Sometimes justice isn’t something that can be delivered by the courts.
A guilty verdict, for example, does not bring back a loved one. It doesn’t restore a reputation or rebuild a home. What it does is get as close to justice as the law can do after the fact.
In a criminal case, that can mean prison or probation. It can even mean the death penalty. It can mean restraining someone from participating in a certain activity — like being around children or operating a particular business.
In a civil case, it can mean the levying of financial damages. That can snowball into additional legal issues, including bankruptcy.
Just ask Alex Jones.
The radio host has made millions off the promotion of conspiracy theories. Listen to his sometimes sobbing, sometimes sweating, often screaming broadcasts and you might hear that the moon landing was faked. You could hear that the government blew up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 or that global warming was a scheme perpetrated by the World Bank. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Georgia, was not the first to posit government weather control. Jones was saying that back during the Obama years.
He pushed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory that resulted in a 2016 shooting at a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. He said the 2017 Unite the Right rally that ended in white supremacist driving a car into counter-protesters, killing one and injuring dozens more, was a convoluted coup against Donald Trump.
And when you thought he hit rock bottom, he pulled out a jackhammer and went deeper, claiming for years that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting was all a ruse. No one died, he said. The 20 bodies of 6- and 7-year-old children were fake. Their parents and the survivors were actors. The six educators who died? Never happened.
That’s bad enough. But all the while, the demonstrable lies were generating money. In court, it was shown his Infowars platform made up to $800,000 in a single day. He translated his viewership into sponsorships and advertising that blossomed into fanatical fans pouring millions into his pockets — money wrung from the pain of grieving parents harassed by Jones’ followers.
In 2022, Jones was ordered to pay almost $1 billion to one group of parents. A separate case had $50 million ordered to other parents.
That didn’t seem like justice because, while Jones had a lot of money, it didn’t seem like quite that much.
It didn’t need to be.
On Thursday, Jones broadcast from his studio for the last time as Infowars was wrested from his grasp.
It was purchased out of bankruptcy auction by The Onion, a biting satire site that is almost the polar opposite of Infowars. The Onion is quite open that its stories are not true. It tells lies you are absolutely not supposed to believe. The are fairy-tale-like lessons to make fairly obvious points.
When I saw the headline “The Onion buys Infowars,” I immediately checked to see if it was an Onion satire story. It was not.
And in a flash of real justice, the sale was backed by the Sandy Hook families.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” said Robbie Parker.
Parker testified in the Connecticut trial about waves of harassment that forced his family to move 3,000 miles away. The families have received death and rape threats — all while Jones raked in cash.
Taking that cash away and allowing the families to be the backers of the deal that takes a purveyor of lies and places it in the hands of honest satirists instead may be the most just result to come for Jones.