Alex Jones faces existential courtroom battle over limits of fake news

[Gothmog]

Juanita Jean's son, Mark Bankston, is representing the plaintiffs suing Alex Jones n two of these lawsuits https://www.mystatesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/alex-jones-faces-existential-courtroom-battle-over-limits-fake-news/uzGiDhpaPz0c1OJ79fd6bJ/

It is one of five defamation lawsuits against Jones now working their way through the courts — three brought by Bankston in Jones’ home turf of Austin— that collectively threaten Jones’ long and enormously lucrative run as the nation’s premier conspiracy theorist, a formerly outsider role that has made Jones, in this topsy-turvy political moment, one of President Donald Trump’s most influential media allies and defenders.

If the Travis County Sandy Hook case makes it to trial, it could become an epic courtroom showdown, heading into Trump’s re-election campaign, over where to draw the line between free speech and libel in an era of competing claims of “fake news.”

Bankston and Dallas attorney Mark Enoch, representing Jones, will be in a Travis County courtroom Wednesday arguing over Enoch’s motion to dismiss the defamation case under the Texas Citizens Participation Act — a law unanimously passed by the Legislature in 2011 and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry that was intended to protect citizens’ First Amendment rights from meritless claims intended to silence them. Bankston said the law is being invoked in this case as nothing more than a stalling tactic.

Enoch argues that the suit is a “strategic device” to silence Jones “as well as anyone else who refuses to accept what the mainstream media and government tell them, and prevent them from expressing any doubt or raising questions.”

[sarcasmo]

1. The Sandy Hook families can take Alex Jones down the same way Gawker vanished.

[dalton99a]

2. The five lawsuits:

1. Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of Noah Pozner, who was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, filed suit against Jones in state District Court in Travis County. The suit focuses on what they maintain is a false claim by Jones that De La Rosa was part of a faked interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. There will be a hearing Wednesday on a motion by Jones to dismiss the case.

2. Neil Heslin, the parent of a Sandy Hook victim, filed suit in state District Court in Travis County against Jones and InfoWars host and reporter Owen Shroyer. It focuses on what Heslin maintains is the false claim by Shroyer that Heslin was lying when he said he held his son’s dead body and observed a bullet hole in his head. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 30.

3. Marcel Fontaine filed suit in state District Court in Travis County against Alex Jones and Kit Daniels, an InfoWars editor, claiming that in the hours after the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., InfoWars published a photograph of Fontaine erroneously identifying him as the Parkland shooter. A hearing on a motion to dismiss the case will be held Thursday.

4. The immediate families of four children and two educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School filed suit against Jones and others in state court in Connecticut, maintaining that Jones has accused Sandy Hook families of faking their loved ones’ deaths, leading to harassment and death threats against them.

5. Brennan Gilmore filed suit against Jones, InfoWars reporter Lee Ann McAdoo and others in federal court in Charlottesville., Va. While participating in a counterprotest against neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Gilmore filmed on his cellphone the car driving into the crowd killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. His tweet of the video went viral, and he was accused by Jones and the others of being part of a plot to overthrow President Donald Trump. He claims that Jones falsely described him as a “high-level CIA” operative on the “payroll of (George) Soros.”

[Renew Deal]

3. Can Jones prove the things he saying?

It's OK to have alternative viewpoints if he can back them up. I hope he loses these cases and the jurors or judge gives the victims more than what they asked for.

[Tucker08087]

4. His biggest problem, as far as I can see

Is that he said, during his divorce hearings, that it’s all entertainment, that he doesn’t really believe any of it, and that he’s simply playing a character. So he’s left with the “were you lying under oath then, Mr. Jones, or are you lying under oath now?” issue. Either way, he loses, but I think a good lawyer will take him down with his own words.

[mitch96]

5. So does this mean

rags like the Enquirer et al will go down the same way???
m

[Act_of_Reparation]

6. The Enquirer is different.

With highly visible public figures, such as celebs, one must prove the publisher made the allegedly liberlous claims with actual malice. That is, intent to do harm... extremely difficult to prove.

Jones' legal representation will probably try to make the case that willingly or not, the Sandy Hook families are public figures, and that Jones was not acting with actual malice towards them. As laughable as it sounds, he could get away with it.

[trueblue2007]

7. Lock him up