to the Bar Society.
	Okay.
	This is a CT Insider, which I believe is Connecticut Insider.
	Let me see here.
	I think it is.
	On Alex Jones, some potential jurors in the Connecticut Sandy Hook damages trial say they couldn't be fair.
	What year is this from?
	What date is this from?
	August 18th.
	So it's a little outdated.
	August?
	Yeah, it's a month old.
	Attorney's question, because I wanted to go through the prospective jurors.
	I wanted to see if I can get a copy of the jury questionnaire to see what questions were on it, but...
	I presume it's going to be the same types of questions that we see everywhere.
	Where do you get your media from?
	How do you feel about the government?
	Yada, yada, yada.
	Let's just see what this happens to say here.
	Attorneys questioned prospective jurors on Thursday over whether they could impartially determine how much Alex Jones should pay in damages to eight Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent he defamed.
	Because it's no longer allegedly.
	And the judge in the Texas case astutely pointed this out.
	No, no, this is not a claim for defamation.
	There's a default verdict for defamation.
	This is a judgment for defamation.
	Now it's just a question of how much you have to pay.
	So these are judicial facts in as much as they upset everybody.
	For several, the answer was no.
	How much Alex Jones should pay to eight?
	Okay.
	For several, the answer was no.
	Doesn't make sense.
	I know what he's about, one man said in Waterbury after answering a question from the family's attorneys.
	I know what he says.
	I don't think I would be fair.
	That is actually more insightful than many actual impartial jurors would be able to assess themselves.
	Just over a week after a Texas jury awarded to Sandy Hook parents $49.2 million in damages in compensation from Alex Jones, jury selection resumed Thursday.
	In a similar trial in Waterbury to determine how much the InfoWars host should pay to a different set of families and the FBI agent whose testimony we're watching right now.
	Only one juror, a widow who is a grandmother, was picked on Thursday.
	It's expected to take weeks for six jurors and four alternates to be picked for the trial, which is scheduled to begin today.
	The trial will likely be as dramatic as the Texas court proceedings with...
	Which included heart-wrenching testimony, admonishments from the judge to Jones not to lie under oath.
	Gotta love the...
	It's almost like the judge was admonishing Alex Jones under oath not to lie under oath so that media could then report that he was admonished for lying under oath.
	And the possibility that his Connecticut and Texas attorneys could be sanctioned for inadvertently sharing medical records of the Sandy Hook parents who filed the Waterbury lawsuit.
	To the plaintiff's attorneys.
	Jones, who was not in the court on Thursday, attempted to forestall the plaintiffs.
	He filed for bankruptcy, and then they said we're going to proceed nonetheless, but I think they put a hold on that.
	Jury selection restarted Thursday morning, despite the company arguing in a Wednesday night filing, bankruptcy proceedings should be stayed.
	Norm Pattis, attorney for Jones, commented that Free Speech Systems is working against him.
	They are persisting in a course that's catastrophic to my defense, Pat has told the Superior Judge.
	He's concerned employees of the company will not be able to testify due to bankruptcy proceedings, but Bellis said that there had been no prohibition on employees for free speech systems participating in the trial.
	Okay, this is what we want to get to.
	42 perspectives...
	I think they're coming back.
	I think they're coming back.
	I think they're back here.
	Sorry, got distracted.
	That's fine.
	Your Honor, we have no objection.
	That's fine.
	Thank you.
	So they were talking about him referring to the witness by his first name, which was interesting.
	Are we all set to go?
	It cut in very quickly.
	I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
	Yes, it was actually on her shirt.
	I did too.
	And I have some with me.
	Chat, let me know if we can hear and see everything properly.
	I'm leaving that comment up on the bottom just to...
	Okay, let me see here.
	Chat, are we good?
	Everybody can see and hear in real time.
	Let me refresh and make sure.
	Underdog says I should contact Salty.
	I will contact Salty so they can show me how to post live Rumble Rez.
	If it requires external software, I have some.
	so I think I can probably do that.
	Viva's ADD is terrible.
	How dare you mock my ADD?
	Audio is good.
	Okay, here we go.
	Good.
	I'm going to bring it back.
	All right, welcome back.
	Take your regular seat or mix it up as you will.
	Yes, I know all of you out there and can hear that.
	Welcome, Anna Marlin.
	I hope you're showing me to turn it off.
	The count will stipulate that the entire piano has returned?
	Yes, Your Honor.
	Mr. Farah.
	Redistributing the notepads.
	Sir, you may resume the stand.
	There you are.
	And of course, you remain under rotation now.
	It's funny.
	It cut in at what they were talking about an objection, and it had to do with referring to someone by their first name.
	Probably won't happen again.
	Bill, when we left off, you were just describing your approach to the school.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And I think after you were describing seeing some of the troopers who were coming down from the school, you were about to talk about meeting up with the rest of your team members.
	Can you just continue from there, please?
	Yes, sir.
	So let's put the photo up.
	399 back up, please.
	Once we got to the...
	Just hold on one second.
	And if you could just try and keep your voice up.
	Yes, sir.
	He just did it again.
	I just want to make sure that...
	Yes, Your Honor.
	We made our way up through the access road to the front of the school.
	That's where I saw the officer from the state police that I've known from past investigation.
	He seemed to be...
	So I had a brief conversation with him, and then our team leader brought our team together in front of the school.
	May I approach the screen?
	Thank you.
	Just to remind the jury, this year where I'm directing your attention, that's the front area of the school where you...
	Yes, sir.
	And when you gathered together, did you receive orders for what you and your team were to do next?
	Yes, sir.
	It was my understanding that we were going to assist the state police SWAT team with clearing the school.
	And were you aware at that time whether The active shooter situation at that point was no longer ongoing.
	Yes, sir.
	It's my understanding.
	At that point, yes, sir.
	The active shooter, yes, it was done.
	It was over.
	Yes, sir.
	Your Honor, may I have one moment, please?
	Take your time.
	So the question is, I mean...
	Pattis, Jones' attorney, can probably object to a lot of the questions he's asking of this witness because they're leading.
	The only question is, what good is it going to do?
	The judge will allow it.
	It'll make him look defensive.
	What any of this has to do with the damages against Alex Jones to be determined.
	Bill, I am going to ask you to describe Let's pull up exhibit number 398, please.
	Please.
	Now, what we're seeing here, Bill, is...
	Is he doing it to try to get a reaction out of Pattis?
	And so now we're looking in the other direction, and this is the front of the school, right?
	Yes, sir.
	And as I'm pointing out here, this is the covered front entryway to the school?
	Yes, sir.
	And can you just describe for the jury where you and your team were located as you were about to enter the school?
	We're to the left of the front entrance, sir.
	Yeah, the left of the front entrance.
	The witness is saying, sir, and the lawyer is saying, bill.
	It's a curious dynamic.
	I'm just going to leave this comment on the bottom.
	5, please.
	This is the front entrance of the school?
	Yes, sir.
	On the left side of the photograph, adjacent to the front entrance, do you see vertical windows going up to the roof?
	Yes, sir.
	I'm just going to get to this area here.
	See that?
	Yes, sir.
	What area is that?
	That's the first classroom.
	Describe to the jury your entrance to the school, please.
	Our team entered through that door, and we met the state police team in the lobby, is what I recall.
	Can we pull up exhibit 406, please?
	And just zoom in on just the front entrance, please.
	That's fine.
	Bill, do you see...
	Why is he doing it?
	The window pane on the right side of the entrance shattered with a hole.
	Yes, sir.
	Was that the condition of that window when you arrived and cleared entry to the school?
	Yes, sir.
	Please describe the next action that you took.
	Once we linked up with the state police team, our team leader told us...
	We were going to search one side of the school, and the state police were going to search the other side of the school.
	We actually had some state police officers with our team.
	So one team was going to go to the right, one team was going to go to the left, and we were looking for any survivors, anyone hiding, things like that.
	Can you pull out?
	Zoom out of that photograph.
	And just zoom in on the right side of the photograph.
	Do you see, Bill, to the right, there's a hallway going back towards the rear of the school?
	I think I just heard the lawyer say he did it again or he got it again.
	And your team, which direction were you ordered to go?
	We went down that hallway to the right.
	On the right side.
	To the right.
	At some point, Pattis is going to object for relevance.
	As you entered, can you pull out and zoom out of that, please?
	Oh, Robert's back.
	The area just beyond the front door, is that the lobby to the school?
	Yes, sir.
	Is that a door?
	Lobby.
	Is that a door open?
	What did you see?
	Is that one of those things that you push on the door to open the door?
	Is that a flag over to the right?
	This is why trials get boring.
	The hallway goes to the left, and there were two victims.
	Boy, that mercy.
	I get there.
	Now, here again, they're allowing, judges allowing the plaintiff to present.
	How does much of this at all relate to damages?
	I mean, isn't this cumulative?
	What's called unduly cumulative?
	Unfairly prejudicial because it isn't material.
	This horrible thing happened.
	Let's blame Alex Jones for it.
	I learned that before.
	I think I left the school.
	But your team was to go to the right.
	Yes.
	To the right versus the left?
	That's where we're at in this trial?
	No wonder it's scheduled for four weeks.
	Plaintiffs are unduly boring.
	He wouldn't help us clear.
	He would be there to assist with injuries and stuff, so he wouldn't assist him with the clearing.
	But he certainly was, I could tell you, was in the school.
	Did you observe other EMTs in the school as you were there?
	Later on, I saw at least two EMTs or firemen.
	I think they were Newtown firefighters.
	In the hallway.
	Can we pull up Exhibit 415, please?
	I'm trying to find a comment that I can just leave over the bottom so we don't show the law and crime logo.
	I don't have that as a full exhibit unless I message something.
	Why don't we take it down?
	I know it's a pretty important thing.
	Take your time.
	It was not on the list for this morning.
	I like this in the live chat, which people can get at VivaBarnsLaw.locals.com.
	There's also a live chat.
	I'm listening to this at 1.75 times speed because I'd rather hear nails on a chalkboard than hear this judge speak.
	This prosecution lawyer is insufferable.
	The saving grace is AJ's lawyer is smooth and likable.
	You see and can hear is the patio in the lobby, right?
	Yes, sir.
	How, again, does this relate to damages?
	You came down this hallway to the right.
	Yes.
	Can you describe for the jury that process, please?
	We went...
	Imagine, so they get to put in all this context that's really cumulative and prejudicial.
	Jones isn't even allowed to explain himself on the left.
	I recall being on that right side team as we went down the hallway.
	And was this side of the hallway empty?
	Yes.
	Did you go through each room with your team researching or any survivors or anybody that might be hidden?
	Yes, sir.
	Well, we're just getting into how that process ended.
	We were in a number of classrooms, and then I think the last room I remember being in was...
	What I would call like a boiler room.
	Another agent, myself, were in this like a maintenance or boiler room.
	They were checking behind metal.
	Has the FBI ever disclosed through FOIA all of their records on this?
	Or did they not consider this an FBI outbreak?
	That opened up into pipes and stuff.
	Because the state of Connecticut hit a lot of their records.
	This is what triggered all the conspiracy.
	I know that the people in charge determined that yes, we had cleared that site.
	Tell the jury what you did next.
	We returned to the lobby and then what I recall is that we went back out to the front of the school.
	So the FBI SWAT team was on location.
	At some point, it was determined.
	Does he explain whether they were, were they there as volunteers?
	Were they there as law enforcement?
	He said they were dispatched or deployed once they were having their training session on the same day.
	That's what I recall.
	It's almost as if it's a coincidence they happen to be at that local police station.
	Because I'm just wondering, I didn't think it was protocol for the FBI to have jurisdiction over a local criminal matter.
	They wanted the whole process done again.
	You know what I mean?
	It's a little odd that they're legally there.
	Unless they're part of a joint, they're under the jurisdiction of the local government.
	That's the part that, at least I was unaware of.
	Did Drew and your team have to re-enter the school at that time?
	Yes, a lot with the state police team.
	See, the way he says that makes it sound like the FBI was working under the state police.
	But that's a very unusual protocol.
	I mean, that means there should be FBI FOIA documents on this.
	And for whatever reason, maybe they exist and I just missed them over there.
	But I was unaware that...
	The FBI had a formal response to the...
	When you came into the school and entered the left, where did you go first?
	So I was the first in what they call the stack.
	So I know I was first.
	And then there were...
	Two other guys, two other of my teammates with me when we entered the first classroom.
	Sorry.
	We entered that classroom through the door, the first classroom.
	Okay.
	Now, does he explain issues about the doors not being locked?
	Unlocked?
	I'm not going to ask you.
	I mean, the problem is this is all, like I said before, this is pure horror.
	What does this have to do with Alex Jones?
	Yes, sir.
	Right.
	What does it have to do with damages related to Alex Jones?
	As opposed to damages related to the event.
	I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry.
	These people have to listen to this.
	My son.
	You know, Bill, stop.
	I'm so mad.
	Sorry.
	You came through that first classroom.
	Yes, sir.
	Did you then enter the second classroom?
	We stepped in the first classroom.
	He's fully turned his seat.
	The classrooms were divided by, I guess, like a middle door.
	The two classrooms were attached by a middle door.
	We entered into the second classroom.
	That was Vicky Soto's classroom?
	I learned that after, yes.
	You learned after that Ms. Soto was killed where she was actually leading judge.
	I, no, I. Wait, did you, did you?
	I'm sorry.
	I know that.
	Hang on a second Bill, there was an objection.
	It's fine.
	Robert, why does he keep saying Bill?
	It's like he's doing it to try to get a reaction I observed a teacher who I learned later was Mrs. Soto.
	for yes Does that say anything about...
	Do you remember anything about Minnesota's telephone?
	I just...
	I mean, there's certain things I remember that day.
	It's probably like six or seven of them.
	But I do...
	I remember that next to the teacher...
	Who I later learned was Mrs. Sogo.
	I remember there was a phone.
	And I remember the phone.
	I remember the phone was like lighting up.
	But I later learned from...
	And what does it have?
	It's all horrific.
	It's about a show trial.
	You get to put on all your emotional traumatic evidence.
	Even though it has no bearing on what is actually being tried in the case.
	In order to increase the damages award against Jones, who's not allowed to even present any defenses to the merits or contextualize what he did at all.
	So it's a classic definition of a Soviet-style, Stassi-style show trial.
	And we're seeing it.
	And what offends me...
	This makes the legal system look like the caricature that the critics make of it, particularly the American criminal justice process.
	They say what it's about, it's about showmanship, it's about emotion, it's not about fact, it's not about evidence, it's not about law.
	This is what the critics think when they think of heinous lawyers, they think of exaggerating claims.
	People still misunderstand what the McDonald's case was all about.
	Because this is the bad stereotype of American law, and yet these judges are welcoming it and putting it on full display.
	We saw some law in the middle of the classroom.
	I don't recall.
	Later on, we were told that that was one of the...
	I'm not offering for the truth of the matter, Your Honor.
	I'm just offering.
	You just ask the next question.
	Did you learn as a result of that that one of the children...
	Bleeding had been previously found and transported for medical attention.
	At some point, I learned.
	Can you ask it in a meeting, Mark?
	Sure, Judge.
	I'll give it credit.
	Judge, credit.
	During the trial so far, she has stuck down his blood.
	And her team found blood, but no body nearby.
	I just, either I assumed or later on I learned.
	To me, almost none of this is relevant to a damages trial.
	A child or children were transported to the hospital, and that's what the blood was from.
	Now, for a lot of people out here, this is the only time the Sandy Hook case has ever gone to court, to my knowledge.
	Because there never was a criminal case prosecuted.
	lawsuits against the school system and the states were all dismissed.
	No, I'm moving henceforth.
	Okay, sorry.
	Stand.
	and then Robert, so sidebars, technically, they should be public, but...
	Well, sidebars are supposed to be out of the earshot of the jury.
	But transcribed.
	And so they're part of the official point.
	Yes, sir.
	We gathered out in the front of the school, but further down the end.
	And that's when...
	Now, it is horrifying.
	Not only the discovery, but the way the bodies were found.
	Many of the bodies were found stacked up in inside bathrooms, inside classrooms.
	And they hid that for a year, but nobody understood why.
	I believe the reason was the nature of the deaths exposed the school safety.
	In other words, it's because there was no inside door they could lock.
	They couldn't lock the classroom door.
	They couldn't lock the bathroom door inside the classroom.
	There was no way to protect themselves from the shooting.
	I mean, we probably were in there.
	I mean, again, it's 10 years ago, so I would say it was probably an hour, maybe an hour and a half.
	Probably more like an hour.
	Do you have any idea who Alex Jones was at that time?
	No, sir.
	Is what you saw in that school fake?
	No, no.
	No, sir.
	Was it synthetic?
	See any actors that day, Bill?
	This is crass examination to me.
	It's awful.
	It's awful.
	I'm going to be honest with you.
	Here's how this...
	I wasn't doing it at that very moment.
	I wouldn't do it in this way.
	It's so open and overt, etc.
	You do it subtle.
	You do it more indirect.
	You let the drama occur naturally.
	I'm sorry.
	Yes, sir.
	Did you know that Alex Jones was on the air at that time?
	Let him answer.
	He didn't know at the time.
	He didn't know.
	He's going to claim damages from something he didn't know at the time.
	Close exhibit.
	120, page 6, please.
	It's almost like he's badgering his own witness.
	It's already in, Judge.
	I'm going to turn the volume down of the feed or pause it when...
	This guy's not faking people.
	This guy is a broken people.
	My concern would be...
	If this trauma affects you, and I get the unique trauma, but remember, he's an FBI SWAT team guy.
	Should someone who responds to trauma in this way still be on the FBI SWAT team?
	The question is, is he still?
	He claimed he was not retired.
	I thought he was an ex-agent.
	Maybe he's removed from that, but it's like, if you're someone that can't handle horrific violence, you really should not be on the SWAT team.
	Because you have to respond in live time, typically, to seeing.
	That's part of the duty.
	You need to be someone who's able to control.
	If 10 years later you can't handle seeing the after effects of a traumatic event, then you probably shouldn't have been on the SWAT team to begin with.
	Yeah, I'm sure most people agree with that.
	I just, this guy's.
	Broken, and I don't think he's acting.
	Whether or not he should be doing whatever he is doing, or if he's not doing it now.
	I conclude one or two.
	Either he's someone that so is unable to control emotion that he was in the wrong job, or if that isn't the explanation, the alternative explanation is that this is a prepared reaction.
	I agree with you that it seems to be beyond his control, which tells me he never should have been in the FBI SWAT team.
	Again, understand that a lot of people would react the way he does.
	The point of being in the FBI SWAT team is that you're one of those people who don't react, that you're able to cabin this and contain it.
	It's like being in the military.
	If you see trauma and can't handle it, you shouldn't be a soldier.
	Same with the SWAT team here.
	But again, almost all of this has nothing to do with this case.
	No, it's rehashing the trauma for the jury and for the plaintiffs.
	It's the classic definition for people out there.
	There's a kind of evidence called Rule 403 and the Federal Rules of Evidence.
	There's versions of it, all the states, analogs.
	That if evidence is, first evidence has to be relevant, means it has to be material to the decision that the jury is being asked to make.
	And even if it is relevant, it still should not be admitted if it's either unduly cumulative, unduly confusing, or unfairly prejudicial.
	And what that means is you're sort of weighing it.
	You're saying, what's going to be the impact of this evidence?
	Is this evidence more likely to confuse prejudice?
	And what prejudice means, it means the jury decides a fact question related to the case that's not based on grounds they shouldn't.
	And here, what's cumulative about this, what's confusing about this...
	What's prejudicial about this is it invites the jury to make a determination based on the trauma he experienced at Sandy Hook rather than on the statements that Alex Jones made.
	And I think that the quantum that's unfairly prejudicial and unduly confusing, and at some point, given the length of this, just to date the length of this testimony, arguably cumulative as well, Way outweighs whatever probative value it has, which I see as marginal or nonexistent.
	Because again, the jury's just being asked to determine after he heard Alex Jones' statements, how did that emotionally and reputationally impact him?
	Not what happened at Sandy Hook.
	And I get that there might be some link between what happened at what he experienced at Sandy Hook and what he experienced from Jones' statements, but not to the degree that all of this is coming in.
	in my opinion.
	At 286 million page views, objection judges a fact witness, not expert relevance.
	Mr. Jones, if he knows the answer, he knows on his own knowledge.
	I didn't know that, sir.
	See, Lee, he's asking about how much money they're claiming gross revenue.
	This is a classic version of unfairly prejudicial evidence.
	Which, by the way, these numbers are...
	Completely mistake the nature of the business.
	You have a business which has massive overhead.
	So the gross revenues of all products sold include the cost of the product, the cost of delivery of the product.
	But forget that.
	They're talking about impressions on social media as though 4 billion impressions is somehow representative of anything.
	And how does asking this witness about Infowars gross revenue have anything to do, not only is it not within the competency of this witness, how does it have anything to do with the case period?
	Again, how much money they made is also irrelevant at this stage.
	That was originally intended as evidence to prove actual malice.
	And even though courts have said generally it's not really relevant to actual malice, this court allowed it.
	And by the way, here again, we're seeing evidence of all the financials.
	What evidence was it that Alex Jones hid?
	That supposedly was the grounds for default?
	You're going to see throughout this trial that Alex Jones didn't hide any evidence by the evidence the plaintiffs themselves put into the record.
	But even if we, Robert, even if we operate on the basis that he did, to the extent that thus far what we've seen was it was about identifying how many videos they posted and financials.
	None of that impacts the essence of the claim itself or prejudices the plaintiffs from making whatever evidence they needed.
	Correct.
	And especially at this stage where actual malice as the...
	plaintiff's lawyer made the clear point of, is not a question for the jury to determine.
	So how does what Alex Jones or Infowars' gross revenue was in any given year, how is that relevant to the emotional harm this individual suffered?
	It's classic unfairly prejudicial evidence.
	A million page views just in the month of December alone?
	No, sir.
	Now that you know he made how much money, how much money would you like to cash in on your crying and tears, Mr. Witness?
	I do not have that as a position.
	That's, by the way, why I wouldn't ask that line of questions, even if I was the plaintiff council.
	I wouldn't highlight money, money, money, money.
	Because if you're playing into this, I think you're only kidding.
	We have 286 by 289 by agreement.
	I don't know.
	No objection, Judge.
	Thank you.
	286, please.
	Can you tell the jury bill what's happening?
	Yes, sir.
	That's me in the center.
	With three of my other teammates.
	Now tell me that image wasn't contradicting.
	Initially arrived.
	At least I believe it's when we initially arrived and we're coming up to the access world to the school.
	Sorry, go for it.
	I'll say the image presents tough badass.
	Shades, military equipment, big military equipment.
	But what you've got on the stand is someone who 10 years later can't handle emotionally describing pretty much anything you witnessed.
	I'll say he's...
	A snap.
	He'll never be whatever.
	If he was faking something in that image or if he was, he snapped.
	If it was really decided on the facts, why would you as a plaintiff's lawyer not want to present this evidence?
	Because what you're highlighting is a guy who was already completely broken.
	What emotional damage could have Alex Jones caused when this guy was completely wiped out already?
	They'll say it aggravated the trauma.
	He saw this, it broke him as a human, and then he had to hear someone say that it didn't actually happen.
	But how much does that add to the quantum of...
	If you already lost it, how much does...
	Being reminded that you've lost...
	You know what I mean?
	You suffered the most emotional damage that you almost possibly could.
	Agreed.
	And he'll say, well, I got harassed by people who thought I was a fake FBI agent, whatever.
	And then the argument's going to be, well, then sue the people that harassed you instead of presupposing that they were doing it at the direction of Alex Jones.
	Or if they were inspired by him, then what are we getting into?
	People who get inspired by Howard Stern to do things?
	You're going to go sue Howard Stern for that?
	It's got to be a pretty...
	direct causal link to do that.
	Do you know whether this photo was later published by any media?
	Yeah, that photo was in...
	Everywhere.
	I was on the front page of papers all over the country, from what I recall.
	I just want to point out the jury bill.
	Do you see how your teammates here?
	Have their FBI insignia on their vest?
	Yes, sir.
	But you don't, right?
	Correct.
	And that's what you were referring to earlier when you were describing that you weren't able to get geared up because you were changing to a new vest.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, I was taking the items off of this vest here and putting on a new one they had just issued me.
	You see that the teammate to your right has what appear to be...
	The canisters are contained in that part of his vest.
	Do you see that?
	Do you know what these are?
	They're ammo pouches, sir.
	Did you have those on your vest?
	closer.
	Go to the next picture, please.
	This would be 287, Your Honor.
	You see yourself depicted here, Bill?
	Yes.
	What's happening here?
	Again, it's the vest that I had taken all the stuff off of, sir.
	Why?
	It's the vest I had taken all the stuff off of, sir.
	Also, you can pull out, please.
	Thanks.
	Also that morning in San Diego?
	Yes, sir.
	288, please.
	Similar to the photo we just saw earlier.
	I think it's the same photo.
	Okay.
	289.
	So that's the photo that was on, I think, the Hartford Courant.
	This was on the Hartford?
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	You just have to make sure that...
	Yes, yes, you are.
	You said that at some point you were sent to an emergency management facility?
	There's some type of...
	There's another school in Newtown, I don't know, a private school maybe?
	There's another school where they set up an emergency operations center, which is typical in crisis management.
	So if you have a crisis, they'll set up a...
	Essentially, a headquarters to operate that crisis from.
	And that's where you were staying until you were discharged?
	Yes, we drove to it.
	We met with our senior leader from New Haven.
	We met with her for a briefing, and then they sent us home.
	Left the school that day.
	Did you have to go back down to your vehicle?
	And did you see the firehouse?
	Yes.
	I came down.
	Yes.
	Yes, sir.
	Did you understand that parents and families have been asked to gather at the firehouse?
	Yes.
	It's a leading question, but I don't think it makes a difference at this point.
	They're going to go through a day of this guy's testimony testifying on his trauma.
	We have yet to get to anything related to any trauma Alex Jones might have caused him through his words.
	After that day, did you return to Sandy Hook the following week or at some point soon thereafter?
	Yeah, within a...
	Why?
	I know within a...
	Didn't even answer the question yet.
	There were threats being made, some type of threats to the children's funerals.
	That people were going to come and cause trouble at the funerals.
	I had never actually heard this either.
	If he's going to get into the fact that the belief that this was not a real event, the irony, what they would actually be proving, they're probably going to try to blur the line on this, is that the idea that this wasn't a real event didn't originate or come from Alex Jones at all.
	That in fact, of course, if you know the real story, as soon as Sandy Hook was politically weaponized within days, For preaching gun control, and the Obama administration seized it right away.
	From that point forward, throughout the entire viral social media sphere, which this was when social media is starting to reach its real influence point, inflection point of influence, throughout on Facebook, YouTube, etc., all of a sudden there was an explosion of videos, comments, posts, claiming That the event wasn't real.
	Clem making the crisis actor claim, all this other stuff.
	Nothing to do, though, with Alex Jones.
	Tens of millions of views of these various videos and posts being made over the time period before Alex Jones ever questioned whether Sandy Hook happened at all.
	And so what's irony is if he's saying, oh, you had to come back, they're probably going to try to misallocate blame for this on Alex Jones when Alex Jones had nothing to do with it.
	And my guess is the judge won't allow Alex Jones' defense to prove that point.
	But if he where he's going to is that the harassment was coming from people who had nothing to do with Alex Jones.
	We know that because Alex Jones hadn't questioned whether Sandy Hook happened at this point.
	You can continue.
	That's what we were briefed.
	We were briefed that you'll be assigned to cover funerals.
	There were a number of guys on the team that probably covered, they were there like two or three days, and I was there maybe one or two days.
	And were you aware as part of your responsibilities with the FBI in a few days that the families, the victims, had been targeted for harassment?
	In the week or so following the shooting, whether or not families have been targeted for harassment?
	Yes.
	How did you become aware of that?
	I would have received that information through my Either team leader or my supervisor.
	Again, this has nothing to do with Alex Jones.
	And in fact, what this proves, by the way, is that Alex Jones wasn't responsible for the harassment.
	Exactly.
	And that's the little secret they've been trying to keep secret the whole time.
	Alex Jones is not responsible for this harassment.
	But the judge will likely not allow Alex Jones to point that out.
	His defense to point that out.
	We'll see.
	But he's already guilty, Robert.
	Inflicted, intentionally.
	Guilty until proven more guilty.
	I'd like to move forward, Bill, into January now of 2013.
	Yes, sir.
	So we just went from the day of the event to January.
	Prior to that time, I think you described it.
	What was your position at the FBI?
	So in 2012, I would have been working on the Meriden Resident Agency.
	Which is part of New Haven Division.
	And I was working public corruption in civil rights matters.
	So it looks like he might have...
	Did you assume of a new position?
	I was...
	I was put into a position they called Chief Division Counsel, which is the head attorney for that FBI division.
	You give legal counsel to the leadership of...
	Of the division.
	I was put in that position temporarily, and then about a month later, I was appointed to that position.
	After Sandy Hook, he gets promoted to a perceived position of political influence in the FBI.
	In-house.
	Yes, sir.
	That's how I read that, by the way.
	In that capacity, did you have any responsibility for managing the FBI's?
	James Baker was the counsel to Comey for the FBI, but the FBI at every level has lawyers who advise them.
	And he became, to the local FBI office, he became what James Baker was to James Comey.
	But that's a position of great political power because of what issues flow through you.
	You basically get access to almost all the FBI's potential dirt.
	So it's a position of great political power.
	It's a promotion.
	By almost any definition.
	Response to complaints of threats, harassment, and other activity directed at the families of St. Cook.
	So in the position I held, I had a number of people I supervised.
	And one of the programs I was responsible for was the Victim Services Program, Victim Witness Program.
	And so I supervised the victim specialists in New Haven.
	She was part of your team?
	She was on my team, yes.
	I was her supervisor.
	And can you describe for the jury, beginning when you assumed that role of managing the FBI's...
	Well, first of all, describe for the jury what your offices, including the victim specialists, what their role was in assisting the families after Sandy Hook.
	This is odd.
	Why does the FBI have victim assignments to the same deal case?
	On that day, our victim specialist...
	My knowledge was never an FBI case.
	You see what I mean?
	This is not a normal FBI case.
	I didn't know this ever was an FBI case.
	That means there should be substantial FOIA that the FBI has on this case.
	Maybe people have FOIA, and I just don't know about it.
	But to my knowledge, this was always a Connecticut State case.
	Under Connecticut state jurisdiction.
	Never an FBI case.
	This is the first time, at least I'm hearing, that this was an FBI case.
	That there were FBI officials assigned, FBI lawyers assigned, FBI victim coordinators assigned.
	What was the federal case here?
	It's not clear to me there was one.
	To assist in various roles.
	That's all our victim specialist did.
	She interacted with a number of the families and assisted them in a number of ways for months, if not, it was probably like 18 months after.
	Pause.
	Name this school shooting that's been a federal case.
	I don't know of any, right?
	Valdi's all being prosecuted by the state.
	Parkland's being prosecuted all by the state.
	Columbine prosecuted by the state.
	All the shootings I know of were prosecuted by the state, right?
	I don't know if any of them were federal.
	But what would it take to cross the jurisdiction from state to federal for a crime?
	It would take, obviously, a federal crime to have been committed.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And here, I mean, he was dead, so it's not clear that there would...
	I mean, what federal case could there have been?
	And yet they're saying they had victim coordinators from the FBI assigned that all they did...
	Was manage the families, the issues related to the families, whether it was harassment or whatever else.
	So maybe the harassment angle was a potential federal crime?
	Interstate harassment?
	I mean, I don't know how to phrase it, Robert.
	I'm not trying to be glibber or facetious.
	Yeah, no, no.
	I mean, maybe that's the angle.
	Whatever it is, the predicate has been skipped over here.
	He hasn't explained how the FBI ended up on the scene in the first place.
	Let's see if Pattis gets the memo and asks the question if he can.
	Objection, relevance, maintained.
	Here, let's do this again.
	It was 99% of her work.
	That's all she did.
	When you said she assisted them, what did she assist them with?
	Objection, foundation, hearsay, relevance.
	That's a good combination of objections.
	For those people out there, those are three different evidentiary predicates.
	Now, I like to cite the rule number because I'm not a big fan of speaking objections.
	Also, it tends to...
	Judges tend to like it because they don't think you're grandstanding or trying to say something to the jury.
	So you say rule 401, rule 402, rule 403, rule 806.
	But I like to do multiple ones.
	And that's what he did.
	There's like, okay, there's no foundation here.
	What does that mean?
	It means he's testifying about something he hasn't established his basis to know about.
	So like all this testimony is supposed to be from personal knowledge.
	And he's saying he hasn't established how he has personal knowledge about something.
	So that's the foundation objection.
	The relevance objection is it's not material to a damages trial, which to me, almost all of his testimony so far has been irrelevant.
	Even if it was, the only added objection I would make is the cumulative confusion prejudicial part.
	Complaints.
	And you managed her in fielding those complaints?
	I managed her in fielding those complaints and then...
	We're directed to the appropriate supervisors.
	It's usually to the Bridgeport supervisor.
	This new town is covered by Bridgeport.
	And were the families who lost children and loved ones at Sandy Hook directed to contact your team if they were experiencing harassing or threatening behavior?
	To be honest, I'm not sure if they were directed to.
	I just know that That the victim specialists had a pretty close relationship with a number of the victims' families and also with a number of, or at least a couple officers from Newtown.
	You said 99% of what she did for 18 months was helping the families respond to complaints of threatening and harassing behavior directed towards them?
	Yes, sir.
	Describe that to the jury.
	Did that start as soon as you took over as Chief Division Counsel in January?
	From what I remember.
	So, all of this was happening before Alex Jones ever said anything that he's now being sued for.
	They're accusing him the day of, of having said, they're coming for your guns.
	I think that was the statement he made.
	It happened.
	It means it happened and they're going to use it.
	So, what he's being sued for, for everybody out there, is saying that Sandy Hook didn't happen.
	That's the core theory.
	Those statements don't happen until much longer after Sandy Hook happened.
	What they're describing here is that almost all the harassment began immediately after Sandy Hook, which means the harassment could not have been caused by statements Alex Jones had not made at that time.
	But they're going to confuse the jury and the courts allowing it and will likely continue to allow it because they wanted to build this fake...
	I mean, that's the irony.
	There's supposed to be a trial about fake news, but they're promoting a fake story as part of the actual trial, which is to blame Alex Jones for things he had nothing to do with, just because chronologically he couldn't have been.
	I recall, yes, because I remember dealing...
	It was an awkward situation, right?
	Why is the Division Council...
	Supervising victim services.
	So I was new to it.
	And so I relied on her heavily.
	She was somewhat new herself, but she was awesome.
	She was very good.
	I interacted with her multiple times a day.
	This stuff is going to increase conspiracy.
	The hardcore conspiracy theorists, now that this comes out, that the FBI counsel was...
	Micromanaging a good number of the family members and cops connected with other people, at least that could be the gist of his interpretation, will feed skeptics of what precisely happened, unfortunately.
	Because I was unaware of it.
	And to be honest with you, I don't see how any of this really serves the plaintiff's purpose.
	I get where they're trying to misallocate blame to Alex Jones, but only by getting away with that is any of this even possibly helpful, because it mostly proves the point that Jones is not the source of any of the injuries.
	And it was Newtown all the time, and it was constant.
	Describe, I mean, you call it constant.
	Can you describe to the jury the general nature of the type of harassment and threatening behavior that was directed at these families?
	What if you see?
	Excuse me, projection of hearsay.
	That answers repeating what someone else said.
	I can rephrase it, Your Honor.
	I can rephrase it.
	In carrying out your role, supervising the FBI's response, To complaints of harassment and threatening behavior, was it crucial to you to understand the types of threats and harassment that these families were dealing with?
	Of course it was, absolutely.
	And that informed your response to it?
	Of course.
	Yes, sir.
	Yes.
	So can you describe for the jury, please, the types of threatening behavior and harassment that these families were suffering that you were called to respond to?
	Can you describe the reports he received?
	He can't testify to the truth of the reports.
	I don't understand it, but I'm going to stop commenting on that.
	And that you, as the FBI, managing the FBI, respond to death threats.
	People calling all kinds of numbers in Newtown, saying that this is Adam Lanza.
	I'm going to come and kill you all.
	Telling people their children aren't dead, that they're actors.
	That's what I'm referring to.
	All the time.
	All of which was happening before Alex Jones said anything.
	The children weren't real.
	Death threats.
	Jones was not the source of the narrative.
	Seriously disturbed people.
	And this went on for 18 months.
	It went on much longer than 18 months.
	It went on 18 months for that particular victim specialist because she ended up transferring.
	It continued on.
	It continued.
	It's going to continue after today.
	Objection, move to strike, speculative, non-responsive.
	It's not speculative.
	Objection, move to strike.
	I am going to sustain the objection.
	It continued throughout the entire time.
	It's been going on for 10 years.
	In other words, independent of and separate from Alex Jones.
	That's why it's an interesting thing.
	Maybe Pattis doesn't object and let him answer it.
	He'll be able to twist it or spin it.
	During this whole time, as a result of your supervision of the FBI's response to this type of stuff, did you become aware of who Alex Jones was?
	Yes.
	How?
	Through conversations with the victim specialist.
	Did you have an understanding at that time what the genesis of this type of behavior was?
	Objection calls for hearsay at this point.
	Can you clarify the question, sir?
	What was your understanding of Alex Jones' role in creating this barrage?
	Objection, hearsay.
	My understanding at the time was that there was this person, Who had a radio show or an internet program that was saying that Sandy Hook never happened, that we were crisis actors, and that the children and the families weren't real people, that they were crisis actors.
	So did he actually go and watch any of the shows for that?
	Because Alex Jones didn't say that during the time frame he's talking about.
	And I'm just reading in the chat, someone said, I'm going to change my mind on this witness.
	Not on his reaction, but now it's going to affect my assessment of his credibility as to what he's looking to blame that trauma on.
	He's looking to blame it on something.
	And he's going to go with Alex.
	the FBI's response to this in which you yourself became targeted.
	Yes, sir.
	He's angry, he's broken, he's traumatized, and he needs to find something to blame it on.
	I've thought about this a lot, especially lately.
	There were key moments when I became aware of it, but I would say that somewhere from spring to summer of 2015.
	I don't know, man.
	Just one moment to get to the water.
	Sir, take a watch.
	You said, Bill, that you first became targeted.
	In spring /summer of 2015.
	Spring /summer.
	When I say target, do you have an understanding of what I mean?
	Yes, sir.
	Describe to the jury what that was.
	That they basically had taken some of those photographs that you see and tore it apart.
	This guy's not a real FBI agent, and he's not an FBI agent because he's not wearing an FBI logo.
	He doesn't have the right uniform on.
	He doesn't match with the other agents.
	The picture which was all over the front page news as of the day of.
	And let's just back up for a second, Bill, because there's got to be some way that you find out about this.
	How do you find out about it?
	What I remember is that I found out about it at work one day, and I came home.
	And I said to my wife, there's something going on online.
	And I'm not really sure what it is.
	And literally, as I'm sitting my wife down at the table, not the table, the computer desk, so she can take a look at it, my oldest son, who would have been either a freshman in high school or going into his freshman year, he came through the door.
	He said, Dad, there's stuff online.
	You know, kids are more attuned to that.
	At least certainly my kids were more attuned to what was going on online than I was.
	And he's like, Dad, we've got to come upstairs.
	You've got to see this.
	And I just said, well, whatever it is, we'll figure it out.
	And so that would be probably the first time.
	That would have been either, again, early spring or summer of 2015.
	And your son's name is William, like you.
	Yes, sir.
	So when Will comes and says to you, there's something going on online, and you kind of heard that something was going on online at the Bureau, did you yourself then try to figure out what's happening?
	So I was pulling it all up, but it was essentially they were saying that Mr. Wheeler and I were the same person, and that comparing my photographs to Mr. Wheeler, that we were one and the same, and that that was proof.
	One of the proofs that Sandy Hope never happened.
	You and Mr. Wheeler, you're referring to David Wheeler.
	Yes, yes, sir.
	David Wheeler, whose son, Ben, was killed at Sandy Hope.
	Yes, sir.
	Yes, sir.
	And there were photos of you next to Mr. Wheeler.
	Yes, they basically would superimpose our faces with arrows, and they were focused on parts of our...
	Again, this is they.
	Or at least they were focused on parts.
	Like, they were focused on my earlobes.
	It was, like, videos.
	There were, like, hours-long videos about him.
	Yes, and none of which were from Alex Jones.
	Can you describe for the jury the volume of stuff you were seeing?
	Yeah.
	Hopefully, Pattis is going to pick up on this and put together a timeline.
	The date of the allegedly defam...
	Well, they're not allegedly.
	The defamatory statements.
	What, ten lines of things?
	I could Google.
	I'll be back in one second.
	Whatever the topic may be in this ten entries, then you could hit the next page.
	I could just tell you it went on for a page.
	It just went on.
	It went on.
	Seemed like forever.
	What was your reaction to this when you're seeing yourself all over?
	You can't even describe it.
	I don't know how to describe it.
	It's crushing.
	It's, I mean...
	You're just, you're basically under attack and you can't even defend yourself.
	What about, I mean, I take it that you weren't a very online person?
	No, I would not describe.
	I don't have social media or anything like that.
	I don't have social media myself, but people create social media accounts with my name and spread this filth.
	But when you say that you felt under attack and defenseless, what is it about seeing this stuff online saying that you're an actor and that your experience at Sandy Hook was fake?
	What is it that was overwhelming to you?
	It's one of the worst things that ever happened, if not the worst thing that ever happened here.
	Right?
	What happened to me?
	The worst.
	The worst.
	And people want to say this didn't happen?
	And then they want to get rich off of it?
	That's the worst part.
	Like, you know what?
	You can say whatever you want about me.
	I don't care.
	Just say whatever you want.
	This guy, I don't believe anything from this guy.
	This is such a political rhetorical, what he's doing right now, grandstanding professional witness.
	I'm sorry.
	They're children.
	Maybe he is all broken up, but now he's doing a long closing argument.
	You're not going to have to sit here and listen to me say this.
	I'm sorry.
	This now sounds like action.
	This sounds like dramatic performance by him on the stand.
	That's why.
	That's what's upsetting about.
	That part I didn't buy as authentic and original.
	That I bought as...
	That I listened to and I heard prepared.
	Honestly, prepared too much.
	Since 2015, I wouldn't have that particular presentation.
	They're hoping the jury is the choir.
	How have you dealt with these lies being on the internet?
	How have you dealt with that?
	At some point, you have to just accept it.
	None of this as yet has been tied to Jones.
	You see how they suddenly did that?
	I can't believe they're tied into they, which he never tied to Jones, any of the videos, any of the exhibits, any of the images.
	But they said they made money off of it.
	Connecting to the jury, the two are identical.
	Like any crisis that we all deal with in our lives, I guess we have to just...
	I mean, you just have to deal with it.
	The more this guy talks, the less...
	That's what I'm asking.
	Maybe he's still traumatically just broken up for everything.
	The more he talks, the more I doubt that's the case.
	I caught the last part.
	No, but there's two separate things.
	Yeah, you're right.
	You have one totally traumatic, broken up response.
	And now he wants...
	He wants someone to pay for it, and there's only one person left who can or will pay for it.
	And that's Alex Jones.
	It's not Lanza or his family.
	It's not the school.
	It's not the government.
	There's only one person left to take the blame for this.
	And he wants it.
	I tried to get help.
	I tried to get the Bureau to help me.
	And then I called the Agents Association to see if they could help me.
	And that ended up...
	It didn't result in anything.
	They basically just gave me the runaround.
	And then finally, the only person ever...
	Even listen with Mr. Koskoff.
	He's a gentleman gracious enough to listen to me and that's why we're here.
	Is there going to be a waiver?
	Objection relevance unless there's going to be a waiver?
	Move to strike.
	It's interesting.
	He says the FBI didn't help him.
	Nobody helped him.
	And he needs to find someone to punish him.
	And the plaintiff's lawyer is happy to help.
	Threats yourself?
	Yes, sir.
	I would have a continuous objection on some of this.
	Probably beginning in 2015, there was a guy from New London, Connecticut, who was so obsessed with Mr. Wheeler and I that he...
	Objection to the characterization of him.
	What did he see?
	What did he hear?
	To the judge's credit, she's stuck to the rules of evidence.
	You're explaining the nature of the threat that you received.
	You understood it to come from a gentleman in New London?
	Yes.
	And what was the nature of the threat that was directed at you?
	He went on for months, and he would call, along with others, would call my extension in New Haven and leave violent, threatening messages.
	You're not Bill Aldenberg.
	You're David Wheeler.
	You're not an FBI agent.
	And he ended up, he talked, this guy from New London talked to a couple agents in New Haven who were so concerned about his behavior.
	They came and saw me and said, you really have to be careful.
	This guy sounds like he could do something.
	And Mr. Santiago, this guy's name was John Santiago in his Facebook photo.
	You know, you have a Facebook account and like a profile photo was...
	Objection, hearsay.
	Have you seen it?
	Yeah, I've seen it multiple times.
	Objection, hearsay.
	Have you seen a document?
	Not in evidence.
	Best evidence.
	You personally have seen it, haven't you?
	Yes, sir.
	Tell the jury what it is.
	Objection, hearsay, best evidence.
	It's a photograph on his Facebook account.
	It's a photograph.
	Mr. Wheeler's face and my face next to each other.
	That's his Facebook profile picture.
	Did you become aware that this gentleman was connected to Wolfgang Halbig?
	Yes.
	Who's Wolfgang Halbig?
	Wolfgang Halbig is an associate of Mr. Jones and Infowars.
	That's false.
	That's completely false.
	How did I become aware of Halbig?
	Halbig.
	Halbig was also one of the people that was writing harassing stuff about me.
	Sending multiple emails and phone calls to the FBI saying that I wasn't who the FBI said I was.
	And you become aware that you said that Mr. Halbig was associated with Mr. Jones?
	Yeah, Mr. Halbig was on Mr. Jones' show.
	That's not association.
	That's not Mr. Jones' affiliation.
	That's a guest at Intervention Foundation.
	I know that Mr. Halbig was on Infowars spewing all this crap.
	And that Mr. Halbig was in, I know that he was in Newtown harassing people.
	Did you know that Mr. Jones directed his audience to go to Mr. Halbig's website?
	Objection, bleeding.
	Did Mr. Jones direct his audience to Mr. Halbig's website?
	To be honest, sir, I just don't recall that.
	I don't.
	Because he probably never even checked out.
	It also makes the leading framing of the question even worse, given the answer that he gets when he asks it properly.
	Garbage about you and David.
	Objection.
	Argumentative.
	Argumentative.
	I don't think I'm arguing with Bill.
	Do you know, Bill, whether this stuff about...
	I mean, this bill is just patently inappropriate.
	All the way through.
	And at one point, he accidentally said special agent.
	And he's like, oh, especially, I mean, Bill.
	It's like he's doing it to get a response out of somebody.
	I can't figure it out.
	Unless the court has, for some reason, allowed this.
	I mean, this is generally prohibited in court.
	You're not allowed to have a degree of familiarity or refer to someone by their first name.
	By their last name and their formal designation.
	Mr. and Mrs. Sometimes you can say doctor and special agent, etc.
	But generally it's supposed to be by their last name only.
	Not only that, it creates issues because you might have multiple people with the same first name.
	On Halving's website?
	Yes.
	The stuff about Nate was on Halberg's website.
	Notice he didn't say it was on his website.
	A couple of examples of the type of threatening and harassing behavior.
	It's fair to say that those are just examples of the countless types of things.
	Could you even try?
	To calculate or quantify the number of threats and harassing behavior you can count.
	It probably would be tough to quantify, sir.
	It would probably be tough to give it a number, but it's significantly huge.
	Ten, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred, a thousand.
	When you were advised that at least one of these hoaxers in the FBI's estimation, you needed to look out for it because he might do something.
	Yes.
	Wouldn't you understand that to me?
	The whispering, I think, is Pat's.
	Do harm to me or do harm to my family or something.
	That's the way I understand it.
	That's because there's often a mic at the council table.
	Sometimes you can turn it off.
	Sometimes you can't, depending on the courtyard room you're in.
	But it's why you always have to be careful as a lawyer or anything.
	The defense will tell you, don't talk to me if we can avoid it.
	During the course of your time supervising the FBI's response to the hoax, complaints, and harassment, did you come to understand the size, even in general terms, of Mr. Jones' audience?
	Foundation from whom, Judge?
	Foundation.
	I don't know if we're going to get any more into stuff from Mr. Kosko or not.
	Did you come to learn that by virtue of your role at the FBI?
	At some point, I came to learn the power and enormity of this whole Infowars Alex Jones thing.
	And what impact did the enormity of it have on your own feelings of security for yourself and your family?
	So this is a generic opinion about Infowars?
	Formed by what?
	I had concern.
	I'm not worried about myself.
	I'm worried about my family.
	I could defend myself.
	My family can't defend themselves.
	There is a strict protocol in place.
	If any threat is made against an agent of the FBI.
	So when he said the FBI totally dismissed it, that suggests to me the FBI did not think these were credible threats.
	Just FYI.
	There's specific rules.
	The FBI is extremely protective of their own.
	They'll arrest people in a heartbeat if you say anything that could be considered an actionable, credible threat.
	So that is an odd disparity in his story as pointed out by our live chat at vivobarneslaw.locals.com.
	Now, Robert, I might have to end this a little early today.
	So what time do you have to go?
	Whenever is fine.
	I'm flexible.
	Okay, so I could maybe duck out and leave you solo, but then you wouldn't be able to pause it.
	But we'll go until I get summoned.
	Give me a...
	No problem.
	And when I learned...
	You know, really what Infowars is and what Mr. Jones is.
	And the influence that Mr. Jones has.
	I mean, he's affiliated with some very powerful people.
	I mean, I figured I was done.
	You just have to accept it.
	Bill, after the meeting, we have to say, Sandy Hook, am I correct that you and your team members were provided counseling by the FBI?
	Yeah, that...
	On the 15th, the morning of the 15th, they made us go to...
	The FBI has an employee assistance program, an EAP program.
	They've made us all go to EAP.
	And did you continue to seek counseling as a result of the trauma that you suffered that day?
	Yeah.
	The person that the AP later that I felt with the.
	Did you also seek treatment to assist you in dealing with what you were suffering through as a result of the hoax, harassment, and threats?
	When I got a real grasp of this conspiracy, these lies, these, uh, when the two are not connected, um, Jones stuff, I, I went and saw it.
	I hadn't seen the EAP lady in a while, but I, I went and saw her.
	She came to New Haven.
	I called her to try to explain to her what was going on.
	And she said, oh, come on.
	She works out in New York and she came off.
	Why did she come here?
	I, I got, it's, this is a, This whole thing is messed up.
	This is 10 years of...
	This is just awful.
	This is awful.
	I believe him here.
	What are we doing?
	What he's talking about is the incident.
	What are we doing?
	What are you doing here?
	It's awful.
	How often do you Google yourself?
	I probably...
	I check on...
	It depends, but probably like once a week I Google.
	I can look real quick to see if there's anything new.
	Why do you do that?
	Again, for the safety of my family.
	I'm very concerned about the safety of my family.
	It's not an understatement to say that some of these people are deranged.
	When we walk out of the courthouse today, they could be outside the courthouse.
	These people are deranged.
	So you're understanding that the targeting of you, at least initially, was based on the fact that you didn't look like an FBI agent?
	Yes, sir.
	What about you?
	Were they saying it didn't look like an FBI agent on the day you responded?
	Again, it was all about the uniforms and weapons and how I was carrying my M4.
	The day of, which implies that it had nothing to do with Alex Jones.
	So it was all about uniform, weapons, how I was carrying my M4, things like that.
	And how did you feel when you learned that as a result of how you appeared?
	Mr. Wheeler had also been targeted.
	But that's the worst part about this.
	I'm sorry.
	It's the worst part about it.
	He's suffered enough, and then somehow, you know, you feel like...
	I agree with you that it's the original incident...
	Maybe if I had to arrange that time, if I wasn't...
	And then the rest is misdirected.
	Bullshit with the guys as much.
	I would have got my stuff done before all this happened.
	I don't know.
	I absolutely take some responsibility.
	Post-traumatic stress was so severe.
	It's not right.
	It was almost disability status by what he's describing.
	If 10 years later you can't control a motion response to it, then that suggests SWAT team was wrong since COVID.
	Oh, yeah.
	You're being assessed now?
	May we, Judge, please?
	Yeah.
	May we please?
	That's fine.
	Okay, so we'll take our 15-minute at any recess now.
	Mr. Farber will collect those pads and redistribute them.
	Continue please to obey the rules of juror conduct that I gave you.
	And we will start again promptly in 15 minutes, so please plan a portion.
	Let me see how far behind we are on the live here.
	Okay, so I think if I just skip to live.
	So we're not back live yet.
	Oh, 30 seconds left.
	Robert, I sent you the link.
	You could bring up the link so you could pause it on your end and stay live if I have to.
	If you head out, we'll just head out for the day.
	All right, and I think we're going to get the cross-examination.
	We got the gist of what, you know, their theory of the case distilled through on witness.
	I would not have used the FBI guy.
	I mean, what's interesting to me is a traditional plaintiff's firm would have approached this differently.
	A traditional plaintiff's firm would have focused on the actual damages and the emotional trauma of the most sympathetic plaintiffs.
	They would not have made it such a political case had the FBI guy testify first, whose trauma is having people second-guess whether he's FBI.
	And, I mean, he's the weakest case by far, the weakest witness from a damages perspective by far.
	And both the opening statement and this guy makes clear how overtly political the case is, and it shows why.
	Shows why the case never should have been defaulted, given the amount of discovery they have freely available to use in the court proceedings.
	And no one yet has been able to find me an analogous case.
	Not Nate the lawyer, not any of them.
	Find me one analogous case where a default judgment was issued where this much discovery was turned over.
	They can't seem to find it.
	Good luck with that.
	And the last component is...
	How much, between the opening statement and this, how much the whole case is really what Norm Pattis told him it was, the defense lawyer for Alex Jones.
	This is a case of them wanting to shut up Alex Jones, to remove him from the court of public opinion, from removing his rights of freedom of press and freedom of speech, and turning legitimate grief into a political weapon for impermissible purpose.
	And that's what we've seen with this witness, who has yet to even testify.
	Him actually hearing Alex Jones say anything, and he's yet to even testify to seeing Infowars publish anything.
	So what he said is, these people harassed, the timeline doesn't overlap with Alex Jones' statements even, and his talking to the plaintiff's lawyer who told him to blame it all on Alex Jones.
	That's what we got from this witness.
	Let's bring this back in for a second and just see how much I can get away with.
	How do I turn the volume on?
	Right here.
	So it's going to be...
	The record will reflect that the entire panel is present.
	older than me.
	Okay, there we go, I'm back.
	Attorney Pattis, whenever you're waiting for your cross...
	And people, I'll post the link to Law& Crime in local so you can go...
	...switch to give us access.
	Thank you.
	Good afternoon.
	How do I refer to you?
	I don't think I know you well.
	I'll just call you Bill.
	You can call me Bill.
	May I call you Mr.?
	It's fine, sir.
	Mr. Aldenberg, you've been an FBI agent for some time.
	20 years, sir.
	And you're trained as a lawyer.
	Yes.
	And you were a first responder.
	Would you call yourself a first responder?
	I would not call myself a first responder.
	I was part of a team that did like a secondary search.
	The officers from Newtown and the state police were the first responders.
	You arrived shortly thereafter and provided assistance?
	Yes, sir.
	And some of the things that you saw there are images that you cannot shake.
	Correct.
	Yes, sir.
	And I think you testified moments ago that in the wake of your response to the shooting at Sandy Hook, you were given access to an EAP, an Employee Assistance Program person?
	Yes, sir.
	What was that person's name?
	That's Margaret Lane.
	And how many times did you see her when you were first referred to her?
	Oh, for the...
	Oh, for the...
	Anywhere from probably six to a dozen, but a dozen is probably high.
	Okay, so somewhere between six and a dozen, a dozen probably high.
	Were you seeing her once a week?
	No, no, no.
	Every few months.
	Okay, so every couple months would you call her or would she call you?
	Both.
	Okay.
	And you check in, how you doing?
	Are you coping okay?
	Yeah, sometimes phone calls, sometimes in person.
	And so among those 6 to 12 visits would be included phone calls, correct?
	Yes, sir.
	Some of them were very brief?
	If it was brief, it'd be 10 minutes.
	And if it was long?
	Let's see where he's going with this.
	Maybe 20 or 30. So did you ever see her in person?
	Oh, yes, sir.
	I've met her multiple times in person.
	Did you ever see her to talk about the trauma of what you'd seen at Sandy Hook on December 14th?
	Yes, sir.
	So they've called it...
	In person?
	What do you call it when it's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom?
	Yeah, rapid fire.
	And in other words, like an R word.
	It's like a certain kind of drum.
	I want to say ricotta for some reason, but I'm getting it wrong.
	Ricotta or...
	I'm blanking weirdly on the word, but it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
	One, it's because he's already got in his head where he wants to go, and he knows how to do it naturally.
	He's not operating off of a script.
	You're seeing an old-school trial lawyer practice this.
	When people said, hey, why did he complain about all these other lawyers and these other cases?
	It's because this should be the standard.
	You know, as you go up there, are you ready?
	You know exactly where you're going.
	You know how you're going to get there.
	You know it in your head.
	You don't have to rely on a script.
	You're able to react in live time to whatever he's doing.
	Notice he starts off with, you know, the other guy wants to call you Bill.
	I'm not so sure about Bill.
	So he makes that little point to the jury, but transitions into it.
	And he goes, eh, let's just, mister, let's stick with the formality.
	And then he's going with his sequence, and this is a professional witness.
	This is a guy who's been on the stand, as he said, too many times to counter, some version thereof.
	He said lots and lots of times.
	So this is someone who's used to defense, and he's FBI.
	What does that mean?
	It means he's used to defense lawyers cross-examining.
	It means he's going to be a very skilled, very tough witness to break.
	Now, one thing you're going to notice, just by the way Pattis is doing this rapid-fire questioning, you're seeing the witness.
	Motive tenor change.
	Note all of a sudden he's not momentarily breaking down every five seconds like he was on the plane of Stan.
	Right?
	And as I say, the more I watch this, I agree with you fundamentally he was broken by the event.
	But there's more and more of this that I'm skeptical of the authenticity and originality of his emotive reactions.
	Just because here, notice how quick all of a sudden, boom.
	But you achieve that in part by the style of questioning.
	Because the reason he's nervous as a witness, professional witness, he's like, okay, here's, I got a hostile lawyer, Henry.
	He's trying to anticipate where the lawyer's going.
	He's trying to get there quicker than the lawyer can get there so he can answer the right way, quote unquote.
	But in order to do that...
	You have to change your emotive tenor as a witness.
	You forget that nine tenths of your testimony from a jury perspective is the emotive interpretation of your presentation.
	And just by shifting the style of questioning, Pettis has already changed this guy to looking a lot more like a professional witness.
	Than the broken man that he probably accurately and honestly is.
	And he's focused on the substance he's getting into now, as the third analysis here, is he's going to start highlighting exactly what the treatment was for and what it wasn't for.
	Okay, let's see this.
	30 minutes, maybe?
	So is it fair to say you've maybe spent six, seven hours with her in the course of a couple years prior to 2015?
	That may be a little high, but...
	Somewhere in that ballpark.
	When did you first learn the name Alex Jones, sir?
	I'm assuming...
	I know I knew it when I was Chief Division Counsel, so I assume I learned it from our victim specialist.
	And when did you first learn that a man named Wolfgang Halbig had associated you with Mr. Wheeler?
	I learned that...
	I may have learned that from...
	This call center was maybe receiving calls, and someone from the New Haven Division notified me that this guy, Halbig, was spreading these lies.
	Was that the same person who informed you about Mr. Santiago, John Santiago?
	No.
	I'm trying to think how I learned about Santiago.
	Santiago, I may alert with a direct call to my extension.
	Well, what you told us earlier is that you received calls and he would call along with others to be violent and threatening.
	You're not Wheeler.
	You're not an FBI agent.
	You talk to agents.
	You should do something about this.
	You need to be careful.
	And that's how you learned Mr. Santiago, correct?
	So was Mr. Santiago ever arrested?
	No.
	You are an FBI agent responsible for enforcing federal law?
	Yes.
	It is a federal law to use interstate communication to threaten another person, correct?
	Yes.
	Was anyone ever arrested for threatening you online?
	No.
	He's drawing the inference there that I was talking about.
	How did you reach the conclusion?
	If the evidence was strong, if the threat was considered a legitimate threat, then arrest what you can guarantee would have been made.
	And he's making the point, you're an FBI agent.
	Federal law is, anybody makes a threat online over the phone to you, about you, concerning you, that's a federal crime that people get arrested and prosecuted for, yet you're claiming these threats occurred and your own FBI, which you reported it to, never arrested anybody.
	And he's just leaving it there, right?
	Now it's smart.
	The temptation of lawyers is to ask a why question.
	Ask a question that lets him volunteer something that might be hurtful.
	He's smart enough not to do that.
	Make the point.
	Let it sit with the jury.
	Maybe this is a little overstated.
	Maybe these were all seen as kind of wackos doing wacky stuff but not really serious threats.
	Otherwise, there would have been arrests.
	Chat concurs, Robert.
	An associate of Mr. Jones.
	I watched.
	At some point I watched videos of Mr. Halbig on Mr. Jones' show.
	When's the first time you watched a video of Mr. Halbig on Mr. Jones' show?
	I would be guessing, sir, but I would say approximately like 2016.
	Where were you when you saw that?
	I was sitting in my office on the second floor at FBI New Haven.
	You didn't file suit at that point in 2016?
	No, at that point I couldn't get anybody to help me.
	You were looking?
	I was...
	By then, I'm pretty certain by 2016, I had contacted the Agents Association.
	I had been looking for people.
	I had been asking the U.S. Attorney's Office to help me.
	I had been asking the FBI New Haven to help me.
	So, yes, I was looking for help.
	You mentioned that you tried after 2015.
	Well, I think what you told the jury this afternoon is, you know, you can say whatever you want about me.
	I can defend myself.
	I just accept it.
	You have to deal with it.
	But you did.
	Find it emotionally distressing to be the target of this sort of publicity, correct?
	Yes.
	And you tried to get the Bureau to do something, correct?
	I've had multiple conversations with people from the Bureau, yes.
	You said you told us this afternoon you tried to get the Bureau to do something and it wouldn't, correct?
	I tried to get the Agents Association to do something.
	You said two things.
	Okay.
	You said you tried to get the Bureau, and then you said you tried to get the agency.
	That's fair.
	Yes, sir.
	And so, is it fair to say that whatever you were bringing to the FBI in 2015...
	Notice what else he stopped doing.
	He stopped looking at the jury.
	So, I mean, two things here.
	Credit to Norm Pattis' style of questioning.
	Being so rapid fire that he is obsessed with anticipating the question, trying to protect himself, and he's so obsessed with it, his body language has gone away from communicating to the jury, and he's looking down, trying to have memory recall and chase in advance of where the questioning is going.
	And the emotive context has shifted.
	Also, he's being a little evasive.
	You know, one minute, nobody will help me.
	I'm desperate for help.
	Well, maybe I went to the FBI, maybe I didn't.
	Well, actually, nobody got arrested, you know, but supposedly these complaints were so serious, so credible, so severe, so substantial, so broad-based that it ruined my life.
	These are contradictions that Pattis is just quickly exposing.
	15 in 2016, they didn't respond in a way that satisfied you, correct?
	No, they based it as far as the FBI goes.
	No, there are individual people in the FBI that...
	I'm thankful for the help they tried to give me.
	I can say it that way.
	No arrests?
	No, that's no.
	Now, you mentioned you reached a conclusion that Helbig was an associate of Mr. Jones sometime in 2016 when you saw him on Mr. Jones's program.
	approximately 2016.
	2015.
	I It could have been, but again, approximately 2016 is my answer.
	Okay, could it have been as late as 17?
	I don't think so.
	Okay, so probably 16 as you sit here today.
	That's a guess.
	Did you reach the conclusion that because he was on Jones' show, he was an associate of his?
	I concluded he was an associate because he was spreading these lies about Sandy Hook and crisis actors.
	And Mr. Jones was spreading lies about Sandy Hook and Crisis Actors.
	So, yes, I associated the two of them as they were on, because they were on the show together.
	Well, that's different.
	Associating people together, in your mind, is different than making them associates.
	You would agree, correct?
	Objection, Your Honor.
	Yes, Your Honor.
	That was a fair question.
	What's the grounds to object to that?
	When did you first see the broadcast of Mr. Jones?
	That would have been when I...
	I watched it for the first time in my office in New Haven Division.
	And would that have been at or about the time you saw Helbing on the show?
	Yes.
	So prior to that, did you have, other than what you heard from the victim, and who was that victim's associate?
	You know, the person you were supervising, I don't remember.
	The victim specialist was Ashley Hall.
	Ashley Hall?
	Did Ashley Hall hear about Alex Jones?
	Here's another question.
	You have a bunch of FBI victim specialists assigned, I understand from his testimony, taking up 99% of people's time for like 18 months or more, and yet no one was arrested.
	Isn't that odd?
	Put it this way.
	The criticism of the handling of Sandy Hook was that it was being politically manipulated for a particular politicized purpose.
	Away from the true cause of harm that took place and remedies that could preclude the probability of the recurrence of the harm in the future to others.
	And that the Obama administration had politically weaponized it, assigning a bunch of FBI victim coordinators and victim advocates to a case that the federal government is not prosecuting.
	It's very unusual and is consistent, at least, with the idea that they wanted to control the narrative in a particular manner that went to a certain direction.
	If you wanted evidence that this was being politically controlled to support only one narrative to come out of the case, evidence would be something like federal FBI victim coordinators working with the victims to make sure their focus didn't turn to something else.
	Such as, say, the school safety inadequacy and things of that nature.
	I just find it very odd that there are all these victim coordinators out of the FBI's office for a case that, to my knowledge, there's no FBI prosecution concerned.
	At least, this witness hasn't given any examples of that.
	Hasn't said, this person was a victim because this person was arrested for this interstate harassment.
	I haven't heard that.
	My paper is on it.
	I thought it was me.
	Nope, it was me.
	Okay, so maybe start the question a little bit.
	If you don't mind, I don't think we'll monitor about it.
	Yes, ma 'am.
	When did Ashley Hall first tell you that Alex Jones was talking about Sandy Hook?
	I don't recall, sir.
	And you first asked me, was Ashley Hall the one that told you, and then you didn't let me answer that?
	No, I think...
	Okay, then please do.
	I'm not going to ever cut you off.
	I have to assume in relation to the...
	I can't let you assume.
	I would draw the question and ask a different question.
	Did Ashley Hall first tell you about Alex?
	I believe she was the one.
	And when was that?
	That would have been in the 20...
	Again, I was her supervisor from January 2013 to when she left.
	Yes, you hear, by the way.
	He knew about the state way outside the statute of limitations for bringing suit.
	And again, they've been just ignoring that.
	That's the other reason why they had to default Jones.
	They couldn't allow the statute of limitations defense to be presented on his behalf.
	Information on Mr. Jones from 2013 to 2014?
	Can you clarify what you mean by seek out information?
	Do I have to?
	Do you mean, did I investigate him?
	Is that what you mean, sir?
	No.
	I mean, Alex Jones is talking trash about where I was.
	Did you want to know who is this guy?
	What's he saying?
	Did you take any steps to figure out who he was?
	In 2014, sir?
	2013.
	Let's start there.
	In 2013, 2014, I did not...
	I was not aware of stuff related specifically to me.
	What I was involved in...
	His daily conversations at Ms. Hall about the harassment and the threats related to the families from Newtown, the victims' families.
	And that's what I remember.
	And Mr. Jones' name came up in those discussions?
	From what I recall, yes, sir.
	Did you open an investigation of him?
	I was not.
	In an investigative position, sir, what I did is I forwarded any complaints to the appropriate supervisors.
	Did anyone open an investigation on Mr. Jones for engaging in interstate harassment?
	I couldn't comment.
	How is that not relevant?
	He's claiming Jones is responsible for all the harassment, yet the FBI never opened an investigation into it.
	Or they did, and they cleared him and said he wasn't responsible.
	Again, this is why the court's not allowing Jones to present his defense.
	Flanked by two other agents?
	They're task force officers.
	These weren't guys on the SWAT team, I presume?
	No, they were task force officers from Bridgeport.
	And so you mentioned that this photograph was distributed worldwide in the newspaper.
	I don't know if it was that.
	Was this one of the photographs that was distributed worldwide?
	I didn't say worldwide, but the...
	I'm not sure, sir.
	It's the other photograph, but I never said worldwide.
	Okay.
	A person looking at that, how would they know if you were an FBI agent?
	Objection, Your Honor.
	They wouldn't.
	They wouldn't.
	I don't want to drive too fine a point on it.
	I think what you told us earlier is when you learned it was devastating for you to learn that people were associating you with Mr. Wheeler, a man who lost a child, correct?
	Yes, sir.
	And you take some responsibility for that association, you told us.
	Yes, I do, sir.
	You said maybe if I hadn't been, you know, if I hadn't been BSing with the guys as much that day, I might have been able to get basically your full view, correct?
	Full regalia.
	You might have had your FBI patch on, correct?
	yes sir Now, in 2015, this guy, John Santiago...
	May I put it here, Judge?
	I turn it this way.
	Thank you, sir.
	It's an unusual layout of the court to have the podium over to the side like that.
	In 15 or 16, you learned about John Santiago, right?
	Oh, that would have been in early 2016.
	And at that point, did you reach out to the EAP program?
	I believe that's somewhere around the Santiago and Halbig stuff and the Jones stuff is what I reached out to.
	The EAP lady.
	Santiago stuff, those were the calls that you were told about, correct?
	Were your fellow agents?
	Santiago's calls, Halbig's calls, and there were multiple calls.
	Oh, Halbig called you too?
	Halbig called the FBI.
	I didn't speak to him.
	Okay.
	How many times did Jones call you?
	He didn't call me, sir.
	Did you ever see this photograph, 289, on Infowars?
	I didn't, no, sir.
	Do you know whether he ever talked about you on InfoWars?
	I don't know.
	There you go.
	Right there.
	Does that make him affiliated with the talk show?
	That three questions sums it up.
	Yep.
	Jones never called me.
	Jones never harassed me.
	No FBI case was open in the Jones that he's aware of concerning harassment.
	Jones never published the photo.
	Jones never even talked about him ever.
	And yet he's suing for defamation.
	Tell me this isn't insane.
	Except, Robert, this might be my...
	Okay, I might have a few more minutes.
	No, but they're going to say that Hal Big was on the show, that Jones was...
	A guest!
	But not that he talked about him on InfoWars either!
	So if a guest appears on your show, and then somewhere else he goes and says something, the show now gets sued?
	Something he didn't say on the show?
	Not just that, Robert.
	I mean, that would be the argument.
	They're going to say that it was more than a guest he referred to, you know, endorsed and made it look like he was, you know, supporting the message.
	And therefore, I mean, that's the argument you'd raise, but typically you'd have a trial on it and not get a default verdict.
	And frankly, this would be dismissed.
	Look at the cases that are getting dismissed.
	You know, the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, major news networks, Taylor Lorenz.
	They're getting cases dismissed where they're the ones who lied.
	And yet here you have, hey, this other guy over here did something, and he listened to this other guy over there, and that guy over there was once on a TV show.
	So let's sue the TV show.
	This is never, make the lawyer and the rest.
	Find me the precedent for this.
	Find me one.
	You won't.
	Well, it'll be at least for this plaintiff.
	The other plaintiffs might have more direct statements.
	They have other statements.
	By the way, this shows you why it was a mistake by the plaintiffs to have this be the lead guy.
	Again, they started.
	With their weakest evidence.
	Okay.
	So if I appear on CNN tonight, I'm a CNN affiliate?
	Yes, you are.
	Okay.
	Sustained.
	How sustained?
	Exactly.
	There's no ground to sustain that.
	Was that it?
	It's a damn good stress examination.
	Oh, there's a sidebar.
	Okay.
	Yes, he wants his definition of an affiliate.
	Plaintiff's lawyer is panicking now.
	Of course.
	Because they want a one-sided presentation.
	It's, hey, judge, we get to present all our evidence, even though none of it's relevant to the case, for the most part.
	Very little of it is.
	But they don't get to rebut our evidence because you've given them default judgment.
	So, I mean, it's the same as Texas.
	It was egregious enough to give a default judgment.
	But they're allowing this show trial to continue, and I call it a show trial, because they're allowing evidence that shouldn't be allowed in under their own rules.
	but they're only allowing one side to present their cake.
	These sidebars actually work out better for you folks because sometimes in trials we have the jury get up, leave, come back, leave, come back.
	I wonder if the jury can hear anything.
	So that's why the sidebars are a little more efficient.
	So just bear with us.
	Thank you, Judge.
	So when you went back to see the EAP person in around 2016, how many times did you talk to her on the phone in this period, 2016 and on?
	2016, probably through just not too long ago, probably a few months ago.
	Again, a dozen times.
	Same kind of thing.
	Sometimes five, ten minutes, sometimes as much as half an hour.
	I just remember when I first saw her in person in New Haven when all this stuff started up and all the lies from Halbig and Jones and everyone else.
	When all that started up, it was as if everything was coming back.
	I mean, to be honest, not that I was moving on because I think about this every day of my life, okay?
	But I had it under control.
	And then this happened.
	And the lies and all that stuff.
	And I just remember being overwhelmed again, and that's what I saw.
	That picture was shown in 2013.
	What's that, sir?
	I'm just pointing, like, this stuff, sir.
	I'm just not pointing at the photo.
	Yeah, it's just this stuff, sir.
	I misinterpreted.
	So in 2016, from 2016 to the present, you've spoken in EA per person maybe a dozen times.
	That's fair, yes, sir.
	Maybe six hours total.
	It's hard to...
	I wouldn't want to commit to a number of hours, but that's fine.
	Psychological, say he's been seeing a shrink, going to details, daily basis, weekly basis, etc.
	That's your normal emotional distress damages, Clay.
	You say you've been seeing a psychologist, etc.
	Now, often plaintiffs don't like to get into that because the problem is if you say, hey, my damage is emotional injury.
	Then the other side is allowed to say, you know what?
	There's other causes for your emotional state, including other things that you may not want to be public, right?
	Personal issues, other issues.
	Usually, you as a plaintiff open the door to those issues being fully disclosed.
	When you put your mental state as an element of the case for certain kinds of emotional distress claims.
	So that may have also been a practical reason for them to limit the presentation of evidence here.
	But he didn't present a lot.
	Basically, he's saying he talked to an FBI, my understanding of this, an FBI kind of counselor kind of person, a dozen times over several years for maybe anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes a pop.
	That doesn't sound like the kind of disabling emotional trauma.
	That entitles you to millions of dollars.
	Not normally in America.
	Because it's interesting.
	He says he wasn't getting that much therapy in the year or two right after the incident, but then this triggered all the trauma, and therefore it made it worse as of 2015.
	That's a double-edged sword.
	And again, he tied Jones to everyone else, as if Jones is responsible for what everyone else did.
	It's probably around that ballpark.
	If it's more, just say so.
	I mean, I've talked to her a lot.
	I've talked to her a lot in the last few years, so it probably is more than six hours.
	Did you see, in 2016, Hillary Clinton raise Sandy Hook and Alex Jones as part of her campaign, Your Honor?
	Sustained.
	Did you watch any part of the Megan Kelly interview in 2017?
	Yes, sir.
	Were you one of the people who petitioned local NBC affiliates not to show up to connect to the United States?
	Objection, Your Honor.
	No.
	Bias, exaggeration, interesting outcome of objection, Your Honor, and I think if this All right, so I'm going to excuse the jury for this.
	The exercise that I told you about, you're now going to get, okay?
	So Ron will collect her notepads and we should be working on a couple of weeks.
	Fast forward through it.
	Yeah, I'm just looking.
	Well, are they debating an objection here?
	All right, so where are you going, Mr. Pattis?
	As argued previously, it is argued that the defense opened the door to politics in this case by announcing that this was a case about stopping Alex Jones.
	We're on cross now, right?
	So we have this witness on the stand, you're crossing him.
	May the witness be excused during arguments so he doesn't know what the issues are?
	Certainly.
	That's exactly the right way to do it.
	Too often, they let the witness stay up there so they get to know where the...
	That's because Norm Pattis...
	This ain't his first rodeo.
	Well, we've objected that.
	There's no sequestration.
	All right, that's enough.
	The contention...
	Let me backtrack.
	So we have this witness on the stand.
	You're crossing the witness.
	So tell me now what your issue is.
	He's testified about how he became aware of Alex Jones, how he reached conclusions about an association of Halving and Jones, and he's also brought a suit to his efforts to find lawyers to help him bring a suit.
	It's our contention that this issue was largely dead until Hillary Clinton made a campaign issue of it in 2016, blaming Jones for Sandy Hook and his association.
	Attorney House, no, you may not, because I already ruled on the Clinton issue, and we're moved on from that, so now you've talked about Megyn Kelly, so let's address Megyn Kelly.
	It's a similar issue to Megyn Kelly.
	Well, then stick with the Megyn Kelly, and I don't want to hear Hillary Clinton again.
	There you go.
	I don't want to hear Hillary Clinton.
	We can't talk about Hillary Clinton.
	Whatever you do, don't talk about Hillary Clinton.
	Given the nature of the argument that the plaintiffs made here, it's our contention, we are entitled to put on exaggeration as a defense.
	If this man, when Megyn Kelly and NBC did an interview with Jones in 2017, a number of Connecticut residents petitioned local affiliates to not air the 2017 interview with Jones.
	I want to know if this man is one of them.
	That's a fair point.
	Your Honor, number one, first of all, Attorney Pettis has no good faith basis for asking the question, even in the war realm.
	Attorney Pettis has been deposed.
	There's no evidence of any kind in this part.
	But the larger issue here, which is what Attorney Pettis is trying to inject in this case, is some sort of echo of what he made the centerpiece of his opening.
	Which is that this lawsuit is an effort to silence Mr. Jones.
	And he was trying to get into Mr. Algenberg.
	That's what he said.
	A letter to NBC for one specific purpose.
	And that is to try and inject some sort of political argument to the jury, which is impermissible and which we objected to an opening.
	And if you want to want to hear about more broadly, the idea that somehow Mr. Jones is being silenced, that...
	Members of the jury themselves should be able to listen to what they want to listen to, all of which touch on the First Amendment issues that are foreclosed in this case.
	And so this is just what we anticipate to be step one in this trial strategy, which is designed to politicize this case, to try and inject foreclosed issues in the case that have no bearing and that are foreclosed by the default.
	And so this is, I think, a larger issue that we're going to be dealing with.
	The Megyn Kelly one is easy, but the reason I raised it and I asked the jury to be excused is because...
	We're seeing it come up again during the opening, Judge.
	When I asked for a hearing instruction, you said that we're going to move on, but I can see it again.
	I will issue a hearing instruction.
	This is what's happening now.
	Do you want to respond briefly on the Mickey Kelly issue before I roll?
	I'm not the one who told the jury in a hearing in damages, stop Alex Jones, stop the bullets, speak out on behalf of the community, and didn't even raise in a hearing in damages for 35 minutes the question of damages and then said nothing about it.
	The plaintiffs have made this case into a political broadside.
	I understand the court's causation, and I've carefully crafted my trial strategy around it.
	However, the issue for the jury at this point is the extent of harm that Jones caused them.
	And in our defenses, these people are exaggerating largely for political reasons.
	And, you know, Mr. Manning can laugh all he likes, but it's true.
	They waited until 2018 to file a suit over five- and six-year-old claims, and they all appear in his Coscom's office, miraculously, 15 people the same day.
	It is.
	I'm going to...
	Attorney Pattis.
	I just need to respond.
	No, no, no.
	It's not in front of the jury.
	There's no real prejudice to the show that Pattis has put on.
	But you're on around the larger issue, because who knows what his next question is.
	Why don't we address that now so that we don't get the jury upset moving them in and out a million times?
	You've told me I can't ask about Megyn Kelly.
	I'm not going to.
	I'm not going to.
	Okay, I understand.
	Of course you're not.
	What's your next question?
	So I'm not going to.
	Well, we did the Hillary Clinton.
	Now we did the Megyn Kelly.
	Should we address what's coming next?
	No.
	Oh, I like him!
	Well, I think it might make sense.
	She wants to vet his questions.
	I'm not responsible for giving my adversaries a preview of what's to come anymore than apparently they were responsible for telling me what witnesses they were going to call.
	Unapologetic.
	He's unapologetic.
	I understand your ruling.
	This has been a contentious trial.
	I am not going to get crosshairs with you on the first day or second or 15th day of trial.
	I understand your ruling.
	I will move on.
	I like him.
	I would just say let's move on carefully.
	Understood.
	By the way, I know why you like him, Robert.
	That's why you have to stand up to judges, or they will abuse you and beat you up.
	And you can stand up to them within the rules, within the proper code of conduct, all the rest, but you have to stand up to them.
	Otherwise, they will smack you around.
	That was...
	That's a classic case of how you stand up to a judge.
	She's deflated.
	She can't reprimand him in advance.
	She's used to lawyers capitulating.
	She's used to lawyers cowering.
	She doesn't even know how to...
	Hattice has been before, so she knows who he is.
	But she probably just thought she could cower him into it and is annoyed that she couldn't.
	He's also establishing things that she realizes look bad for the record.
	He said, you said I can't ask anything about Hillary Clinton.
	I can't ask anything about Megyn Kelly.
	He's establishing that in the record.
	If she was smart, she would have pulled back her ruling.
	She didn't because she's not smart enough to know how to handle it.
	So this time you have to take the same seats because you've got to pick up with your notebooks.
	I'm reading the chat.
	We're obviously going to clip that because that is a paradigm example of what Robert has been talking about.
	For years.
	Can the council stipulate that the entire panel is present?
	I do, yes.
	All right, please be seated.
	Whenever you're ready, I'll turn to Matt as you may continue.
	Thank you, Judge.
	Other than the EAP person, have you sought counseling from anyone else as a result of what you observed on December 14, 2012?
	No, sir.
	Other than the EAP person that you've mentioned, have you sought counseling from anyone else over the distressing association of your image with Mr. Wheeler?
	No, sir.
	Okay.
	There are some courts that wouldn't allow him to present an emotional distress claim under these claims, by the way.
	Can I have one moment, Judge?
	Take your time, please.
	He doesn't have independent professional expertise.
	Who are the powerful people that Mr. Jones is affiliated with?
	Mr. Agent of the FBI?
	Mr. FBI lawyer?
	Donald Trump.
	He's going to say Donald Trump.
	He has to.
	For example, I don't know if you know who a guy named Joe Rogan is.
	He's a podcaster, a guy named Joe Rogan.
	Joe Rogan harassing you too?
	No, not at all.
	No, I'm just saying like...
	Can I answer the question?
	Just one second, gentlemen.
	I now lost the question.
	I'll withdraw and ask another.
	No, no, that's all right.
	So why don't we...
	The remedy you can always give to an objection is you simply withdraw the question and ask a different one.
	That ends the objection.
	Well, that was asked and answered.
	That was Mr. Rowan.
	No.
	Counsel, sidebar.
	The judge is losing her control.
	She's so badly tempered.
	You're seeing who this judge really is.
	She's so badly tempered she can't even keep control of her own temperament.
	The point of a judicial temperament is that people with a bad temper like this rogue judge should not be on the bench.
	And every conservative, Megyn Kelly and others, that have apologized and excused these travesties of injustice in the Alex Jones case should be embarrassed by the fact they're vouching for these jokes of judges.
	May I be heard, please?
	Absolutely not.
	Not even allowing Pattis to be heard.
	What a joke of a judge.
	What a disgrace to judge.
	The Connecticut court system is on trial and its verdict is guilty, guilty, guilty.
	You believe Mr. Jones is associated with other powerful people other than Mr. Rogan?
	So just we pause because it's fascinating.
	He said, what powerful people is Alex Jones associated with?
	And he says, you know Joe Rogan?
	Then he said, is Joe Rogan harassing you?
	They said, objection, withdraw the question.
	What other people?
	Then the judge calls him for the angry sidebar, and he's getting the question back in afterwards nonetheless.
	He has people on the show.
	Yes, he has people on his show.
	Am I thinking of anyone in particular right now?
	No, sir.
	Redirect?
	I don't know if he's going to want to.
	Wow.
	Okay, Pattis has got...
	I was going to say he doesn't give a bleep.
	You have to stand up for your client and stand up for the cause and not be scared of corrupt, rogue, intimidating, disgrace of a judge like this judge.
	Thank you.
	Governor?
	Just a brief.
	And what I mean by corrupt is not honoring the principles of law, but allowing personal or partisan or political prejudice to influence it.
	I'm not talking quid pro quo or anything like that.
	What I mean by corruption is not applying the rule of law because you have a personal or political or partisan or other prejudice that should not be guiding and governing your conduct in a courtroom.
	And you're seeing it in the lack of temperament.
	I mean, there's actually, what do we call it, the judicial?
	What does that mean?
	It means someone who doesn't react like that on the bench.
	She threw her pen down on the table.
	I mean, it wasn't even that bad.
	Over a Joe Rogan associate question.
	It just exposed what a fraud he was.
	Trying to pretend.
	And what it was is, your point is exactly right.
	He doesn't want to say...
	Alex Jones is associated with Donald Trump because that exposes the political prejudice he has in pursuing the case.
	That's where I'm inclined to say he's a professional witness in that he knows that he doesn't want to give that answer.
	Joe Rogan, apolitical to some extent, but you mentioned Donald Trump because that's the number one answer.
	Alex Jones is associated with Donald Trump.
	Number one answer.
	She threw her pen down on the table.
	Bill, you testified that you saw Mr. Halbig Yes.
	And I think you said that you may have first seen that sometime around 2016.
	You weren't sure?
	I'm sure that it's going to be sometime after April of 2015.
	And the reason I know that is that Claire's Day, I watched the videos in my second floor office in New Haven.
	And I was no longer the Chief Division Counsel.
	I was in a different position.
	So I know I was sitting in that office.
	And I wouldn't have been in that office until April of 2015.
	I take it that you don't know whether it was a live broadcast or something that Mr. Johnson posted to his website of a prior broadcast.
	Oh, no.
	It wasn't live.
	I Googled it.
	Can you pull up Exhibit 19I, please?
	Your Honor, this is admitted as a broadcast of Mr. Jones' on September 24th, 2014.
	There's been no presentation during this witness's testimony of a statement by Alex Jones.
	Isn't that extraordinary?
	Defamation case.
	Lead witness.
	They don't have any evidence of any statement by Alex Jones concerning this witness.
	At all.
	And he admitted on trial that no such statement even exists.
	And the clip is 19-I.
	So, 19 is already in.
	This is 1909.
	I think we have to all get some volume.
	Thank you, Pratika.
	It's a big wine up here.
	People will not give me a hard time when I have technical glitches.
	We'll do this some other time.
	That's just fine.
	Bill, thank you very much.
	I don't have anything further.
	Thank you, Bill.
	Thank you, Bill.
	Wow, that didn't...
	I mean, look, it's amazing because this would have been a bad...
	Do we need a minute to get her equipment ready to go for the next witness?
	Thank you.
	This would have been a bad cross-examination on the marriage.
	We can take a five-minute recess if we need to.
	Let alone on iPhone.
	This might be a good time, Robert, for us to...
	Yeah, it's going to go on until 5 o 'clock.
	You guys can go watch and...
	Let me put it on pause here.
	I can hear it, and let me go here.
	Okay, I'll tell you something.
	This will be inspirational for anybody who wants to...
	Well, Robert, I should say.
	Bob.
	I still don't even call you Bob.
	Hey, Bobby.
	Well, the lunatic lawyer, the plaintiff's lawyer in Texas jumps up and down with Bobby Barth.
	Bobby Barth.
	Bobby Barth is that nut job.
	So, you know.
	We've heard you.
	I posted the, once upon a time, the vlog where you were pleading...
	The Covington kids on appeal.
	We heard you.
	Your pleading is fantastic.
	We haven't seen you go, you know...
	You got an example of Pattis.
	Pattis' style is basically my style.
	About 80-85% overlap between the two of us.
	And it's from long experience in difficult underdog cases.
	So Pattis does civil rights cases and criminal defense cases.
	So when you do that combination of work, you're used to...
	And your norm, to his credit, is an old school...
	This is why I brought him in initially, that this was someone that could reinvigorate...
	The old left civil rights aspect and approach to this case.
	The media has hated him for taking on this case.
	But you're seeing a skilled oral opening statement.
	You're seeing skilled cross-examination.
	You're seeing skilled interaction with a rogue judge.
	When you have a judge that's gone rogue like this, you have to stand up.
	And you saw how nuts it drove her, such that the next objection, she lost her mind and lost her temper in front of the entire jury.
	And it's amazing.
	Hold on, I'm way out of frame.
	It was amazing where, you know, he says...
	Give me your next question.
	You were just talking about Megyn Kelly.
	What's your next?
	No, thank you.
	I'll move on.
	You said move on.
	I'll move on.
	And he did move on and didn't say, okay, what about another name where he knows that she would have been validated in demanding that she pre-vet his questions.
	He said no.
	Moved.
	And I just love the way he looked at her like, I don't give a bleep.
	I don't know how people do that.
	I'm too insecure to...
	Most lawyers capitulate to judicial intimidation.
	It's why the judges like to intimidate.
	And you have to just be, nope.
	Got to stick within my rights.
	Got to stick within my advocacy.
	Sorry, judge.
	No go.
	And the smart judges will learn to respect that.
	The less than smart judges will lose their cool, but that creates good appellate record for you on appeal.
	When you've got a rogue judge like this, you've got to stand up for your client and the cause and your case and your advocacy.
	And you can't be intimidated, and you have to make sure the world knows on the record who these people are.
	And that's what we saw.
	Everything I previewed about this case, people saw on the very first day.
	It's a politically motivated, weaponized case.
	Many of the storyline they've heard is a fake storyline that the media has spread about the case.
	The supposed case about fake news, the case itself is often fake news.
	Here's someone, their lead witness is someone who didn't suffer anybody that died in the case, is an FBI agent.
	Who had presented one way on direct and a radically different emotional tenor on cross-examination, who admitted that, in fact, they didn't even reference a single word that Alex Jones said that he ever read or witnessed or saw, and admitted that he knew of no such statement concerning him ever made by Alex Jones, and yet he's being allowed to sue under eight different theories of libel law.
	If this doesn't show what...
	Just today, you could watch this case and know what it's all about.
	Know that the default judgment was a fraud based on a lie that Alex Jones didn't participate in discovery.
	You can look at all the documents, all the financial information, all the text referenced in opening statement, referenced in the examination of this witness in terms of gross revenues.
	And know that part's a lie.
	Know the judge lacks judicious temperament and is very one-sided in her approach to the case and what theories of...
	A prosecution or defense she's allowing, very one-sided in that presentation, unable to even control her temper in the process, sustaining objections without grounds even being listed or itemized, often without grounds being available, period.
	And the...
	And Pattis exposing what is a political weaponized case.
	It's a case to try to convert grief from a trauma into a political weapon to stop Alex Jones from ever having freedom of press or freedom of speech and then use it as a precedent against the rest of us.
	As Norm Pattis finished his opening statement, first Alex Jones, who's next?
	I was about to say one thing about Pattis.
	Oh, no, what I love also speaking strategically is he frames it as though he almost doesn't like his own client.
	He's like, what do you do if you hear something you don't like?
	We turn it off.
	I forget exactly how he said it, but he's framing it where I don't like this guy, but I stand up for what he has to say.
	It's a perfect combination.
	He said, look, if you don't like him, you can just turn it off, tune it out.
	And there's a lot of stuff that you probably think is crazy when you hear this.
	But maybe sometimes he's the canary in the coal mine we need to hear about unusual risk.
	So he summarized who Alex Jones was.
	He put it in the political context that's correct.
	And that many of the jurors will relate to some version or variation thereof.
	And that this is a case about asking them.
	To weaponize the legal system, to suppress dissident speech, and only allow the institutional narrative to be heard and listened to, which ultimately is about our right to pick what we listen to.
	So it was, he summarized the case very well, succinctly and directly, and then the plaintiffs, in their own indirect way, exposed their own motivations and intentions about the case.
	And I'm going to read, I'll just end it by reading a few rumble rants, because Winning Reality with a $50 rumble rant said, Hop, come, and do the kangaroo hop.
	Hop, that's the dance for me and you.
	If you're over 80, you can waltz a little while, but hopping about the parlor is the very latest style.
	Come on and hop, and I think that's a kangaroo court reference.
	The winning reality had another follow-up.
	Don't care if it matters, nor now or who listens.
	I saw first the real disinfo about Sandy Hook came from Facebook groups that hated Jones, not inspired by him.
	That's exactly right.
	In other words, the people that were saying Sandy Hook didn't happen originated by people who didn't like Jones.
	And in fact, most of that community that continues to believe it to this day, as the witness admitted, actually are anti-Jones.
	In fact, they accused Alex Jones of really being Bo Bridges, that Alex Jones died years ago, so on and so forth.
	And we've got a $5 tropical rocket says, this is one of the few conspiracies I did not hear about on Infowars first.
	And Michael Swade says, Ben Swan reporting Lindsey Graham said they are going to create A licensing body for social media companies and require licensing.
	Of course they want that to occur, but that should not occur.
	That's a bad idea, period.
	All right, but Robert, we'll do this.
	I mean, we may not do this every day because it's going to be...
	Yeah, it'll depend on the day.
	It'll depend on whether to submit.
	But this was a really good summation.
	Today you got...
	You got to figure out what the Alex Jones case is really about, and anybody who thought I was exaggerating saw that I am not about what this case is about, what the plaintiff's lawyers are about, what the judge is about.
	They got to see it in live time.
	But also, for the people who could care less about the case, who want to learn how do you stand up for an underdog, disliked party against a hostile, intimidating, rogue judge.
	You got to see an example of that.
	How do you deal with constant interruptions and interference based on bogus grounds with questionable objections?
	You got to see that.
	How do you deal with a witness who's one of the most sophisticated, prepared witnesses?
	Probably the reason they put him up first.
	He's been a professional witness much of his life as an FBI guy.
	As he himself admitted, testified too many times to count.
	Or some variation thereof.
	You got to see how he got effectively taken apart both in emotional substance and substantive content.
	You got to see how do you get stuff into evidence and stuff before a jury when the court's trying to preclude that evidence from being allowed to the jury when it should be allowed to the jury.
	You got how you maintain your own emotional equilibrium when you got all this hostility coming at you constantly simply for doing your professional duty.
	This was an excellent display.
	By Norm Pattis of how you defend politically disfavored political dissidents in a court that's hostile and adversarial.
	How you do direct, how you do cross, how you do opening statement, how you interacted with a judge on motions, including on sidebars.
	Excellently done all the way across the board.
	This is the first case I've seen of a lawyer, in my view, living up to quality advocacy in a courtroom.
	There's been little bits and pieces here and there of the other cases we've tried, but this was a distilled version from...
	Beginning to end of exactly how you do it.
	And so I recommend it as just a masterclass in learning trial advocacy.
	Watch Norm Pattis and what he did today.
	All right, awesome.
	And are you doing a Bourbon with Barnes tonight?
	Yes, I will be live tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern time at vivabarneslaw.locals.com answering questions live with Bourbon with Barnes.
	And so have some fun.
	All right.
	Awesome.
	Everybody, we'll see if we do this tomorrow.
	One way or another, there will be a live stream tomorrow.
	We'll be hopping in and out of the trial where something's interesting happening to keep.
	Today just ended up being a perfect distillation of what it is we were looking for.
	Fantastic.
	Robert, stick around.
	We'll say our proper good advice.
	Everyone in the chat.
	Oh, and I've been told on Rumble that I should wait a few seconds before ending it because there's a little bit of a lag before they stop recording.
	So let's just stare at us for five seconds, shall we?
	I'm joking.

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