Law'd Awful Movies #28: Alex Jones Deposition

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

[0:00:02] We find the defendants incredibly guilty. [0:00:18] I find this ultimate chicken sandwich on brioche bun to be guilty of being delicious. [0:00:30] What section of the Constitution has been breached? There is no one section. It's just the vibe of the thing. [0:00:45] Objection, Your Honor. What? He's leading the witness. Save. You break with both lawyers. [0:00:54] Welcome to Opening Arguments, the podcast that pairs an inquisitive interviewer with a real-life lawyer. This podcast is sponsored by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torrez, LLC, for entertainment purposes, is not intended as legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. Don't take legal advice from a podcast. [0:01:16] I'm a proud Western show host. And I refuse to apologize. And I refuse to apologize. For creating the modern world. For creating the modern world. Okay, you will now name five breakfast cereals. One, two, three. Happy brunch! [0:01:34] Hello and welcome to Law'd Awful Movies 28,

0:01:38 Thomas: The Alex Jones deposition. How are you doing, Andrew?

[0:01:42] I am doing fantastic. Objection has to form. Objection has to form.

[0:01:48] Objection has to form. I'm not going to answer hypothetical questions. I don't know who I, Andrew, refers to. I don't know when you're saying that you feel fine. I don't know when this is. What time? Objection of death form. Stop taking three second clips of me and splicing them together.

0:02:03 Thomas: Oh, this is so great, this is so great, okay, it is, there's a lot to say here, we are, I don't know, this, this was an idea that started off, could have been a bad idea, turned into a great idea.

[0:02:16] Oh, this was a spectacular idea, and you, Thomas, get 100% credit because I, I was a little, little bit skeptical, and, and, man, I think this is going to be a lot of fun, that's awesome, I Yeah, we just, to explain the origins of, of what we're doing, I was lamenting the fact that there was so much news with the Muller report and all that, that we didn't get to talk about the, uh, the Devin Nunez's cow and all that, yep, and I was like, well, maybe we could do that for a lot of movies, and then I saw this deposition, I was like, oh, maybe we should do this because it's at least a lot thoughtful movie.

And speaking of, you can go to YouTube anytime you want. You can hit pause on this if you would like, and you can search Alex Jones deposition. I encourage you to not watch any actual Alex Jones videos. Although I think they got, they got blocked from YouTube. I'm pretty sure. So I don't, I don't think his, his channel's up there anymore, but anyway, uh, Alex Jones, we are watching, um, we're going to do clips and stuff. And if you want to watch the same one, I think there's really one main version that everyone would find, But just in case, it's the Caster, Lynch, Farrar, and Ball LLP video. It's got 228,000 views as of this recording for part one. Now, there's a part two that is another hour and 15 minutes. We mainly focused on the first part because that's about the length of a movie. You know, it's about, it's two hours. So we're pretty much focused on there. I think Andrew might have gone to the second one because, you know, Andrew is a high-achieving workaholic who wanted to make sure to tie up any loose ends in

0:03:49 Thomas: Part two, but we're mainly focused on the deposition part one. So, if you wanted to watch it first, you can, but you're

[0:03:55] Going to hear plenty of clips as we work our way through it. Wow, I can't wait. And you know what, one more thing I'll say is, as a non-lawyer watching this, there's times when I'm not, you know, I don't know what a deposition is supposed to go like other than, you know, the bit I've learned from you. And I don't know. Furthermore, sometimes the bad guys have really good lawyers and the good guys can have bad lawyers. And I don't know. There are some arguments here. There's some stuff. And I'm not totally sure what's what. So, I'm kind of thinking maybe don't spoil it for us. We'll go through along and we'll find out, you know, like, because there's some tension here. And I don't know who's right necessarily between the lawyers.

0:04:38 Andrew: I, um, I, I will, I will not, uh, spoiler that, but I will say, like, like, let me give kind of a couple preliminary comments about sure depositions that you

[0:04:50] know maybe will be a bit spoilery that's okay but um so a couple of things, right, number one, I love taking depositions, right, it is, I have one really active litigation matter right now. I've got a couple of other things that are queued up, but I have one case that is in active litigation. And taking depositions is the most fun thing that I do as a lawyer. It's more fun than arguing motions.

[0:05:26] It's more fun than writing memos. It's more fun than cross-examining witnesses, right, you get to do it a lot more often, hard, it is, it doesn't feel like anything could happen, like maybe you'll stumble on something really, you know, kind of

0:05:38 Thomas: Maybe it feels like there's... there's there could be some reward out there that you're gonna you know like like it's a fun I

[0:05:44] Don't know, is there sort of a high to it, like maybe you're gonna catch somebody, maybe you're gonna, absolutely right, because depositions are what movies try to get you to think the trial, right? Yeah, okay.

0:05:57 Andrew: Because Because by the time I cross-examine somebody at trial, right, I know all the documents. I know their testament, right? There's not a series of surprising witnesses, each more surprising than the last, right? Like, you know, that's why that's our refrain, right? In a deposition, I don't know what's going to happen, right? Right, right. So let me explain a little bit. I've talked about this on the show, but, you know, I can't remember the last time we talked about it. It's worth pointing out here. A deposition takes place in

[0:06:28] A conference room.

0:06:30 Andrew: The attendees are the witness being deposed, the lawyers defending

[0:06:36] that witness, the lawyers on the other side taking the deposition. Other parties in interest can attend. That varies sort of based on state by state law. But usually, like, the plaintiff can sit in on a deposition of any of the witnesses.

0:06:55 Andrew: I'm not going to go super into that. It doesn't really matter. And a court reporter, a stenographer, right? And a court reporter, the reason I've said stenographer there is, right, that's the historical title. But, I mean, literally, it's just somebody that can use that little punchy, machiney thing.

[0:07:13] Well, do they really have to do that? In this day and age, can't they just have a, you know, a video of it? Do they really Need to, they do, but, um, it is an important skill to, that they still will use, like, typically what you have now, you don't have the like ticker tape thing you've sometimes seen in, like, you know, 12 Angry Men or whatever, like, pouring out the background, so it's not, it's not like the cash register style, but it, it is the modified keyboard that enables you to keep up, to type as fast as people talk, right? Because that's the problem with just typing on a QWERTY keyboard that was designed to slow you down anyway. So the stenographer keyboard has phonetics on it, right? So you can play it like a chord, I think I, I shouldn't speculate too much here, I have never been a stenographer, you know.

[0:08:03] What they also have though is recording, yeah, yeah, and they do look, this is a really cool thing to do, something that's completely irrelevant in today's world, but yeah, it is cool, they do.

0:08:15 Andrew: Well, and so what happens is, that way you can get, and the reason why you still do the old timey thing is because you can walk out of a deposition with what they call a rough ASCII, right? And ASCII is the old, you know, computer standard. So in other words, it is not that, rough ASCII is not edited, it's not in the right format or whatever. But in a lot of cases where you have, for example, a TRO, or you have an expedited briefing schedule or something, right? Right. Like a witness makes a crucial admission and you're going to go file a motion in court tomorrow. You want to get that transcript as literally as

[0:08:59] soon as you walk out so that you can cite the sections of the depot in court. That's right. Whereas if you recorded

0:09:06 Thomas: It on your phone, you'd have to go to the photo place to get it developed.

[0:09:10] And it takes a week, or drive through the drive through, yeah, you have to, you have to wave it in back and forth until it's. About no, um, but, but the important part, you're answering, no, see, it's important because of this other outdated thing that needs to happen like no he could just put it on somebody's cell phone it's fine uh that's

[0:09:29] True, but we don't do it that way, um, but the important thing, the important person who's not in the room is, there's no judge, judge, yeah, unless we're watching the Rainmaker, yeah, in which, in which, as you all loyal LAMB listeners will remember, that was the Rainmaker, right, where, where it's, like, at the guy's house, and then, like, the judge is there. Yeah, that was really, really strange. And you were there, and you were there. The whole town came to the...

0:09:57 Andrew: Yeah, no, I felt like I'd run through a field of poppies while watching that, for sure.

[0:10:03] So we're going to talk about that. So, look, as a result, right, there's, you know, it's, on the one hand, it's the Wild West in a deposition chamber, right?

0:10:16 Andrew: Right. Like there's... there's no, I said chamber, but that's an incredibly ridiculous thing to say, leave it in there, Brian, but like in the conference room in which the deposition is taking place, there's... there's nobody in charge. So the way it's supposed to work is the lawyer taking the deposition has broad latitude to ask any question in the world, and the lawyer defending the deposition makes notes on the record when a question is inappropriate, but doesn't tell the witness what to do or not to say anything, unless there is privileged information or Something else that the witness cannot divulge, right, and at that point you can stop and say, I instruct the witness not to answer on the grounds of attorney-client privilege, but, but everything else, you're just objecting to the form of the question and putting it in the record. And the reason you do that is, right, if I say, you know, Mr. Smith, after you murdered your wife, it's true that you went out for pizza, isn't it? Right.

[0:11:20] And then your lawyer is going to say, objection, form. And then whatever Your answer is, right, then when I use that, you say, yeah, then we insert that into the, you know, I will cite that section of the deposition in my motion for summary judgment, and your lawyers will say, look, Mr. Smith was obviously confused because, although the transcript says, uh, you know, has everything in, in full text, the, the bit about murdering his wife was said, you

[0:11:53] Know, under Mr. Torres's breath, it's a compound question, oldest lawyer trick in the book, yeah, and I object, a murder says what? A murder says what? Right. Exactly. And so, right. That's a comical example. But, but that's what, that's good. It's good they put that rule in there because before, that's how everybody was convicted for a good

0:12:11 Thomas: Hundred years. The judge says, what? Oh, got him.

[0:12:16] Hang him. That's right. No, and so that's – but that's the reason why you object in a deposition, right? You object

0:12:23 Andrew: So that it is clear on the record, hey, that question is stupid and should not be used as a basis for summary judgment, right? That's it. Everything else, right, it's my job as the lawyer taking the deposition to try and get as much information as I can, and it's your job as the lawyer defending the deposition, or as the witness, to not give me that information, right? That those are the sides. And, you know, I've, I've made this analogy before, um, it's, it's like baseball, uh, and not football or hockey, right? Like in a deposition, when you're on defense, you cannot Score points, right, there is nothing you can do as a witness that will help your case, um, and the reason for that is because if you have testimony that you want to introduce, you can just do that in the form of an affidavit late, right, like you

[0:13:20] You just swear out, hey, this happened, I happen to know these facts, and I'm already thinking ahead to some of examples you will, right, so you don't want to go on like a rant about how this is the worst deposition you've ever seen, and, like, that, so that's not going to score points with the jury, is what you said, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about that.

0:13:38 Thomas: Uh, probably, I think one thing to cover before, one final thing to cover before we get into this, possibly, and that's a great intro and we'll all keep those things in mind as we go forward. But why are we seeing this? Should this, did anything improper happen here? Should this have been private? Did they have to agree to have

[0:13:57] this be public? What's going on with that? In general, trials are open

0:14:03 Andrew: To the public and depositions, unless there is an agreement, right, a protective order to keep them confidential. You know, it's not like grand jury proceedings, right? Right. It's not, it's not like 90 percent of the Mueller report that Bill Barr is going to be attacked out. Right. Like, no, there's this

[0:14:22] is this is not improper that the OK, at the law firm. So both sides would have known, you know, would have had that in mind. Like they're not nobody's trying to do anything secret here. That is that is exactly right. And and and we should add that. Right. As I'm commenting, I've never taken a deposition before that I expected to be uploaded to YouTube. To get a quarter of a million views. Yeah. And viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. I think most of us doing our daily jobs would

0:14:54 Thomas: Be, that's high pressure to be like, oh, quarter million people are going to see this. If you're just doing what's supposed to be your normal job function and then you better hope you had a good day,

[0:15:07] I guess. Yeah. And we'll see. We'll see if this lawyer had a good day. Yep. All right.

0:15:15 Thomas: This is so great. We start off and I just have to point this out immediately, you know, because you do what I suspect you is normal practice for these things, which is you say, oh, here's the deposition, Alex Jones, da da da, the date is such and such. And Alex Jones already is skeptical of the date. I love it. He's already, this is how you know it's, we're off to, uh, what's going to be a rocky deposition, is like, someone, he's the guy, says the date and he makes this look like, well, I don't know about that, like, all right, you fucking skeptical of everything, Alex Joe, is that the official story on the date? Are we still going with the Illuminati

[0:15:53] version of the date? Like, God, and can we point out that Alex Jones, a professional person who appears on television, right, has shown up for his videotape deposition in

0:16:06 Andrew: This like ratty forest forest green 3xl size izod polo that he's

[0:16:12] trying to cram his 4XL body into. Right, I gotta say, oh yeah, did he swallow a wine barrel? Is there like, there's just, I know there's, you know, he, he has the famous, uh, clip

0:16:24 Thomas: Where he's yelling that they're turning the frogs gay, but I didn't know that they're also turning the Alex Jones frog, did you know that? He's, because he's just, this, he likes, even his chest, you know how the frog has a thing in the front of it? He does that somehow. Maybe that's why he's so concerned about the frog community.

[0:16:44] You get ties to the frog. Just a little pro tip.

0:16:52 Andrew: Most depositions are not videotaped. Most depositions are just transcribed, right? And I have done, I think I told this anecdote in one of our Q&As. Um, I, I was once part of a,

[0:17:04] Um, uh, a litigation team that did, uh, and I personally took 11 depositions in a, uh, like a three week period, right? We were trading back and I defended 10, right? And it was, I was a junior partner at the time and, um, and the other junior partner on the other side, uh, was in my role, right? Right. And so we both were doing all the work for all these depositions. And after the first one, he came up to me and was like, hey, these are all, you know, non video. Like we can come casual for these. Right. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And I came into the next one in like khakis and a polo shirt. And he came in. I am not kidding in ripped jeans and a T-shirt. And I was like, I was thoroughly impressed. I'm like, wow, when you say casual, like that is commitment to a bit. Uh, but if you're gonna be, if you're on camera, if, if it's a video taped

[0:18:02] up, wear it, wear a sport coat. Yeah, like he doesn't look awful, but at a certain point he has to kind of get up and his enormous belly comes out of the shirt and I was like, all right, at least have it tucked in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I gotta say, you know, maybe we should, so talking about the basics

0:18:20 Thomas: Here, this is a lawsuit which I believe, you know, you've touched on a little bit on the show, right? Um, I, I do, it, we have to say that, like, the subject matter of this lawsuit is just unconscionably evil and it's, it's not funny and it's, and it's horrible. However, the subject of this death position is an asshole who's made millions of dollars selling a fake story about horrible evil, so fuck him, and we're gonna make fun of him. Uh, but the subject matter itself, obviously, is among the most depressing things that's ever happened.

But the story is, and the reason we're here, and the lawsuit rather, not the story, but the lawsuit is revolving around, you know, did Alex Jones, and you can elaborate here, but did he start and, you know, knowingly spread our careless falsehoods about the Sandy Hook story? And it touches on other conspiracies as well. And so, that's what the questions are going to be about. It's going back, I can't believe this, it's been like seven years since that shooting at least, and it's going back seven years and looking at, you know, did he, what, what are the standards we've talked about, these standards before, so why don't you, why don't you maybe take us through the basics of what this case will

[0:19:35] be about and, and I guess it'll frame kind of what we're looking for. Yeah, absolutely. So the two

0:19:41 Andrew: Two principal claims being brought by the parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre are, first, defamation, and second, intentional infliction of emotional distress. Right. So the defamation claim has four elements to it, right, and our listeners know this, but that you must prove, uh, and and and these plaintiffs are private plaintiffs, uh, there, there will be an argument that the New York Times v. Sullivan standard applies, uh, because some of them have engaged in civic activism after. Oh, I

0:20:18 Thomas: Remember, yeah, we kind of had this debate a little bit, because I feel like they should just be, I mean, if you're involuntarily made a public person,

[0:20:25] I really don't think it's fair to have the New York Times v. Sullivan apply to you, but yeah, and and I don't think that

0:20:31 Andrew: That will be the standard, so, um, but but look, it's a non-crazy argument to

[0:20:37] yeah, to say, right. I mean, if, if you get, you know, if you start an organization and start speaking publicly about stuff because of this, then I, okay, yeah, it does change the state, and so the question will be, at the time that Alex Jones made the statements, right, what, how would you characterize, uh, these individuals

[0:20:56] and I would say that, that at, that and considering he started making the statements that fucking day, yes, I think we can go ahead and say that, yes, exactly right. So defamation, what do you have to prove, you have to prove One, a false statement. Two, that was published, right? That that was made to at least a third party, right? Alex Jones has a YouTube channel, right? And a television show, right? That's not hard to

[0:21:21] show publication. Third, that false statement was published at least negligently, right? And that's the primary difference with the New York Times v. Sullivan standard where we know that that is a much higher bar if it's a public figure, right? You have to show that it was made with actual malice. We've talked about that at length. If they're private plaintiffs, you just have to show that you were negligent, that you didn't care and you didn't or even less than that. Right. That that you failed

[0:21:54] to exercise appropriate journalistic standards is going to be really, really important. Yeah. As we talk about the depo, as you can imagine. Right. And then for the plaintiffs have to show damages. So.

0:22:07 Andrew: Three of those things are really not hard to prove. Right. It is not hard to prove that Alex Jones said demonstrably false things on the air. In fact, Alex Jones has apologized for the demonstrably false things that he has said on the air. It is not hard to prove that he said them to millions of people. It is not hard to prove that as a result of him saying that to millions of people, that these parents suffered actual damages. Right. And that nutball followers of Alex of Alex Jones have harassed them. You know, that that all of that is relative. The question is, the real question in this lawsuit is, did, did Alex Jones make those statements negligently? Right. So that's, that's going to be the key issue. And if you're the lawyer. Right. So as our listeners are watching this deposition, and I would

[0:23:03] encourage you to do that. Right. Right.

0:23:06 Andrew: Your job as the plaintiff's attorney here is to adduce as much evidence as possible that Alex Jones was at least negligent in how he came about publishing these statements. OK,

[0:23:18] that's all. That's the defamation claim. Then intentional infliction of emotional distress. That's a higher burden of proof. You must show that the defendant intentionally or recklessly engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct. And that conduct was the cause of severe emotional distress. Right. And the first three elements of that. Right. Right. The that it was intentional, that it was extreme and outrageous and that it is the cause of

[0:23:51] the parental distress.

0:23:53 Andrew: Those are all live issues. Right. Those, those are all things that you are trying to uncover

[0:23:59] evidence, it's just, it's harder to prove that, right? Like, classic, I, I, I think it fits here, right, because I was gonna say, Juror Thomas Smith, uh, just says, not only guilty but fucking guilty, yeah, that's personally, but, but look, like, classic intentional infliction of emotional distress is, you know, I murder your parents in front of you, right? I mean, it is, right.

0:24:24 Thomas: Or like I make up stories about, you know, your, your children who were killed, something like that, you would say would be

[0:24:30] a, I, I, I'm not saying I disagree with Juror Thomas Smith, I'm just saying that as

0:24:37 Andrew: A lawyer evaluating the case, like, I think, the, you know, if we got the plaintiff's lawyers in here, they would tell you

[0:24:43] right, their defamation case is stronger than their IID case. Yeah, yeah, and I hear you, and and obviously

0:24:49 Thomas: You know, your job is to be as fair as possible, uh, to the law, my job is to try to be funny, and also

[0:24:55] say, this guy's fucking evil and I hate him and he's guilty, uh, so it's, it's a division of labor that, uh, that we're really good at. So, yeah. And okay, another quick thing in the start of this here, we start off by, and I'm sure this happens all the time, where it's like, hey, can you read this affidavit and I'm going to ask you some questions based on it, you know, that kind of thing. And I love it. There's a tiny moment, I'm sure you caught this too, but there's a moment where he has them read and Alex Jones is like, oh, hold on, I need to read this whole thing, you know, because the lawyer tries to ask him a question based on his, I don't know, I got to try to read this. He says, says, oh, take all the time in the world. Read the

[0:25:32] thing.

0:25:33 Thomas: And so, he's like, hey, good, I'll cut it. Okay. And then he's like, okay, so I'm going to read this part aloud. And then, you know, I'll ask you a question. And so, the lawyer starts reading it.

[0:25:45] And at a certain point, the lawyer goes to the next, like, he's reading something that continues on to the next page.

0:25:53 Thomas: And Alex Jones doesn't turn the page. And the lawyer, after reading a sentence or two, is like, "Out, we're on the next page. Turn the page." So, like, either Alex Jones can't read or just, like, was pretending to read because he's looking at the thing, pretending

[0:26:06] to follow along and then the guy's like um turn turn the page so a couple

0:26:12 Andrew: Of things here. Number one, I, I want you to just put a pin in the first question that comes out, right? Because we're gonna, we're gonna come back to that. Because this deposition starts bizarrely, and I will tell you about that as we get there. Number two, as you point out, Alex Jones has been sued a lot, particularly by his ex-wife.

[0:26:38] So he's done this a lot. He is a really, really tough witness, right? He knows how to dodge. He knows all of the techniques. And look, these are fair techniques. These are fair techniques. These are the kinds of techniques that I might say to my clients when I'm defending them in a deposition, right? So things like don't answer a question right away, right? Always sit back, listen, make sure you understand the full question. If the lawyer has spoken really quickly and you're not sure you've gotten all of it, ask him to repeat the question. Right. If a document is put in front of you, read the entire document before you're willing to answer

[0:27:21] any questions about it. Right. Right. And, and look, there are very legitimate reasons why I coach my witnesses to do that, why every lawyer coaches their witnesses to do that. Because you, you don't want them, right, fighting with the other side's lawyer and justifying and answering stuff that's not being asked and reading ahead and going, "Oh, yeah, I know you're going to get it." Right. Like, you, you want, you want your witness to parse through, right, as methodically as possible. There's also a strategic element, right? We, we learn, uh, via inference from, from the colloquy between the lawyers that

[0:27:59] they've agreed to a, a limit of four hours to depose. See, I was going to ask you how, how does that factor

0:28:05 Thomas: In, because if he just starts filibustering forever, you know, like, that, that seems like it can't be fair, right? I mean, how much, how does that work when you've agreed to a time, and then, you know, if you're, if the, if Alex Jones just turns into an insane person, which he does, for four hours and doesn't answer anything really, like, is that

[0:28:24] just okay. So here's, so a couple of things. Number one, it is not common to

0:28:30 Andrew: Limit the principal witness in a case to four hours. By default, the deposition is a full day of seven and a half hours. And it varies state by state, but

[0:28:42] it's always good practice to leave a deposition open, right?

0:28:48 Andrew: And so I was shocked that they would agree to depose him in four hours. It will not surprise you to learn that I have almost never had a deposition, even if collateral witnesses, businesses, go four hours or less, right? Yeah, I, I once deposed a guy, we, you know, we had to, uh, we used two full

[0:29:07] eight hour days um we were going through um 10k report, and I was going through line by line, and like, that's just what I do. That will not surprise OA listeners, that where I'm like, hey, lightning round, and then 52 minutes later. So I'm the same way in depositions. Um, you asked a really, really, really good question in terms of what do you do when the witness is sort of obviously filibustering. What you do is you put that on the record. So you ask a question, Alex Jones gives a two-minute rambling answer that at no point makes any sense. You stop and say, "Respectfully, Mr. Jones, my question was, have you ever spoken about Sandy Hook prior to 2015?" He does it again. And then you say, Mr. Jones, I'm going to ask you a third time to answer the question, and I'm going to direct your counsel to tell you to answer the question. If you continue to filibuster, I'm going to end this deposition and get a court order that will require you to come back, and you will have wasted your time and mine, and we're going to make you come

[0:30:15] back and do this again properly. But it is interesting. It is kind of a trying to see how much each

0:30:21 Thomas: Side could get away with, I guess, or if you are in Alex Jones's position, you're trying to filibuster a bit of

[0:30:27] time off of this, but not enough. Absolutely. Right. And so and that is and you you exactly saw. Right. It is it is

0:30:33 Andrew: A fair part of the gamesmanship that. Right. I would want the witness to very slowly read the documents and pause and think before answering anyway. But the additional advantage of your you got a four hour clock. You're wasting time. Right. Right. And so, yes, there is an art to filibustering and wasting time that a good witness can can do. And Alex Jones, he can't help himself from going off the rails, obviously, because he's Alex Jones. Yeah. But in many ways, he's very, very good at that. And in many ways, and this is starting to, you know, lead you down the path towards the commentary. It is really difficult for a lawyer asking the deposition questions to complain about filibustering when you ask open-ended or very, very convoluted, complex questions. Right. If I, if I read a six-sentence question to you, and then the witness

[0:31:34] says, I don't I don't really understand that. But, you know, and then tells an unrelated anecdote and then the lawyer gets mad when you go to the judge. Right? I, as you know, or let me not play both roles, that the lawyer defending the deposition is going to say, "Your honor, look at the question, right? This was an, this was a compound question. It was six sentences long. My witness tried to answer it. I'm sorry that opposing counsel can't ask a question properly, but there was no deliberate time wasting, and don't, don't order." Right. This is just Rambo litigation, litigation tactics, and my client shouldn't have to re-sit for another deposition because the posing side can't ask good questions, right? So it imposes it. If you're going to pull that strategy, it imposes a duty on you as the lawyer to ask concise

[0:32:23] and succinct questions. And look, it is easier for me to say that as a commentator than it is for me as a lawyer to do that, right? Right? That's a challenge. But the more depositions you take, the better you get at getting to the bottom line question, right? And there are good techniques that you can do for that, right? Like you can give a two-sentence intro to the question, but then the third sentence, the question itself is, so my

[0:32:53] question to you, Mr. Jones, is did you ever say X, right? And that's a good question, Right. Some of these questions are very, very not good questions. And look, we're here. I mean, right out of the gate, the first question, it starts with putting his affidavit under his nose, which is a good thing to do. Right. Right. But notice that Alex Jones successfully gets the lawyer to forget about this document. Right. They spar back and forth. He's reading some sentences. They flip the page. He's like, is it true?

[0:33:33] And and and he said, well, the stuff you read, I know. And and and then the lawyer moves on. Right.

0:33:41 Thomas: So what was that first question? I actually didn't have a note specifically on the first one. The first question

0:33:47 Andrew: Is, there's a line in the affidavit, right, in which Alex Jones has said under oath, before I ever commented on Sandy Hook, I learned that others had posted articles online, right? Now, that's obviously false, right? Because Alex Jones was talking about Sandy Hook the day Sandy Hook happened, right? He clearly, you know, it's not opening arguments. He didn't wait for news reports to come out. And that's the line that Alex Jones is trying to sell in this deposition, and this lawyer has the opportunity to show that there's something provably false in Alex Jones's deposition.

0:34:28 Andrew: Here's how I would have done that, okay? I would have said, okay, Mr. Jones, here's your deposition. I want you to read line seven. Don't read it to him and then say, which this guy does all the time. I don't get that. I want you to read line seven of your deposition.

[0:34:44] So have the witness themselves, have the witness themselves say it, right? In okay, in in your affidavit, and I said deposition, I meant affidavit, right in your affidavit, right, I want you to read line seven and

[0:34:56] then Alex Jones says, before I ever commented on Sandy Hook, I learned that others... Here I was preparing my Alex Jones impression, and you... You'll do fine. Okay, okay, you handle it. Yeah, it's, it's, I could do, I could do Alex Jones and, uh, uh, and Marge's mom, or I guess it could be Marge, but yeah, Marge's sisters or whatever, pretty much the same voice, right? Yeah, uh, he reads it, I say, uh, Mr. Jones, is that statement true? He says, yes. Okay, so then I take the YouTube video that he's talked to, I say, okay, what

[0:35:33] articles online are you talking about? And he gives that, like, rambling non-answer. Well, there, there was a YouTube video and this, and then I take the YouTube video, right, and I put that in front of him and I say, is this the YouTube video that you were talking about? Yes. The date on this is January 5th, uh, 2013, correct? Yes. So it is your statement here, under oath, that prior to January

[0:35:59] 13th, 2013, you never commented on Sandy Hook, correct? Well, no, because. OK, when was the earliest that you commented on Sandy Hook? Right. Well, it was pretty much happening as it was. Right. And and and then. Right. You, you, you either get him to introduce evidence on his own that he spoke prior to anything being published, or he says, we get, we get the earliest date. He's like, oh, well, you

[0:36:29] know, that was all based on an article that came out on Zero Hedge that was, you know, this.

0:36:35 Andrew: And then we pull up the article. Again, you have to have done your homework to know what he's referring to. But that's also part of what I like about depositions. And you say, okay, great. This was on December 29th of 2012.

0:36:51 Andrew: This is the earliest article, right? And then he either says yes or no. You get him to admit what the earliest date was, and then you

[0:37:00] introduce the clip or preferably the transcript, and we're going to talk about that when we get to the heavy use of clips in this deposition, which is another weird thing, of him talking. That's before that, right? And you, and and you introduce, and you say, okay, so let's put this together, Mr. Jones, you've just conceded that you spoke about Sandy Hook on the day that it happened, December 14th, 2012, correct? Yes. And that is before the the date that we agreed was the earliest date of any other publication, correct? Yes. So now let's go back to your, your affidavit, line seven, that, that statement

[0:37:37] is false, isn't it, right? And at that point, right, he has to say, yes, that statement is false. Well, he won't, though. He's Alex Jones, so he says, nah. Right. And then what do you do? That's fine. You just leave it? Then you just leave it, right? Because the document will speak for itself, right? Okay. You give him a chance, and that's a really good point, right? Like, you can't be hurt by him saying, no, where I said two plus two equals five is not, not false, because it's obvious that it's false. But you want to avoid, we've talked about this before, the question too far, right? Where you give somebody

[0:38:15] a chance to rebut your argument sort of before you've made it. Oh, I was going to ask you about that, because I felt like

0:38:21 Thomas: There was some of that, but I wasn't sure if that didn't matter in deposition, if that was just a courtroom, because you don't have the jury

[0:38:27] here. So does that still matter, though? You don't want to to ask the question too far, it, you, you don't

0:38:33 Andrew: Uh, because what you don't want to do is preview the kind of argument you intend to make in your summary judgment motion and have that already be, you know, pre-rebutted, uh, in, in the, uh, transcript of his, uh, deposition, because, you know, when you're trying to put together the uncontested facts, the other side is going to be like, look, he absolutely contested that, right? So, um, so yeah, it's still important, um, even

[0:39:05] in, even in a position, it sounds like. So far, you know, you're a little bit critical of this lawyer, I will say

0:39:11 Thomas: Though, that as much as Alex Jones does do some, you know, extreme baby boom, baby boomer angry male boss that we've all had, uh, in order to, like, you're trying to help him with some, uh, fucking technology, and he's like, like yelling at you as you're doing it. It's like that. That's how I felt this entire time. Like you're the, the, here's what Alex Jones is. It's your fucking older boss who the presentation has been, the file's been deleted, and he, he thinks you did it, or like some, or, and he's going to yell about how the computer did it, or you did it. And the truth is he just did it, but you still have to, but he's your boss. So you're like, no, no, it didn't. The only way this could happen is if you, or somebody exactly like you, you know it, that dude, that's the feeling of this whole thing. It's, he's wrong and an asshole

[0:40:04] and angry about it, and you have to somehow deal with it. I have probably taken somewhere between

0:40:11 Andrew: One and 200 depositions in my career, maybe a little more than that, but on the close order of 200 depositions, and I've probably videotaped a dozen,

[0:40:23] right? And I will point this out, Alex, like, nobody is good in a videotaped deposition. Deposition, um, Alex Jones is great as a, you know, visually, right,

[0:40:37] like, pointing, I mean, except for when we, when he gets up, and we, we see his big white flabby whale belly, but like, his, if you just watch him with the sound off, like, he looks dead into the camera,

[0:40:50] like his, his gestures are, I mean, you know, here's somebody who's on camera doing his show, he's doing his show, and and you, you need to know if you're producing this deposition for public consumption that

[0:41:03] he's going to be doing his show, right. Uh, so yeah, um, so he's an angry asshole, but, but the

0:41:09 Thomas: Guy still get, the lawyer still does get him, because he's like, so you didn't, uh, you didn't start these theories, huh? Okay, can you, uh, can you pull up the, uh, video, he's talking to some guy off camera, can you pull up the video entitled, uh, uh, My Swedish Penis and Larger Than Me? Yes, it is my bag, baby, uh, it's pretty much, that was pretty much this entire

[0:41:28] deposition, it's not my bag, baby, and can you pull up the YouTube video entitled, yes, it definitely is my bag, I love Swedish Penis Enlargers, yes, uh, oh yeah, baby, like, that's pretty much

[0:41:41] yeah, yeah, yes, um, I, I will notice you, you, uh, uh, skipped over that, which is, which is fine, but, um, if you had five minutes in the pool for first mention

0:41:53 Andrew: Of psychic vampires in a deposition, uh, you would have won, congratulations, I

0:42:00 Thomas: Don't, yeah, I don't think I would, add five minutes, that's a tough one, even, even for Alex Jones, I would have been more in the 45 minute

[0:42:06] range, I think, yeah, yeah, I, I would have been more in the, uh, never range, but apparently I need to, I need to watch more InfoWars. Well, you know, if this is a bet you're making, I feel like you're, you're, it's got to be somewhere in there, but maybe not, maybe it's, yeah, um, so yeah, so now let's talk about, right, like, that, that the, um, the

0:42:25 Andrew: Technique that this lawyer is going to use is something I don't understand, um,

[0:42:31] he has put together, um, clips, like, have you seen the, the Media Matters, uh, for America clip? Yeah, I think, I think Alex Jones accuses the, the videos of just being that, like, oh, this is just Media Matters, he, he has, and I've watched that video, it's really, really powerful as a PR tool, and I thought, in fact, that the first video was part of the Media Matters for America, it isn't, but the lawyer has kind of done that, um, he's taken very, very short clips from Alex Jones, because, you know, Alex Jones has put out a ton of stuff, uh, and spliced them together to, like, reinforce a point, and I, I don't understand why you would do this, um, what, what I would do, uh, if, if, if I were the plaintiff's

[0:43:27] counsel, and again, I do, right, I'm Monday morning quarterbacking, this is a hard deposition, and Alex Jones is a tough, tough witness, um, but what you do is every clip that you want to use, you mark separately, and you have the transcript of the full episode, right, and you have it with, yeah, um, because as we will see throughout this, Alex Jones immediately, uh,

[0:43:53] and and I, I think he, he does this, uh, in the first, the entire fucking time, yeah, but, but he does it without being coached, like, he, he, he has been a witness in a deposition enough to, to know that you look at something as a, as a document and go, wait

[0:44:13] a minute, um, that's not my original document. And so I'm not gonna answer that. Um, I think

0:44:19 Thomas: This is one of those times where just pure being an asshole happens to also be a good legal

[0:44:25] strategy. I don't know that you can necessarily, you know, this is that it may not. Right, it may be that it's happenstance, not genius. Yeah, I mean, because this is right up there with just Trump saying something's locker room talk or whatever. It's denying what's in front of our very eyes and ears. Because if the clip is, here's the equivalent. The clip is, Mr. Torrez, I'm going to roll this in the people versus Mr. Torrez lawsuit. I'm going to roll this clip of you endorsing Elizabeth Warren, because let's say the question is whether or not you've endorsed Elizabeth Warren.

And I play like four clips of you saying, I believe in future president Elizabeth Warren, future president Elizabeth, where's the rest of the tape? Like, okay, we heard you say, I think the next president should be Elizabeth Warren. And yes, we didn't hear the three hours before that and the one hour after that. But you said, I believe the next president should be Elizabeth Warren. Like, what if that's it? Happens a hundred times in this thing. So are you saying, though, that you, you just need to have the whole thing for what? Just to

[0:45:39] say, well, do we need to go back for some reason? So, so here's, here's what you do, okay.

0:45:45 Andrew: Um, you, you can absolutely have clips in, in the same way

[0:45:51] that that. And, and, and let me say, I have never deposed a witness who was a public, you know, it was a TV personality, right? So I was gonna

0:46:04 Thomas: Add that because keep in mind, this, this is the, I mean, I think this is also the David Smully defense too, which is if you've done four hours of audio a day for like 10 years, you know, like that's

[0:46:16] a tough, yeah, that's a tough order. Yeah. And, and, and we're gonna get, we're gonna get to that, but um, it so

0:46:22 Andrew: I've never had to introduce clips, but I have deposed witnesses who've written 50,000 emails or who have published 30 different articles. Right. And so when I am, uh, deposing an expert witness who's written an 87 page, uh, highly technical

[0:46:41] article, I had to depose an economist, right, who wrote this, uh, article for, uh, you know, a leading math journal. And, right, and so I have the full journal article with me. And then I say, I want to direct you to page 87 of this. And, and so what you do is, right, I say, okay, Mr. Smith, uh, do you recall writing an article on, you know, that was published January 12th, 1995, in the Journal of Applied Economics? Yes. And in fact, fact, do you recognize this as a copy of that article? Yes. I want you to turn to page 74 of that article. Okay. Now I want to direct you to paragraph two, right? And these are the kinds of times where witnesses will, you know, say, well, I need to read it. And you know, okay, take your time. You can read, you know, the paragraphs around it. Um, we don't need to read the whole 74 page article. Right. Um, and I would do, I think you could do something similar with clips from Alex Jones's show. Right. So in other words, you would say, Mr.

[0:47:43] Jones, you publish a daily internet broadcasting, um, I don't even know what you would call it, yeah, nonsense show called InfoWars, right? Yes. And, and you've been doing that since, you know, 2009, right? Yes, forever, somehow. Yeah, uh, and uh, you record an episode on January 12th, 2012, right? Yes. Yes. OK. And in fact, I'm going to represent to you that this is a true and correct copy of the transcript of that January 12th episode. I want to keep that in front of you. And I'm going to play a clip from that episode. Right. And you put it up, and you, and before you play it, you say you recognize the InfoWars logo on the screen. Yes. You recognize your face in the middle of the screen. Right. Yes. And, and the reason you do all of that is not just, you know, to sort of pin them down so that they can't say like,

[0:48:33] oh, this is all edited out of context. And I can't, it, it's, it's, you're authenticating that document, so that it can ultimately potentially be admitted at trial. Right. These documents are hearsay, uh, but if they are business records, right, and I've never tried to get in

[0:48:52] uh, an InfoWars video as a business, but I would argue that it is, right, like it's, it's hearsay of Alex Jones, uh, but it is. How is it regular? It's hearsay because it's the statement, that it's the record of the statement that he made, not in court, right? So, yeah, exactly. Emails are hearsay, right? But they fall, the way in which you get an email in court is you ask the witness if you recognize this email. It got, you know, it has your business address, right? And you sent emails regularly, routinely, in the course of your job? Yes. And so it comes in as a, a routine

[0:49:29] business record, right? So I was going to ask a minor technical question because assuming,

0:49:36 Thomas: Because this goes back years, assuming, you know, I don't know if all their archive was blocked on

[0:49:42] YouTube. I imagine it was, maybe it's mirrored somewhere, but would they have had to produce all of this? Yes, if it's been blocked, they would have had to have produced all of the shows. So it's not a question of like not having access to it. The lawyer should have had access to it. Yeah, absolutely. He should have. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I see what you're saying. I mean, on one hand, it's annoying because it's often short clips, but it's short clips that are so fucking

[0:50:07] obvious. There's no, you know, and then he feigns confusion about it. But think about it that way. And again, I don't want to, you know, pat myself on the back trying to defend Alex Jones here, but suppose I'd taken three emails, right? Like, take the Liz Warren thing. Suppose you took three of my emails

0:50:25 Andrew: Right that were multi-page emails, um, cut out the beginning and the end, uh, included the middle part where I said, and obviously I endorse Elizabeth Warren, and then stapled all three of those together and

[0:50:38] put it under me and called it one document, right? Like the, the, it, a normal, in the normal course of a, of a deposition, you'd be like, like, this isn't a single document, right? This is an amalgamation of several documents together that you've edited, Mr. Lawyer, and that's not appropriate to ask my client questions about this. And beyond it not being appropriate, it wouldn't ever be admissible in trial, and you need it to be admissible in trial for any of these

[0:51:09] answers to be useful at trial, right? Well, shit, what the hell? Now I'm mad. Man. Man, none of these, if you look at the transcript, and I can send you so we can put it in the show notes, um, none of these clips were marked as a trial exhibit, so, uh, as a, as

[0:51:28] a deposition exhibit, right, none of them were authenticated, none of them are going to be able to to be cited, um, so. So that's a real... But can they still go back

0:51:40 Thomas: And get the original and cite them?

0:51:43 Andrew: They can, but now you're going to go to... Right now you're going to have authentication questions, right? Now, you may be able, right, because it's publicly available, you might be able to take a custodial deposition, a 30 B6 deposition of somebody who's an employee of InfoWars, and say, okay, this is in fact a valid copy of InfoWars on December 14th, 2012, right? So they may not be screwed in terms of being able to introduce clips

[0:52:21] from InfoWars at trial, but they had a really, really easy way to introduce the specific clips in connection with this deposition, and they didn't take it, and that's

[0:52:34] weird. Well, that's disturbing. That's, uh, that's distressing me a bit. Um, what's the first clip you have to play? Because I think I have, uh, at 10 minutes something. I wanted to play it. I think we have the exact same one. At 10:21 is my, uh, my clip. If you want to play it, let's, uh, let's, let's, I'll start a little before it, just in case. Let's see how this goes. That's a Media Matters edited derivative production on that tape. It's. It's edited.

And that's you talking about, don't think this couldn't be staged. Our government kills little kids all the time. That's you saying those words. With smart bombs and things. Yes, that's edited out of context. The truth is, Mr. Jones, you were the first person in the world to make the

[0:53:14] false flag theory about Sandy Hook, and you did it before the bodies were even cold. That's the truth. No, it's not true.

[0:53:22] Are we going to have set definitions of the words? No, you can object to form. Yeah, that's rule 199, just objective form. Mr.

0:53:31 Clip: Jones, you said in your affidavit that before you commented on any issues relating to Sandy Hook, you saw other things that other people were doing. That affidavit has false statements, doesn't it?

[0:53:44] No. So we didn't just see you commenting on issues relating to Sandy Hook?

0:53:49 Clip: That was callers calling it up, and it's heavily edited.

[0:53:52] You're going to tell me you watched that video and you weren't commenting on Sandy Hook. I told you five minutes ago before you played it that as a boilerplate of any big public event, whether it's Jussie Smollett or whether it's babies having their brains bashed out in incubators or WMDs, that I up front questioned it because things from Operation Northwoods and hundreds of declassified real staged events where our government admits that it's staged events, that I always bowler plate say that we need to investigate the the news reportage of this and see what's true because such a long history of governments and corporations and legal groups engaging in

[0:54:29] fraud and and I said that before you played the clip. Objection, non-responsive. So yeah, so a couple of things that I, that I want you to notice about that. Right? So notice the and

0:54:42 Andrew: This is, is this is a recurring theme, the sort of hyperbolic uh framing

[0:54:48] of the question by uh plaintiff's counsel, right? Like, uh, Mr. Jones, you were the first person in the world to say, well, like when you ask a question like that, it's really easy for Alex Jones to say no, right? Like, how would I know that? Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. I know I didn't and and and compare the colloquy that we just heard, right. Right. This sort of arguing back and forth with the way I suggested you do it. Right. Like you pin him down first on what the affidavit means, then on when the first date was and then your statements. And then what you're left with is. But in fact, Mr. Jones, you first commented on Sandy Hook on the day of the shooting, didn't you? And then you're left with him saying,

[0:55:32] well, yeah, but I boilerplate it up front that, you know, I always say question. I always do that, right. And then you say respectfully Mr. Jones, my question was, you commented on Sandy Hook on the day of the shooting, yes or no, right? And then he says it again and you say, so that's a yes, right? Uh, and and again, right, if he wants to deny that a yes answer is a yes answer, you can do the technique that I talked

[0:55:57] about before, um, you know, which is sort of look over at the lawyer and say, you know, to his counsel, if, if, if your witness is not going to answer basic yes or no questions, then, uh, I'm going to note an objection for the record, hold this deposition open, and reserve the

[0:56:17] right to bring him back here. I suggest you instruct him to answer the questions right, um, and right and see the difference between starting with the conclusion, like when you say, right, to to a

[0:56:30] witness, don't you agree that you You were a lying sack of crap, like no witness is going to. Yes, I agree. I was a lying sack of crap. You caught me. Yeah. So, yeah, it sounds like he was using his courtroom bluster for the deposition. Yep. And and and this is a very, very common mistake that I see even good lawyers do.

0:56:54 Andrew: Right. Right. I think I've told the example of I had an expert in which opposing counsel came in really good. I mean, a tremendously good lawyer at a firm, a partner at a firm making 10 times the amount of money that I make right now. Right. Like and he came in and eviscerated my expert on cross-examination in in the deposition. Right, like it was just, you know, humiliated him. And we came out and, you know, my expert was like, I'm sorry, I didn't do a very good job. And I was like, it's, it's okay, um, and I'm like, you know, keep your chin up and we'll talk about it. And then I went back and I was like, well, okay, well, we can't ever call him as a as an expert

[0:57:39] right, yeah, like thank you, you know, and I'm like, uh, thanks to opposing counsel for doing me the favor of not making my, me look stupid in front of the jury. Right. Oh, yeah. We talked about this

0:57:51 Thomas: On one of the other Lotawful movies, I think. Maybe it was the same one we talked about before, Bear, where it's like if they have a, it's like if you're boxing a guy and you want to kind of hold him up so that you can still keep punching him.

[0:58:05] it's like, no, he's still good, he's good, yeah, good witness, let's uh let's do this again, in fact let's do another round, I'll carry you over to your corner. And you're trying to prop them up artificially so that you'll get that witness uh called from on the other side. Yeah, interesting gamesmanship. Yeah, it's

0:58:23 Andrew: It's tough because what you want to do is you want to pin down their testimony, right, and and, you know, again, with my witness, um, if, if he had only asked half of the questions

[0:58:36] that he'd asked, it would have been a really, really effective uh deposition

0:58:42 Thomas: Because there's... there's no such thing in the in the courtroom as, uh, ladies and gentlemen the jury, you should have seen this shitty expert they tried to bring up in uh deposition, I just, I wiped the the floor with him, he was terrible, right, they

[0:58:55] they actually tried, they, they uh, they, they made reference to uh to his and

0:59:01 Andrew: They pointed out that we didn't call him, uh, in in front of the judge, but again, right, like, you know, that's, that's the best you can do, and you know, fortunately, uh, we we weren't relying on his testimony. So, um, but as

0:59:13 Thomas: A juror, I wouldn't even really find that that compelling, you know, I don't know anything about this and they're like, well, they had a guy. Yeah. Yeah. I have, my girlfriend lives in Canada, you should meet her, she's like, I don't know, what do I know, maybe you're lying about it. So that's

[0:59:25] very interesting. Okay. What's the next next note you have?

0:59:30 Andrew: The next, the next note that I have, I mean, there's... there's the whole bit about like Sandy Hook

[0:59:36] being staged. And yeah, I could have some stuff there. Okay, cool. So, well, I mean, I wasn't sure, though, I

0:59:42 Thomas: As I was kind of typing notes, I wasn't sure what was worth, you know, gonna be worth talking about, but uh, since we're

[0:59:48] already an hour. Yeah, exactly. Um, but is this the part where he's like, that's me on the short video, because I, that part was so fucking stupid. By the spring of 2013 or so, let's say, just a few months after the shooting, by that point you had gone from theory to just straight up telling your audience Sandy Hook was staged and the evidence is overwhelming? Objection, is deformed.

[1:00:14] Correct? What does staged mean? I'm just asking you what you were telling your audience. I'm not answering your questions, Mr. Jones. You're going to tell me what staged means when you said it. So what I'm asking you is a few months after the shooting, you had gone from theory to straight up telling your audience Sandy Hook was staged and the evidence was overwhelming. True or false?

[1:00:35] But I'm asking you to define what you mean about stage. I'm not asking, I'm not asking for a definition of staged. I don't care what staged means, I'm asking, did you say it? I don't have it in front of me, but uh, I mean, I did say that I saw a lot of anomalies

1:00:48 Clip: That I thought that certainly large parts of the way it was being handled, uh, I mean, you know, the Supreme Court of that state came out and said they covered up uh some of the reports and what happened at the incident, and I think a lot

[1:01:00] of that's been borne out. That when you see a cover-up going on, you're not sure what's happening inside of it. So that's interesting. So

1:01:06 Thomas: He, what do you think about that? If you're asking, like, did you say it was staged and then he's like, well, define stage, it's like I don't

[1:01:12] care, whatever you meant by it, what do you think, uh, about that. Yeah, he's he's kind of close, I mean, this is

1:01:18 Andrew: Why you want to have both the clip and the transcript, right, and so what you do is you play the clip, that's

[1:01:24] a single clip the time, you know, you introduce it the way I do, of him going, Sandy Oak was staged, and then you say, uh Mr. Jones, what did did you mean by staged in that clip, right, and and so you, you don't, because because they're getting into a dispute about facts that speak for themselves, right, Alex Jones said Sandy Hook was staged, that whole colloquy is is now, uh

[1:01:50] Alex Jones saying, what, what did I say it was, I did say there were anomalies and like he, he said it was staged. And so you don't want to say, um, I, I don't care what staged means, right, which is, which is what the lawyer says, right? What you want to say is, um, where he tries to go in the middle, which is, you said staged, you tell me what you meant by that word, right? Um, but but look, like this is another area where, you know, tricky witnesses, um, are are tricky, are tough, right, like this is, we we went through, we talked about, you know, Bill Clinton and saying it, you know, it

[1:02:27] Depends on what the meaning of is is, and you know, answering, parsing their, now that doesn't look so weird, does it? Yeah, that really, yeah, it's like pretty standard deposition. It, it really is. Um, so, uh, yeah, should we play our first lawyer fight here? Oh, god, I love this, this is this is great, lawyer rumble. I'm curious what's your thoughts on it. Yeah, this is this is 1933 is where this began. Research, and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen. That's you saying you did deep research, correct? The same objections to form and that these are highly edited excerpts. Also, the audio's been altered on all these.

[1:03:07] Yeah, can you stop with speaking objections? I'm just... I know exactly what you're doing, and you need to say objection form, objection leading, assertive privilege,

1:03:16 Clip: Or stay quiet. Quiet. You do not need to be making suggestive objections about the content of the evidence and what its form is. You don't

[1:03:22] need to be doing that, Mr. Barnes. I'm not trying to do that. I'm just saying that these are videos that are highly... Mr. Barnes, I don't... I haven't seen... That's a great opinion. I don't understand why your opinion is irrelevant to this questioning right now. You wouldn't be doing this in a courtroom. Don't do it in my deposition. Oh, yeah, in a courtroom it wouldn't come in because it wouldn't be admissible because it was... Then that is why you're... ...a rule of completeness. Mr.

Barnes, that's why your objection is preserved as to the form of that evidence. You don't have to raise an objection. The only reason you would be doing it is to possibly influence the witness. Let's stop talking. Can we have a standing stipulation that when I object to form, that includes an objection to the rule of completeness? Absolutely. Thank you. Then we're good. Oh, and we'll also

[1:04:02] put on the record, every objection to every piece of evidence is preserved under the Texas rules, which is part of Rule 199. I was objecting in a way that that Mr. Barnes, I'm not trying to cross.

[1:04:14] OK, so that's a fun lawyer fight.

1:04:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like he thought he was, the Jones's lawyer was almost trying to feed him answers.

[1:04:24] What do you think about this? What's happening here? So here's an example. We've been beating up the plaintiff's counsel a little bit.

1:04:31 Andrew: This is an example where he's 100 percent correct, right? Like, that's exactly what Alex Jones's lawyer is is doing. Uh, and notice that Alex Jones is taking his cues from what his lawyer says, right?

[1:04:43] Like every time his lawyer says, "I objected the form of that," is that an edited, right? Like it, it, you're not supposed to do that. Um, it is called a speaking objection. Uh, the reason to object to it is because it is used by the lawyer to coach the witness. Uh, and again, you know, if you have clean hands, then what you do is you note, uh, you note it several times on the record, and again, you know, your ultimate weapon in your back pocket is, "I'm going to take this to the judge because I'm entitled to get the testimony of your witness under examination, examination without coaching from counsel, and if you don't stop with the speaking objections, I'm going to have to suspend this deposition and go to the court." Um,

[1:05:33] and and again, I, I didn't say this at the at the outset, I should have. Um, courts hate doing that, right? Like, it is called Rambo litigation tactics, uh, which, you know, nice timely reference, right? So I'm pushing for them to go for for an Ally McBeal reference, but you know, Sylvester Stallone, 1984, that that's fine too, and judges will admonish even if you're 90% in the right and 10% in the wrong, which is where I've always felt I've

[1:06:05] been when I've had to take discovery disputes to the court, because nobody's perfect, right? Um, and I've been dressed down by judges, uh, for, you know, because judges say, "Hey, look, look, you two are professionals. This is, you know, you're both experienced counsel, experienced

[1:06:25] litigators, figure this out. Don't bring this into my chambers," right? What that sounds like to me in

1:06:31 Thomas: The age of Trump where norms are nothing and you get away with whatever is just go ahead and coach your witnesses. There's no bad effects. And then you just, oh, sorry. And that's fine.

[1:06:40] Yeah, look, like if it's egregious, I mean, I want to defend that, right? Right. So

1:06:46 Andrew: I think that I think that your insight there is correct in the sense

[1:06:52] that it requires. I mean, I'm talking about when you're dealing with Alex Jones and you're dealing with some with

1:06:58 Thomas: A sociopath who doesn't care about anything.

[1:07:01] Yeah. And but but I would say even when you're the lawyer defending Alex Jones,

1:07:07 Andrew: Right, you are. I would expect that person to abide by the norms

[1:07:14] of legal ethics. Right, you, you, you don't anticipate that, um, uh, that they're going to, you know, sort of do the age of Trump and, like, and I would have expected, uh, Mitch McConnell to give Merrick Garland, right? Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I, I, I agree with, I, I think that it's an interesting, well, we should move on because we have so much to to cover, um, I just gotta say, though,

1:07:39 Thomas: I, and I, I see your point about the edited videos and it's unfortunate, you know, I get, I get what you're saying now, and it kind of makes me be mad because on one hand it's so obvious. Like, like some of these are too short, and those ones I, you know, some of them are a couple seconds, yeah, definitely wrong. Some of them, though, are plenty long enough to get, like, the context, and you could answer an easy question about it. And like the idea that Alex fucking Jones, a guy who lives on YouTube, or did, you know, who does a video show,

[1:08:10] there's a point after this where he's feigning like he doesn't know what video. Oh, how did you, uh, trap my spirit in that light box there? I don't understand how it's, you're showing me one thing from one year and another thing for another, I don't get what's happening. It's like, what, you, you know, what this is, it's not, it, I, it's, it gets really fucking frustrating. Yep, yep, no, I don't, I don't disagree with

1:08:36 Andrew: That, I, I'm just pointing out as a, uh, as a tactic, and and so that's, that's the objection as to completeness that, uh, Jones's lawyer wants to make sure is preserved for the record, which again it's nonsense, he knows that that's preserved, right? Like, when you object as to the form of the question, right, um, you, you can also object, uh, he could, he could say, I want a standing objection, uh, for lack of foundation because the documents here are not complete, and I

[1:09:07] I, and then you're done, you don't have to keep saying it every single, is that's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And and there's also a little bit of gamesmanship here, you hear at the very beginning of this deposition that Alex

[1:09:19] Jones's primary lawyer here is an out-of-state lawyer who is, oh, that's right, yeah, right, he, his admission is pending pro hoc. Yeah, I caught that, he's a California lawyer, right, and so, um, there's a a little bit of that, that's Texas Rule 199, you know, a little bit of local homer, like, you know, trying to to say, I don't know how you do things in California, but here in Texas,

[1:09:45] you know, we, which is, um, surprisingly common, right, like that, yeah, well, I mean, it's, it's there, you're in Texas, yeah, yeah, everything's bigger, right? Yes, yeah, the rules of evidence are bigger here, um, yeah, so I, I don't have anything for a while until the nut job who sent him a million emails. So let me know what the next thing you wanted to cover is. Oh, I do. So let's jump. I'm going to skip a bunch of stuff.

1:10:14 Andrew: But I do want you to play 2857. Sure. And I'll tell you when to start because there are, well,

[1:10:21] you play it and then we'll break it down. Let's play it. You didn't even go to the school. Then a year later, you showed your audience a video of a building with an ambulance to it and you told them it was the school. I talk four hours a day.

1:10:33 Clip: And I can't remember what I talked about sometimes a week ago, Sandy Hook has been in the aggregate less than one tenth of one percent of what I cover, and I understand that you've been living this and pouring over it constantly, I've, I have done almost no preparation for this, it's very, it gives me a headache, and

[1:10:53] I just, you're just showing me a bunch of edited tapes, what question are you answering? Okay, you're asking me about a bunch of edited, how does someone answer, yeah, I remember that, um, so I, I, I do love that, uh, how many times have you had to do that? What question, um, but but

1:11:18 Andrew: Look, this is another real missed opportunity by plaintiff's counsel, um, and and and I think part of what this stems from, one of the things that's super hard about conducting a deposition is you have to listen to the witness, right, and you have to, you have to go

[1:11:36] in that is really hard in this case, you have to fucking listen to Alex Jones, I know, vocal fry, that hurts me to hear it, I don't know how is he still able to speak, I I, I do not know, I do that voice for 30 seconds and I, I have to quit podcasting, I couldn't even, there's no way, no, I know, I've got this like 32 ounce thing of water, uh, next to me here, every time I do an Alex Jones impression, uh, we've gotta, we we got to stop so I can drink six ounces of water.

[1:12:09] But no, so you have to go in with the level of preparation that I've talked about, right? And you go in with an outline and with pre-prepared questions, and you're leading in a direction. But you also have to stop and listen. And when a witness gives you a treasure trove, you have to be willing to stop and go, okay, Mr. Jones, that's an interesting answer. I want the court reporter to read back the first sentence because I want to parse out, you said a lot of things in that and I want to ask you questions about each one, right, and here here

[1:12:39] are the four things that Alex Jones said in that clip, because this, this is when people get in trouble, right, in depositions, they just start spouting off, right, they don't want to answer a question, so they start spouting crap off, and then you just ask them, okay, what is each of these, you know, garbage excuses that you've given, what do they mean, right? So, first sentence, um, I talk four hours a day, right, and you

[1:13:04] you absolutely want to stop and be like, so what, what's the significance of that statement, Mr. Jones? Right, you just say, well, I don't remember everything, that's exactly right, so but but remember, go back, the what you have to prove in order to prove defamation is negligence in making the statement, right? So anytime he's about to say, uh, look, like, like, I do four hours a day, who knows, I just, I spew so much crap I can't possibly remember, right, like,

[1:13:36] this should have been a huge, like, blinking red light of, God damn it, why didn't they hire you? Keep coming out, right? Like, so, okay, say, yeah, why did you say that?

1:13:49 Andrew: What's the importance of the fact that you talk four hours a day? You just said it. I want to know how that's responsive to my question.

[1:13:55] why is that significant? Significant, okay, and then he says, well, because, you know, I, I say a lot of things, yeah, you, and and then you ask a couple follow, right, so you, you do in fact talk about a lot of different subjects, right, and, um, and then you just say, and what kind of preparation do you do for each of your daily shows, right, we can get to that in a minute, um, then, okay, now let's go back to your

[1:14:20] answer, uh, I asked the corporate reader, read the second sentence, right, I can't remember what I talked about a week ago, okay, that's because of the high volume of things that you say, right? Yes, and so in fact and

[1:14:34] the utter worthlessness of their content, yeah, um, it, which you know, ask a couple questions, be like, can you, can you remember the content of of any of your shows, well, what is it that it makes a show more likely for you to remember in the future, right, like, if he's opening up the door on this, you want to ask, and this is where you get the unscripted stuff that his lawyer hasn't

[1:14:59] prepped him on that, um, again, who knows if, if what, and they're all questions that aren't based on a clip or anything, like you're just asking open-ended valid questions, yep, read the third sentence, Sandy Hook is one, and this is, there are two things about this, Sandy Hook is one tenth of one percent of what we cover on the show, he says this four or five times in the deposition, right, right, this is one of his canned answers that he came in prepared to say, along with the Jussie Smollett stuff, along with, you

[1:15:30] know, the well, you know, we just I defer to publish news reports. Correct me if I'm wrong, but

1:15:36 Thomas: I think the way the law works, if you shoplift, but you also buy a lot of stuff periodically from

[1:15:42] that same place, then it's fine. Yeah, like there's a ratio. Yeah, right, right. But um, so, so, so two things on this. Number one, as a lawyer, when you hear somebody give a canned

1:15:55 Andrew: Answer a couple of times, right, that's your cue of, okay, this person is hiding something here, right? Right. Like, they, they have, they have resorted to pulling out something they prepped in advance as a distractive non-answer because they don't really want to answer the question. So that tells you, make sure you don't leave without them answering this question. Right. And, and, and on the one tenth of one percent, ask that. Right. Say, OK, read

[1:16:24] that. Read that thing. How do you calculate that? How did you calculate that? Right. And make him explain. Oh, OK. How did you both calculate that and do no preparation for this interview? And you jumped ahead. And by the way, remember an hour ago when I told you to put a pin in the first question? Every deposition I have ever taken and every deposition I have ever defended, the first question you ask a witness when they sit down, first substantive question. You might ask them their name and where they live and that sort of thing. The first substantive question you ask is mr jones what did you do to prepare for today's deposition

[1:17:02] Interesting. Um, and the, the reason that you do that is because I put on a shirt that doesn't fit, that's about it. Did you put on deodorant, Mr. Jones? No, it's back here, let me lift up my armpit, you can smell it, the supplements give me a quite a funk actually, I gotta take like hundreds of different supplements at all times. Yeah, it's no good, distinct blue cheese aroma wafting across the room. That was also me, I farted. What was the question? What death of one percent, right, right. So the reason you ask why, what preparation they've done is, um,

[1:17:42] sometimes the witness will tell you, right, so, um, in yeah, but what does that matter? So a couple things. Number Number one, anything they looked at in preparation for the depot, you are entitled, they have to produce it to you. Really? Yeah.

1:17:59 Andrew: Wow. If documents were put in front of them, then you have to say, oh, did you

[1:18:06] review any documents? No, like anything you reviewed at home? Yeah. Just anywhere? Wow. And so if you reviewed something that they haven't otherwise produced in discovery, they have to produce it. Now, again, usually these questions turn out to be boilerplate, right? And, you know, he'll say, well, I reviewed some documents with my lawyer. Did you review anything outside of the presence of your lawyer? No. And then you turn to the lawyer and say, have all of the documents with which you reviewed with him, have those been produced in this litigation? And typically the lawyer will say yes, and then you move on. But sometimes, right, I had—this was my partner. I wish I could take credit for this. I was there. I was the number two. My partner was deposing a witness and asked what you did to prepare for this deposition.

1:18:54 Andrew: And he said, I reviewed some documents and then I made

[1:18:58] some notes. Notes. And my partner was like, okay, well, we'd like to see those notes. And he's like, well, I made them with my counsel, they're, uh, they're privileged, right, they're, they're, uh, attorney client work product. Oh, I think you've told the story. Yeah, yeah.

1:19:11 Andrew: And we stopped and, uh, and went to the judge and the judge was like, no, that's present recollection reflected, uh, refreshed, you have to turn over those, uh, those notes. So we got to see the notes that he made, uh, prior to going

[1:19:24] into the deposition, right, which definitely don't admit guilt, right. And look, it wasn't, it wasn't quite as great as that, but like whenever you get the other side to have, you know, it was like, yeah, be careful on

[1:19:36] X, right? Right. Yeah, yeah. And, and that was great, right? So you always do that, um, and and we see here that, like, you, you get for, for all of that to be together. And, and, and, this, this lawyer does do a little bit on the preparation, but you should have asked, right, what did you do to prepare?

[1:19:54] And remember, we talked about this from the Clinton deposition. You always, one of the things you will not hear in this deposition, that's really, really a shame, is you ask a question, uh, Alex Jones gives an answer, and then eventually the lawyer just moves on, right? Like, you, you always, when you say what did you do for X, right, what did you do to research

[1:20:20] the Sandy Hook story? Well, you know, I read this, and then he'll move on, you say, okay, you read it, what else did you do, what else did you do, is that all? Right, like you always ask, ask that terminal question. Yeah, you

1:20:33 Thomas: Were just talking about this the other day. Yeah, which is, that's how you get out of these questions, you offer up one thing. Yeah.

[1:20:39] What did you do, what did you do to prepare? Well, I, uh, not a whole lot. Okay, right.

1:20:45 Andrew: Well then when you try and introduce, because they are absolutely going to introduce, uh, his statement, right, in their, uh, summary judgment motion, right, they're going to say Alex Jones conceded a deposition that he, you know, did no, no preparation. Right. And the other side's lawyers are going to say, yeah, he said he did almost no preparation and it gave him a headache. But that didn't mean he didn't do X. Right. And you

[1:21:10] won't be able to use that statement for anything because you didn't ask. So, damn. Yeah, this is, this sucks. I hope this, this isn't going to cost

1:21:22 Thomas: Them, I guess. I hope this isn't going to be, I don't know, a bad deposition that allows Alex Jones to get away with what is almost certainly defamatory, awful behavior. Behavior. Um, okay, what, what else do we have here? Uh, I, like I was saying, uh, in a few minutes here it turns, I don't know if we need to play it necessarily, but it turns out, uh, just, just for the factual record here, one of Alex Jones's quote unquote sources is some guy who sent him a billion emails, and the lawyer's like, yeah, this guy is fucking nuts, like, you, you clearly, this, you know, this guy is insane, like there's no way you, you know, you could have taken him

[1:22:07] at face value, right? Yeah, let's, uh, that's 37:04, let's play that clip, that's fantastic. This is Wolfgang Halbig. Just take what they said. You trusted these guys? Well, I mean, it's, it's, I've seen one

1:22:19 Clip: Of the guys like on national television before or Columbine stuff, and he was as a national safety expert and sounded

[1:22:26] pretty credible, Mr. Halbig, right? Yes. And he's sent you something in the neighborhood of, of Tim Forrest's 4,000 emails? It's a lot. Yeah. And looking at those emails, taking a look at them, you wouldn't agree with me that that man is a raving lunatic?

1:22:43 Clip: He seemed very credible and put together earlier on about, I can't remember the exact numbers. He seemed to get agitated

[1:22:49] about four years ago, three years ago. Let's talk a little bit about EMTs. Okay. So stop that right there, right? There is only one time when you can use the question, so you'd agree with me that this man is a raving

1:23:04 Andrew: Lunatic, right? And that is if the very next exhibit you have in your stack-

[1:23:10] Is Alex Jones saying this guy's a raving lunatic? On the air, this guy is a raving lunatic, right? And again, you do the same thing

1:23:16 Thomas: As- Yeah, because otherwise he asked it too harshly, like, oh, I don't know about raving, maybe not a lunatic, maybe, you know, like

[1:23:22] there's all these- He's a moderate lunatic, right? Right. Like, yeah, it's one of those moderate lunatics. Yeah.

1:23:27 Andrew: So, again, same thing. Right. Lay the foundation. Right. And so here's how I would ask that set

[1:23:33] of questions.

1:23:34 Andrew: Mr. Jones, who is Wolfgang Halpik?

[1:23:38] He's a nationally recognized expert. He's been. Yeah. OK. And you, in fact, know Mr. Halpik. Right. Yeah, I do. Yeah. In fact, he sent you over 40,000 e-mails. Yeah, it was a lot of e-mails. Most of which you've replied to. Right. I don't know. Yeah. I did no prep for this. Yeah. Also, sorry, you're going to keep going. Go ahead. And in fact, Mr. Halbig was your source for the Sandy Hook story, wasn't he? Yeah, it was one of one of those sources. Yeah. Okay, so who were your other sources besides Mr. Halbig? Other, other experts internationally. Yeah, he does, he actually says that a lot.

[1:24:18] It's like, all the people. I would like you to name those sources for me. Yeah, yeah, right. We didn't really get that right then. You say, yeah, then you go back and say, how many times was Mr. Halbig on your show? 1138, Right, Okay, you named two other sources, you named, you know, Mr. Smith. How many times, Mr. Smith,

[1:24:38] on your show? Zero? Okay, right, yeah. And, and, and again, you don't have to ask him. The picture-

1:24:44 Thomas: You know of of how much establish how much he relied on this guy you're saying right

[1:24:50] and then you say, and in fact, Mr. Halbig is a raving lunatic, isn't he, right? And

1:24:57 Andrew: This is assuming that, but there is a clip of Alex Jones saying he's a raving lunatic, which we find out later on there is. And again, this lawyer screws it up, right? Because there's a clip of him saying that Halbig is kooky, right? So do that again. So, like, use his own word. You don't need to call him a raving lunatic. Like, Mr. Halbig is kind of a kook,

[1:25:16] isn't he?

[1:25:18] You know, the lawyer's going to object and he's going to be like, oh, I don't know. It's so great, though. I was going to bring it up later, but

1:25:24 Thomas: I think that's, since you're bringing it up now, it is so fantastic, because the only time where honestly Alex Jones made me kind of chuckle on this was, I think it's that line of questioning, he's like, oh, he's kind of a kook, isn't he's like, well,

[1:25:36] I don't want to get sued again, so I'm not going to say that about anybody. All right, you kind of won that exchange. Again, a good lawyer comes back and says, uh, Mr. Jones, you've, you've already published

1:25:48 Andrew: That statement to a million people, so I'm pretty sure that the five people in this room are not going, going to make it any more or less defamatory. You in fact said he was a kook, right? Um, right, so having refreshed your recollection that Mr. Halbig is a kook, we're clear that that kook was your source for the Sandy Hook story.

[1:26:07] Right, yeah, which he's, to which he's saying, well, he only turned into a kook later on, as well, I think, the argument he's trying to make, but yep. Um, but right, you see how I've gotten much more out of you? Right? I do, I do, that's a good point, I let me just summarize what happens here, I'll just try

1:26:26 Thomas: Again, because, gosh, we got, no, don't have that much, but um, there's one here where he's trying to ask him if, he, this is so fucking frustrating, he said he asked him if he knew about a certain sergeant, like, do you know this guy, do you know of this guy, to which Alex Jones, I mean, he's so evasive on everything, but I think he eventually acknowledges, like, no, I don't know who that is, and then he asks, did you know what he did on the day of the shooting, do you know, how, you know, because he, he, there's a report where he kind of describes it, and Alex Jones is like waffling on that, and, and I, it's so weird because he's acknowledged that he doesn't know who the person is, so of course he doesn't know what he did, and then

[1:27:09] he said, when he kind of catches him on that, Jones says, ah, the video, is so edited, I don't know, and, like, there's no video on this, so now we've, we've gotten this, now this is my answer to anything, Andrew, if I ever get a bar question wrong, that video was edited, heavily edited, it's not related to anything, there's no video, has nothing to do with anything, he just says video, so, I don't know, video, yep.

1:27:33 Andrew: And, and look, again, when you're a lawyer and you hear a witness doing that, you say, respectfully, Mr. Jones, I did not play a video clip for this question, will the court reporter read back the question, and, and again, hopefully you've asked shorter questions so the court reporter can read back, the question was, you know, do you know who investigator so-and-so is, right? That's a, and then, and then I say, that's

[1:28:01] a yes or no question, Mr. Jones, do you know who investigator so and that's, what, yeah, that's what happens because he

1:28:07 Thomas: Says, like, there's only two, two options, you either knew what this guy did on that day or you didn't know, there's only two options, all right, it's video edited.

[1:28:17] Okay, cool, yep, and then I'm going to skip over the next, but yeah, but I do want to ask you this. I have a general note around this time, which is it seems as though this lawyer or lawyer, as they pronounce it in Texas, apparently, it seems as though he's trying to get him to use the words of the standard. You know, like, and I was wondering if that's how, how meaningful that is. Like, do you need Alex Jones? Do you need to be able to get Alex Jones to say, oh, if you knew about these reports and you still said paramedics weren't allowed inside, that would be reckless, right? And it's, I wonder, I want to ask you, like, is that meaningful? Do you need to try to get Alex Jones to say the words like, yes, this was reckless? Or like, he's always going to say no, no, so is that a question too far, or is that, you know, is he just fishing in case he can somehow miraculously get him to say that, what do you think

1:29:13 Andrew: About that? That is really, really insightful, I have this, this note down, you are exactly right that that, no, you do not need, like, it's not like the Beavis and Butthead

[1:29:26] movie where, you know, you need the clip of, said, I was going to exchange goods and services for sexual favors, right, like, no, you, you not only do you not need the witness to use the legal terminology, but this is one of the few grounds upon which you can make a legitimate, semi speaking objection as defense counsel in a deposition, right, which is, objection, calls for a legal conclusion on the part of the witness, right, Alex Jones isn't a lawyer, he does not know what reckless means as a matter of law, and it's not up for him to know, right, it's, it's up for him to say the facts, and then for the lawyers to argue in a summary judgment motion or in open court before a jury, that those facts to which Alex Jones has admitted, constitute recklessness, right? Right, it, the repeated use of, you'd agree that's pretty reckless, a, not

[1:30:22] an appropriate question, and B, as you point out, like, it's just a stupid, right, like, what do you think, Alex Jones, do you think he's gonna break down on the stand and go, oh, it's, it was all just a god damn, right, I ordered the Code, right, exactly.

1:30:35 Andrew: I mean, who knows, maybe, maybe it's worth tossing a couple out there, because Alex Jones is such a wild card that possibly he will, um, but, but it happens again and again, and it's clearly not going anywhere, um, and, and it's not an appropriate question in the first place, and it wouldn't mean anything if

[1:30:54] he did, right, like, yeah, it's, it's, Alex Jones isn't the lawyer, it's not, it's not his job to, to describe the legal, yeah, characterization of his, yeah, it

1:31:06 Thomas: Doesn't, it seems to have no value, I don't care what his view on whether or not something is reckless is, it's, I literally don't give a shit, I care about what he said, and then the jury and

[1:31:19] the lawyers can argue about whether or not, you know, this is reckless, right? Yep, exactly right, all right, um, we've, I think there's some good stuff coming up here, what did you have next? Uh, the next thing I have, a lawyer argument, right, but we do, right before the uh the lawyer on lawyer violence, um, we have

1:31:37 Andrew: The very worst moment of the deposition, at exactly one hour in.

[1:31:42] Oh, uh, I don't know, I have the, I have, this is the worst deposition I've ever seen, as before an hour, um, so that, that, that may be part of the colloquy before that, but, I mean, the question that I was shocked to see the plaintiff's lawyer ask, and, um, and I think it's pretty irresponsible that, like, the, the folks like Huffington Post that have commented on this deposition.

1:32:07 Thomas: I was going to mention that. Okay, yeah, okay, well, let it be, uh, let the record show

[1:32:14] that at some point before that, the other lawyer is like, this is the worst deposition I've ever seen, so cool, and he's not entirely wrong, so, geez, yeah, all right, well, I'll go to a little bit, well clearly it's not the kid in Pakistan, because that's not a kid who's still alive, right? Right. When Noah Posner's picture appeared in Pakistan, that's not, Noah Posner's still alive, right? Correct. I wasn't saying that Noah Posner's still alive. OK. It was widely reported during your divorce that

1:32:45 Clip: Your attorney said to the judge that you're playing a character, that you're a performance artist. So I want to ask you,

[1:32:51] I want to know, when you were making these claims about Sandy Hook, were you being a journalist or was this all performance art? Objection as to form.

1:32:59 Clip: When I say things on air, I believe it, I had, when I'm being a radio talk show host, that was my ex-wife trying to enter into evidence, like, 10 years ago, me in a joker outfit doing a satire piece about chemicals in the water, and she was trying to say that I was crazy and was really the joker, and we said, no, when Jack Nicholson plays the joker, your honor, he's not really the joker, he's playing a part, and then the media ran with it, saying that I said that what I regularly do on air is entertainment.

1:33:33 Clip: So it's very clear when I'm being serious on air, and it's very clear if I'm wearing a gore mask and reenacting Star Trek as a joke, that I'm not literally believing that gore is a real lizard creature, I was making fun of the media in that case for saying that, you know, I believe the government's run by lizards, that's David Icke, not me, and so I wore a lizard mask, they also tried to introduce that, and we explained that, no, you're, on the judge agreed, yes, he, we understand satire versus reality, so, um, no, I was, uh, I, I believe what I say on air, uh, and, and now when I cover what somebody else is covering, or I war game and look at both sides of something, that doesn't mean that I believe even both sides of what I'm covering, it means I'm looking at the different angles, and then that's taken

[1:34:16] out of context. Well, what I'm getting at is, so, yeah, yeah, I had this written down too, why in the hell would you ask that question? In what universe do you

1:34:29 Andrew: Think that asking a leading question, where you can easily answer no, and indignantly, you know, filibuster in such a way that, that, uh, you

[1:34:42] know, makes you look sympathetic, I, I'm just stunned, yeah, I don't even know what

1:34:48 Thomas: The answer would do either way, does it matter, like, if, I mean, I, I mean

[1:34:54] Yeah, yeah, go ahead. No, no, you finish your question. I don't, I don't, yeah, I honestly don't know. I mean, the only way I guess the, there's only, okay, there's so, there's two answers. Yes, I believe everything I say, or not, just it's all nothing. And if, if he, if he, if his answer is, "Nah, none of this is serious," then how does that help the other side?

[1:35:17] It doesn't. Right. So, I don't get, maybe there is some value. Right. And again, it, there is value. I don't want to say maybe there is value

1:35:30 Andrew: In pinning down Jones's testimony. Right. And so, again, what you do is you ask him in the context, you talk about specific statements, and you say, "Mr. Jones," you put on all of the worst stuff that he said about Sandy Hook, and you

[1:35:50] say, Mr. Jones, did you believe that was true at the time that you said it? Do you believe that that is true now? Right. But but to contrast with what you were hoping to impeach him with at trial. Right. Again, now this is this is literally the classic definition of the question too far. Right. Because you have this previous statement. Right. That you will be able to introduce because it's it's it's for impeachment. Right. So even though again, even though it's hearsay, you're going to be able to use it in in your trial as to impeach Jones's statements. Right. Where he says, well, I don't believe any of it. Right. Right. Like that statement speaks for itself. Make them play it in front of the jury and make them defend that in court. But now, like, you're going to be able to, like, I would move, if I were Alex, gosh, I don't, I kind of don't want to say this out loud, I would give him any trial tips. But if I were Alex Jones's lawyers, I would move in lemonade before the trial begins to say that

1:36:59 Thomas: That. Sorry, I'm one of Trump's appointees to the bench. I don't know what that phrase means.

[1:37:05] Yeah.

[1:37:08] That comes up a lot in federal court, you know. I think that was what Senator Kennedy said in response. Yeah. Can we sidebar on the outrage of

1:37:19 Andrew: Mitch McConnell reducing to two hours from 30 the time for deliberation

[1:37:25] over Trump's judicial nominees? Companies, um, that's, that's frightening, right? Because, yeah, it, it's, it means one hour of five minute questioning by Democrats, uh, and, well, topic for another show because that's outrageous, you greatly reduce the likelihood that we're going to find out that these idiots are completely incompetent. Anyway, um, lemonade is, yeah, so, uh, you, you'd move in lemonade to say, "I, I want the court to rule that they can't make any reference to this" statement, um, and I think it would be highly likely on the basis of this colloquy with

[1:38:02] with nothing more, uh, that a judge is going to agree on, uh, on, on, uh, unfairly prejudicial grounds. I think that's Rule 403, uh, that, um, that, that, that references to that out-of-court statement are out. Right, um, and you've made that more likely as a result of

[1:38:21] asking. And there was nothing good to be gained from it. So that was bad. And look, the people who gleefully reported that this deposition didn't go well for Alex Jones, they mentioned things like he didn't know when the date of Sandy Hook was, which is true, right, um, they mentioned the, the things that he says which would be bad coming out of any normal human, but he's already said stuff way worse than the stuff he

[1:38:52] says in this deposition. And from a legal standpoint, um, it, I think this deposition went great

1:38:58 Thomas: For Alex Jones. Right, it didn't, like, increase his potential liability or whatever, like, he's already, you

[1:39:05] know, he's already Alex Jones, like, what if, sure, if a normal person turned into Alex Jones, you'd be like, "Oh my god, what happened to you, holy shit, this is a bad video," a normal person turned into fucking Alex Jones, but if Alex Jones does Alex Jones, it's, it's like, okay, he did that. Yep, yeah, yep, um, gosh, there's a lot here, I'm, uh, now it's a little unfortunate we're out of time, so I want to get to your next thing, but, but, you know, just one of the quick, glossing over a bit here where he claimed at the time that, like, Bloomberg reported the anti-gun people said, "Get ready for a big event today," you know, which is all fucking nonsense. And what's the next thing you have? Oh, one quick sentence, one sentence note here. That's what Paul Joseph Watson sounds

[1:39:51] like. Oh, my God.

1:39:53 Thomas: I've never, I've only seen his stupid fucking face and I don't watch him because I hate these people. I can't stand it. But I'll see, like, you know, quotes, or yeah, his Twitter. I had no idea that's what he sounds like. And he's one of those people that thinks, you know, he's got those genetics that's better than everybody else. Anyway, uh, so that's just my quick note, and he's a principal reporter for the uh fucking InfoWars, sorry, uh, for InfoWars. What's the next thing that you would like to, uh, go to? Well,

[1:40:21] I, I could kind of condense everything I have down to, you know,

1:40:27 Andrew: Sort of two more things, so, um,

[1:40:31] you know what, well, we have to play the hypothetical answers bit, just for fun. Yeah, that was going to be number one. We are on exactly the same page here. So that's... "If it happened that InfoWars work to help make complaints against various sites so that individual parents wouldn't be the subject of retribution." "Yeah, that's what I'm asking you, if you knew..." "No, I was not aware of that. I believe, from memory, it was covering a news article about how the..." "But then that's been conflated by you guys sitting in people's houses or putting out their addresses to go after them, and we never did that." "So if InfoWars, if it happened that"

[1:41:11] InfoWars went and searched and dug through records for private business filings and used DMCA reports that it had gotten to suss out that Mr. Posner was the head of Honor and then reported it to its audience, that wouldn't be a good thing if that happened, right?" "Objection as to form." "Well, I don't have any knowledge of what you're talking about there. I'm just saying if it happened." Hypothetically, if, hypothetically,

1:41:37 Clip: InfoWars went to some links to unmask a person who was running a charity that was trying to stop people from being abused, and then disclose that to its audience with maps, that wouldn't

[1:41:49] be a good thing. Um, that's from my memory, not what happens, I can't comment on hypotheticals. Oh, so if, if I was to say to you, if somebody was to come along and strike your hand with a hammer, would it hurt? "You can't answer that question, I'm not striking anybody with a..." "If I asked you if I gave you a big bowl of chili, might it affect your memory?" "You can't answer that, that's hypothetical." "Correct, you're just not going to answer those kind of questions."

[1:42:22] We did not insert the silence here. No, yeah, silence not inserted.

1:42:29 Thomas: How does that work? I mean, can you just decide, "Nah, not gonna answer hypotheticals," that, that's something that happens a lot in just, like, you know, interviews with politicians and stuff, you're like, "Oh, all of a sudden you turned into a fucking idiot who can't comprehend"

[1:42:41] the concept of a hypothetical question. Selectively. Yeah, so here's the thing, right, um, his lawyers, Alex Jones's lawyers, are mostly

1:42:55 Andrew: In the right here, right, like, there's not a blank, you can ask anything you want in a, a deposition, and the standard is it has to be reasonably likely to lead to the admissibility of, uh, to the discovery of admissible evidence, right? So you, you hear them talk a lot, right, like you, you heard the lawyer say, uh, "Well, if I was in court, this, you know, none of this would come in because none of this is admissible evidence." Um, and, and, and again, and he's right on that, right, like, you, you get to ask about inadmissible evidence in deposition, you get to go on a fishing expedition, you have wide latitude to ask kind of whatever the hell you want, um, in, at trial right you the the way this is a

[1:43:38] really, really easy rule to understand, fact witnesses, so Alex Jones is a fact witness, not an expert witness, um, right, you never ask them hypotheticals, right, you can only ask them what facts they observed, and experts you can only ask hypotheticals, right? Um, and that's, there are hybrids, right, like, so in a, in a medical malpractice case, right, the attending physician might be both, a fact witness would be able to answer what was in this liver, and also the

[1:44:09] hypothetical, right? But again, so good point, what, what value does it have whether or not Alex Jones thinks it would be bad if this happened, I don't understand. And, and that's ultimately where We come to, right, which is there's no prohibition, right, on asking him the hypothetical question, but like, what, what answer does, does the plaintiff's, like, I can't figure out what answer plaintiff's counsel wants here, right? Like, I think what he's trying to say is, did you out Mr. what's his face as the head of Honor, right? So why don't you ask that question, right? Say, did you out Mr. So-and-so? He says no. Okay, so you're saying you took no steps to publicize the identity of Mr. So-and-so as head of Honor, correct? So you never used a DMCA in any way, right? Like, that's good deposition question.

1:45:02 Andrew: You, you say, okay, you said no, let's, let let's get you on the record as saying you never used a Dmc. And then, by the way, like the, the predicate of that question suggests that they have some sort of evidence that he used Dmc, right? Like, that's a goldmine, right? Don't give away that you have that document, ask the question first, let him say, no, I, I don't. And then you reach down and go, okay, Mr. Jones, I want to, I'm going to give you what is marked as uh, uh, Jones Exhibit 37, uh, this is a document produced by your council, you see it bears Bait stamp, uh, J

[1:45:37] -O-N-E-S, uh, 0-0-0-6-3-4, at the bottom, do you see that? Correct, um, and this is in fact a, you know, screenshot of your server that was produced in this litigate, right? Like, like that's when

[1:45:49] You spring it on him.

1:45:52 Andrew: So asking in the, I just, I didn't, I didn't get it. Yeah.

[1:45:56] I didn't get it.

1:45:58 Thomas: And I have on here to play at 1:17, which is where we ended up. So I'm wondering what's happening

[1:46:04] here. I mean, yeah, that's a question. That's a comment. That's not a question. This is becoming one of the most harassing of death. This is for TV and for PR, not for a legitimate suit. That's what this is. That's all this is. You want to put it on TV. That's all this is, just a show, and it's a bad show at that, to show how not to be a lawyer in deposition of a case show.

I mean, if you want to be fair and you want to ask real questions, go ahead, but don't, don't make comments and then try to reinterpret those comments as a question and then try to put words in the mouth of the witness. I mean, first year law student should do that, that that qualifies as a speaking objection.

[1:46:47] Objection, oh yeah, but I mean, how, how right or wrong is that lawyer though? Um, he's, so he's both right and wrong at the same time, right? He's, he's, I think

1:47:00 Andrew: Right in his characterization of the very odd set of questions

[1:47:06] Uh, I think he's right to note that some of those, um, that that one permissible Right. Like that, that the universe of permissible inferences for why this lawyer is asking these terrible questions is either the witness, either the lawyer is not good at asking questions or he's asking show questions, knowing that the deposition is going to be uploaded to YouTube. Um, that's, that's all true. Um, on the flip side, again, you've been called out for making lengthy speaking objections and this is the lengthiest and the most obnoxious of, of what Jones's lawyer has, has done in this. You

[1:47:50] Know, this, I want to say is it's a matter of temperament. And I always try to be very measured in my depositions um I I think it is strategically Strategically, like the way in which you get the most information out of your witnesses. And plus, I like I just don't enjoy sparring with other lawyers and doing, you know, the penis

[1:48:17] measuring contests, you know, because I'm going to win any law school law school measuring contest. Right. Either one. And so but I have known very, very fine lawyers, particularly at Covington and Burling, who have that sort of more aggressive style. So I can't say that that style is an indication of incompetence. It's not.

[1:48:47] It is definitely not my style. It is definitely not something that I find appropriate or pleasant in the law. So, you know, so I so I do want to I want

[1:49:00] To segregate out making fun of bad questions and bad lawyering from, you know, a personal preference. But I hate that. Like, so, you

1:49:14 Thomas: Know, we've, we've glossed over a couple of things, that these are just quick. Fuck you, Alex Jones, because he like mocked the parents of the survivors. So fuck you, piece of shit. Yeah, there's a clip of him doing that, that he also

[1:49:26] There's also uh, like a cage fighter or wrestler or something. Yeah, there's like, there's a pro wrestler that the plaintiff calls a cage fighter, and Alex Jones, like, he's cage fight, he's a, he's pro wrestler, not a cage fight. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty different, but anyway, uh, maybe if you You do that pro wrestling in the cage, that they've dropped that down though, I guess. It's anyway, uh, he's an asshole, uh, and I guess that guy was doing that kind of on InfoWars's behalf, and then at some point, which they, they go back and forth on, at some point he was told, Alex Jones or somebody told him not to use the InfoWars name anymore, but it's, you know, did he just do that after he was

[1:50:10] Sued, or did, you know, and they don't really get a good timeline on that. No, and, and, and again, that's, I, this is

1:50:16 Andrew: The kind of thing you would like to know, right? Like he's got a clip of this pro wrestler harassing

[1:50:23] the lawyers. Yeah. What I think are the lawyers for the Sandy Hook plaintiffs. But yeah, yeah. It's just sort of weird. And in a context, it does provide for what was, to me, the most personally heartbreaking moment in the deposition, because I always thought that it would be my representation of Puzzle in a Thunderstorm LLC that caused the

[1:50:48] phrase crooked, corrupt piece of shit motherfuckers to be entered into an official legal transcript.

1:50:55 Andrew: And somebody beat me to it. So we could play that question at 121.49. I actually laughed out loud on that one.

[1:51:08] And Mr. Jones, those are hardly the only people Mr. Brent Badondi harassed on his multiple trips to Newtown, correct? Objection, that's 2-4.

[1:51:20] Correct?

[1:51:22] I mean, almost everything you've said is not true, so there's no way to respond to it. No, not correct. Correct? Okay, that was Mr. Badondi calling people who were involved in Sandy Hook crooked, corrupt piece of shit motherfuckers, right? That's what we just saw. I'm 12, I can't help it. You know, at this point though, Alex Jones barely answers anything. Yeah. Around, yeah, he, he, he doesn't have to and the lawyer's letting him get away with it. However, I

1:51:52 Thomas: Will. The note I have here, well, there's several things there, he plays a clip of him unequivocally saying Sandy Hook was fake. Like, it's

[1:52:01] not a question. Jones tries to fucking weasel out of this. Oh, parts of the story. Oh, parts of the story. Man, I don't know how much more of the voice I have. Parts of, you know, aspects of it, but, but like, you can, you can find a hundred clips of him saying, oh yeah, that fake shooting, oh, the fake Sandy Fan, Sandy Oak was totally fake, uh, it was as fake as a three dollar bill, this is go-to line, uh, so that just wanted to point that out, um,

[1:52:26] but then also there is one point and I wonder if you, uh, are gonna tell me this is right, but it does sound

[1:52:35] like there's one point where the lawyer finally figured out that he should kind of shut up and let Alex Jones talk. Completely staged, uh,

1:52:41 Clip: Different, you know, periods of my life. Like, I believe Jesse Small, it was staged, or the WMDs were staged. I'm on record on hundreds of these events when I think they're staged. I've learned sometimes I'm wrong, uh, and, and so, no, I stand by, uh,

[1:52:54] you know, the fact that I genuinely believe that and my, one of my best reporters, Paul, thought that was wrong, and, and, and so that shows that we have real debates, real discussions. I mean, and, and what people believe, as long as I think they really believe it, you know, it's what we debate and discuss, that, that's like listen, any talk radio show, there is everything,

[1:53:16] every last word of factual claim in those statements are things that you repeated with no confirmation from people you now admit are crazy, right? Well, I don't want to call people crazy and get sued by somebody else. I, I have found that that some of what they said and then the reports they put out were not accurate. There's, I think, around here you certainly have no problem calling them kooky, right? Let's see, set it on air to like millions of people. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think it's, these people are kooky. And everything you said, and that was based on what they told you and with no confirmation. I wouldn't say everything, there was a lot of different sources, a lot of different things, and then there was a cover-up on the files and the reports and Lanza and

[1:54:01] his background, and so when you've got a cover-up, you're not sure exactly what's going on, the extent of it. Let me make sure I have this really clear right here. You don't believe the official story of Sandy Hook, you think there was cover-up, you think there was manipulation, you think that there is some sinister thing going on? I still, yes, I still think, I think, well, first off, before we get to that, why

1:54:19 Thomas: Didn't he just ask him, why wasn't question two, what do you think happened, uh, in

[1:54:26] the shooting of Sandy Hook. Am I crazy, that would be a really, really good question to ask. Yes, especially for Alex Jones, because he can't fucking help himself, and we're, and I don't know if we, if it's worth playing, it might be, but uh, if you, that it's around, uh, 141 maybe, people want to hear it, but he finally asked him what he should ask him, I think, an hour ago, at least, and Alex Jones can't help himself, he should just let him go, because he starts saying all this insane

[1:54:51] crap about there's a guy in the woods, he was in camo, he also, you know, and like, why, why did it take this

[1:54:59] long for this to happen? It, it, and I think, kind of as we, uh, that, that might not even be a bad

1:55:05 Andrew: Place to sort of draw all this to a close, um, that's the lesson of

[1:55:11] depositions, right? Depositions are meant to be a fishing expedition. You have a volatile witness who, you know, can't help himself but say crazy things, and one of your goals has got to be to get him to say crazy things, and

[1:55:30] and by everything in this, and, and at the same time, you have to know this is somebody who's been sued a lot, who's been in court a lot, who has very, very good, uh, counsel, uh, defending him, and so you have to know that he's going to come in, and certainly the first 20 minutes would have taught you, oh, oh, okay, you're going to be that kind of witness, right?

[1:55:52] Fine.

1:55:53 Andrew: So you know he's coming in guarded. You know he's coming in tough, right? Yeah. Ask the open-ended questions. Say, I, I just want to hear what your theory is, I want to hear what your story, I want to know what you think did happen, okay, don't tell me what you think didn't happen, right. There's... there's a long, uh, exchange about, you know, how he's now come to believe, right, that, um, and again, you're right, that that we never get a clear statement of Alex Jones's position on Sandy Hook. He now believes some kids were killed, but they're still, quote, anomalies, right. We don't know when that view changed,

[1:56:30] we don't know what right you You know what I mean? Like ask those, ask those open-ended questions. Yeah. It almost feels

1:56:36 Thomas: Like the guy, the attorney plans on, like, having more later, but you kind of need it now,

[1:56:42] don't you? Or I mean, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, there's so much here. I do want to say though, I meant to say this earlier and I'm curious, uh, because I think you alluded to this.

[1:56:54] I, I kept seeing headlines, I think they were even been shared in the Facebook group, they were like, Alex Jones says that, uh, psychosis made him question Sandy Hook, and like, I don't think that's at all what this, what I took away from his blabbering here, like, what

[1:57:13] did you see that, I, I saw that, I, I went through, and it's

1:57:19 Andrew: In it's in the part two that, you know, uh, we didn't do, but, but no, like, that, oh, it is, yeah,

[1:57:25] um, well, I thought it was, I, the best I could find was a quote where he says something like, oh, you know,

1:57:31 Thomas: When all these things, uh, first happen, everybody's going crazy and looking for stuff, you know, like he said some line like

[1:57:37] that, and I was wondering if that was what they were using. It's, it's almost at the end, end of the second, um, the second video, uh, it is page 183

1:57:49 Andrew: Of the transcript, and the question is, okay, Mr. Jones, you would agree with me that when some damage happens, when you break something, when you cause something to be lost, when you hurt somebody, whether it's intentional or whether it's a mistake, there's consequences for that, right? People should be accountable for the people they hurt. There is the standard objection as to form, uh, and then Alex Jones says, and this is the full answer, sometimes people claim they've been hurt when they haven't, been so you have to look at the agenda behind things, you have to balance things about why the mainstream media lied so much, why our government lied so much, the fact the public doesn't believe what they're told anymore, and we're going to criminalize questioning Jesse Smollett or WMDs or

[1:58:29] babies and incubators again, and stock answer here, right, so you can tell he doesn't want to answer, three examples of stuff. Yeah, and it really is the fact that we've allowed the government and institutions to become so corrupt that people have lost any compass of what's real, and I myself have almost had, like, a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged, even though I'm now learning a lot of times things aren't staged, so I think that as a pundit, someone giving an opinion that, you know, my opinions have been wrong, but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people, and so I think it's part of that process of me going up, growing up in Rockwall, Texas, and watching the police deal drugs and then conduct anti

[1:59:08] -drug programs in the school. I think that shook my opinion of police in general, and I was very anti-law enforcement Until I grew up and learned more things, and now I'm pretty much pro-police. So it's been a process.

1:59:20 Thomas: So they, I guess the point I want to make though is, I, I guess I see, I didn't get to page 9, 785 five billion of the deposition. Sorry. But I feel like that's an easy out people keep trying to do with Alex Jones. Don't you feel that way? I feel like this happened during the divorce and they referenced it in this deposition where during the divorce, they tried to report, people report, "oh, he's playing a character." Alex Jones admits he's playing a character. It's like people want him. I guess people aren't comfortable with the idea that this is just fucking Alex Jones. This is who he is, yeah, and they want some excuse for it, and there isn't. This

[1:59:58] is who he is, I think that's right. I mean, like we played his answer to the, you know, the divorce. "I'm playing a character." And I think, again, you know, bracketed

2:00:11 Andrew: By the fact that it's Alex Jones and, you know, if he told me two plus two is four, I'm not sure I would believe it. Right. I'd have to, you know, count on my fingers to make sure.

[2:00:19] I believe him when he says, I believe the stuff I say on Infowars. Right. I think you're right about the notion that those people who don't share that delusion can't really imagine that somebody is serious. It's almost as if we can get, well, I'm lying for the money or X or Y

2:00:46 Thomas: Or Z. Oh, then we'll show all the Alex Jones listeners and then they'll all be cured. Yeah, right. That must be what it is. Yeah. Yeah, they think the media or somebody thinks like, oh, if we if we just play that clip for his fans, then they'll be like, oh, what?

[2:00:58] Oh, OK, that's not going to happen. Newsflash, that's not going to happen. And, and of course, plaintiff's

2:01:05 Andrew: Counsel asks a follow up question. You said false things about Sandy Hook because it was psychosis. And remember, when you ask the question that way, we're going to get another answer that can only help Alex Jones. Right. Yeah. So, well, I'm just saying the trauma of the media and the corporations lying so much that everything begins. You don't trust anything anymore. Kind of like a child whose parents lie to them over and over again. Pretty soon they don't know what reality is. So long before these lawsuits, I said that in the past, and again, notice

[2:01:36] that that kind of weasel language is going to enable him to say that this is not an admission of anything related to Sandy Hook. Right. Long before these lawsuits, right, which

[2:01:49] began, um, three or four years ago, I said that in the past, so before that I thought everything was a conspiracy and I would kind of get into that mass group think of the communities that were out there saying

[2:02:01] that. So now I see it's more in the middle. All right, so that's where I stand and that's the last of it. Well, you know, I just noticed I had one more thing that I said I should play. Uh, let me, let me, yeah, let's check this and see if it's. It's worth it. It's at $149. Who is we when you say we told him not to cover Sandy Hook? I mean, I told him. Okay. Good question there. He lives up there. How did you tell him? Over the telephone. I believe he had emails. Okay. You use email to communicate with employees and people like Mr. Badondi?

[2:02:35] I remember saying in a meeting, I don't remember how many years ago, I said, listen,

2:02:41 Clip: It's funny. He's a professional wrestler, where he likes to clown around. I don't want to be a bunch of clowns, uh, we're not the Howard Stern shows. Tell him to stop doing stuff in our name. And basically he just wouldn't stop.

2:02:54 Thomas: All right it wasn't that it must be like here I didn't have an exact time stamp

[2:03:01] you've repeatedly said the 9-11 attacks were orchestrated by the government. Right. I believe criminal elements of our government were involved in 9-11. Regarding Columbine, you said, "Columbine we know was a false flag." "I'd say 100% false flag, a globalist operation." By false flag, they knew it was coming, they let it happen. Ok, the Oklahoma City bombing, you

2:03:25 Clip: Said was a false flag. "We've never had one so open and shut, 100%, I can name the names." And that Tim Ive is an

[2:03:31] innocent patsy he was shut up ok, hours after James Holmes shot up the Aurora movie theater, you said He said that was 100% a false flag mind control event. He told the jailers that.

2:03:46 Clip: He was in a DARPA mind control program like Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Okay. The shooting of Gabrielle

[2:03:52] Giffords, you called a staged mind control operation.

[2:03:58] Say that again? The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, you called, quote, a staged mind control operation.

[2:04:10] I believe we looked at those possibilities. The Douglas High School shooting in Carpland, Florida. You told your audience you were nearly certain it was a false flag to start a civil war. Right?

2:04:23 Clip: That's out of context. I said I believe the shooting happened, but that the way it was being hyped, that the police stood down, we talked to the students, and it was later confirmed.

2:04:34 Thomas: I just wanted to play that. Like, he believes this stuff. I don't I don't you know like this is him this

[2:04:40] is what he believes, yeah, yeah, no, I I I think that's exactly right, and um, I think that's a, it's a good insight, and and uh, maybe a good way to kind of bookend, uh, bring this to, bring this to a conclusion. We could look, this is a treasure trove of stuff. Yeah, um, but but it's also, when he talks about the Vegas shooting, oh my God, it's unintelligible. I I don't even know what it's like, some Saudi Arabian like plot to get to do an attack. It was like he thinks it was an attack. It's

[2:05:11] nuts anyway. But but so let me ask you, we usually end Law'd Awful Movies. You asking me, let

2:05:17 Andrew: Me ask you, go back to what we said at the outset of of this recording, which is: if the goal is to advance evidence that helps you meet the definition, right? Right? The standards that are the elements of the torts of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, do you think that happened in this deposition?

2:05:45 Thomas: In the deposition, I would say the first one, like you led off with, the first one seems easier to me. I mean, we know right off the bat that he was spouting these stupid theories before anybody else, and we, you know, all that, but like I will say that, you know, I would want more on the wrestler, you know, I would want more on the um, I'd want to know more on that, and and the thing with the server and whether or not he outed the guy, is that, you know, like I think we we kind of needed a little more info there. Yeah, but um, you know, bottom line is, I I don't, I if I'm a juror, I'm Guilty. I don't care. But I think you might be able to make the case. What do you think? Was this deposition perhaps done in a way that didn't get the most out of it and left these a little too open?

[2:06:41] Yeah, I think that's right. I would have liked, I am really shocked

2:06:48 Andrew: That plaintiff's counsel allowed Alex Jones, when the critical element of defamation that you need to prove is you need to prove that Alex Jones and Infowars were at least negligent in promulgating the Sandy Hook false flag stuff, right? Right. Everything else is gravy. Right. You need to show they were at least negligent in that. Alex Jones said a dozen times in the first section alone. Hey, I you know, well, we rely on other people's reporting and we did our research. And to

[2:07:25] not say, "OK, when you say we did our research, Mr. Jones, what do you mean by that? Walk me through your research project. What do you do? What's the process?" Process? Well, step one, I take a boner supplement, and then I uh do some cocaine, and then I just spout off. Anything else? Is there a step two? Uh, research. Right, but reading. Reading. And don't write. Okay, so you, you uh, take supplements and you read what other people write. Uh, is there any, is there anything else that's part of your research process? Right, you see what I'm doing. And then, yeah, if

[2:08:05] he gives you a vague answer, you push on on what the vague stuff means. Uh, when he says no then you ask a couple of very targeted questions where you say so you

[2:08:16] don't independently confirm any of this, right, right. And and and and that's how you lay the foundation for, he was at least negligent, right? Like he's got a guy who's based. Yeah.

2:08:28 Thomas: I hear you. So, based on what you think, like forget, I guess, for a moment, I'm just curious about your opinion from what you've gathered, not necessarily on the technicalities of what was in evidence by this deposition, but from what you gathered, how would you feel about this lawsuit and whether he's guilty, you know, of these

[2:08:47] things? Oh, look, I still think the defamation case is very, very strong.

2:08:53 Andrew: And I wonder, and that's a really good way. I know I've said it's a good way to bring to a close like four times.

[2:09:00] But it is, because right, what we don't know, we're we're doing this as commentary um, we don't know

[2:09:09] the the rest of the evidence that's out there, and so it may be that they thought that this was superfluous. Right, it may be that they didn't need it, and it was a hundred percent a stunt, and the fact that they got him to say, you know, goofball stuff like that, that they're all high, high-fiving each other. All I can do is approach it as, if if this is my one crack at the defendant, I feel

[2:09:36] like an awful lot was sort of left on the table out there. So it's not to say, uh, that I'm making a prediction about the lawsuit, because right, we don't know the rest of the evidence,

[2:09:49] and it seems like pretty straightforward argument to me. Right, right, um, and so, you know, maybe, maybe. Maybe that's part of what the plaintiffs are thinking. But I can tell you, I think Alex Jones and his lawyers went out and said, hey, this is going to, you know, this isn't going

[2:10:07] to change anything either from a public perspective, right? Like, you know, the liberal media is going to beat you up because that's what they love doing. Your fans are going to eat it up because that's what they love doing. And it doesn't change the law either way, and if you can walk out, you know, remember deposition, if you can walk out having not made your case materially worse, right, that's that's the best you can do when when you're being deposed, and

2:10:32 Thomas: Yeah, speaking of the liberal media, we didn't have time to play the clip where he just said, he just accused the lawyer of being a Democrat. Democrats, like you.

[2:10:41] I know, I always said they're going, like, um, you know, I I don't, I mean, the plaintiff's trial lawyers, you know, do tend to lean Democratic, but in Texas, and you know, I don't, I don't know that I would bet that

2:10:53 Andrew: Right. Like there's... there's an awful lot of Overton window to the left of Alex Jones before you get into, you know, donating money to the Bernie Sanders campaign. Yeah.

[2:11:04] All right, well, that was uh, a lot of things that

2:11:10 Thomas: Was a lot of things, but but very educational, though. I I actually, I I I was glad, I had a feeling I'd learn a lot about depositions, and I think I have. I think it was very interesting to see a real, real-life

[2:11:23] one here, sort of. I wanted to be funnier, and I apologize for that. But no, you don't need, I mean, you were first off. Your impression was, I'll say this, I think I can safely say this, best impression you've ever done, uh, easily. And also, no, great, great points. That was uh, that was good stuff. Thank you, you patrons

[2:11:41] for supporting the show. We hope you enjoyed this uh, production of Law'd Awful Movies this month, and we will see you whenever next you listen to us. I I, my one piece of humor that I will leave as an exercise for the readers, um,

2:11:54 Andrew: This, this lawyer is with the firm of of Castor, Lynch, Farrar, and Ball, right? That's who shows up on the

[2:12:00] YouTube channel.

2:12:02 Andrew: Google Castor, Lynch, Farrar, and Ball, and just go to their homepage,

[2:12:07] and I'll leave you with that. Oh, okay. I'll have to do that. You betrayed the law!

[2:12:42] us at openarguments@gmail.com. The show notes and links are on our website at www.openargs.com. Be sure to like our page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. Until next time.

[2:13:07] This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

2:13:16 Andrew: Opening Arguments is produced with the assistance of our editor Brian Ziegenhagen, our production assistant Ashley Smith, and our researcher Deborah Smith. Special thanks to Theresa Gomez and the entire OAWiki team. Follow them at at OAWiki, and

[2:13:29] a big thank you to our facebook group moderators alicia cook natalie newell emily waters eric brewer and brian check out the Opening Arguments Facebook community, and finally, thanks to Thomas Smith for creating the show's theme song, which which is used with permission.