Alex Jones Is Toast

Or at least that's the outcome I'm pulling for, and a recent screw-up by his attorney has now made that outcome more likely. Jones is on trial over promoting the ridiculous conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged. His remarks prompted his fans to harrass and threaten parents grieving over the loss of young children, which is flat-out deplorable. While I understand that mass shootings are politicized on both sides of the gun control debate, that has little bearing on the nuttiness of suggesting that these parents murdered their own children as part of a government plot, or that their obviously-dead children were somehow still alive.

Cracked has a surprisingly good overview of the events in question, which you can find here. Jones was sued by the parents and lost the case, and now a jury is trying to determine how much he should pay. His case was not helped when his inept attorney accidentally sent important evidence of Jones' pattern of lying about, well, everything really. He previously claimed under oath that he had no text messages about Sandy Hook, but his attorney sent all his cell phone records to the plaintiffs. The records prove that Jones lied.

Jones, who was the sole witness for the defense during the trial, did not fare well Wednesday as he was cross-examined by the plaintiffs' attorney, Mark Bankston. In a remarkable moment, Bankston disclosed to Jones and the court that he had recently acquired evidence proving Jones had lied when he claimed during the discovery process that he had never texted about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting.

Bankston said that Jones' attorney had, in an apparent mishap, sent him two years of cell phone records that included every text message Jones had sent.The cell phone records, Bankston said, showed that Jones had in fact texted about the Sandy Hook shooting. "That is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn't have text messages about Sandy Hook," Bankston said.

Bankston showed Jones a text message exchange he had about Sandy Hook. But Jones testified that he had "never seen these text messages." When reminded Jones had testified under oath that he had searched his phone during the discovery phase of the trial and could not locate messages about Sandy Hook, Jones insisted he "did not lie."

Jones baselessly said in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, in which 26 people were killed, that the incident was staged. Facing lawsuits, Jones has since acknowledged the shooting occurred.

And my thought here is what a silly thing that is to lie about. Jones went on and on about the Sandy Hook case on his Infowars show, which nobody disputes. Whether or not he texted anyone about it is really not that significant in a defamtion trial related to public statements that are available for all to see. But clearly Jones is so used to lying that he just can't help himself from committing perjury over what is essentially a minor issue in the trial. Anybody who thinks Jones can still be taken seriously at this point should keep that in mind.

Jones may still weasel out of this. He has been moving InfoWars in and out of bankruptcy in an attempt to protect his assets, and doing his best to spin what's going on to his loyal fans. A really big judgment against him would make that process a lot harder, and hopefully keep him off the air for good. And frankly, the world will be a better place without Jones' lies. Jones is free to espouse whatever his political beliefs are, but pushing unhinged people to do unhinged things based on complete nonsense is just plain wrong.