This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A report on the Supreme Court's rejection of an appeal from InfoWars founder Alex Jones of an incredible $1.4 billion judgment over his comments regarding the Sandy Hook school shooting years ago turned blunt in confirming that he will "lose everything."
"It appears that our 1st Amendment rights have been decimated by SCOTUS," explained the Gateway Pundit's report on the Supreme Court's decision to let stand decisions by leftist judges who ruled against Jones.
The report said, "Alex Jones owed families who lost their children that day $1.4 billion for claiming the massacre was a hoax. Regardless of his remarks how is $1.4 billion a reasonable punishment for speaking your opinion?"
The penalty comes from two court rulings, a huge penalty from a Connecticut court and a smaller one in Texas.
The report continued, "In April of last year, Infowars host and founder Alex Jones joined Steve Bannon on The War Room the day after undercover video revealed a CIA-FBI operative explaining how the FBI used their powers to bankrupt Alex and Infowars. Alex Jones told Steve Bannon that President Trump needs to 'fire their a—' and clean house at the deep state…"
Jones charged that the default judgment was improper because it presented an incomplete picture of his statements about Sandy Hook, it made too much of "trivial" discovery issues, and it undermined Supreme Court precedent on the First Amendment rights of media defendants, like him, according to a blog that focuses on the high court and its issues.
"Viewed in full context, Jones expressly affirmed that deaths occurred, while using the phrases 'staged' or 'hoax' to characterize media and governmental scripting. It is therefore contextually impossible to construe his remarks as denying deaths, as the Complaint did by selective editing. Precisely to guard against such distortions, this Court has required independent judicial review of the entire record in First Amendment cases," said the petition.
The report explained Jones is a longtime talk show host who had built a platform for comment and discussion.
He repeatedly has addressed "conspiratorial claims about major world events, such as that the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 was staged or that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 were an inside job," the report said.
In this case, after the 2012 shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, Jones repeatedly criticized coverage and suggested parts of the events were staged to push for new gun limits.
Family members of victims sued, both in Connecticut and Texas.
Both judges ruled against Jones by default.
After the judgment, the companies filed bankruptcy petitions and that process has not yet yielded a final result.
