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Yesterday was the most shocking day yet in the trial against InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who is being sued by parents of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting for claiming the event was faked and the parents are actors.
Attorney Mark Bankston, who is representing the parents, revealed in court yesterday that Jones' lawyer accidentally shared with him the entire contents of Jones' phone from the last two years--a trove of evidence said to also contain "intimate messages" with notorious far-right political operative Roger Stone.
What exactly is meant by "intimate" is anyone's guess (please God let it not be anything sexual, we've all been through enough), but any way you slice it it's not looking good for either man: both are heavily implicated in the planning of the January 6 coup attempt.
So now a copy of the contents of Jones' phone has been requested by the House of Representatives' Select Committee on January 6. Mr. Jones, if you're reading this: Get a new lawyer, because you're going to need one.
\u201cSandy Hook plaintiff attorney Mark Bankston says he\u2019s been asked to turn over Alex Jones\u2019 phone records to the January 6 Committee and plans to do so unless he\u2019s ordered not to.\u201d— Oliver Darcy (@Oliver Darcy) 1659624698
The contents of Jones' phone ended up being admissible in court after Jones' lawyer F. Andino Reynal failed to make an appropriate legal response to Bankston's notifications of the error.
The trove of messages contained an astonishing amount of incriminating information about Jones, including some which proved Jones perjured himself during depositions and his current trial, leading Reynal to request a mistrial today, which was rejected.
During court proceedings pertaining to that request, Bankston revealed that the trove also contains messages with Roger Stone.
In arguing against the mistrial, Bankston told the judge:
"Things like Mr. Jones and his intimate messages to Roger Stone are not confidential. They are not trade secrets. None of them."
He went on to say that the Select Committee on January 6 had requested a copy of Jones' phone contents.
"I am under request from various federal agencies and law enforcement to provide that phone. Absent a ruling from you saying, 'You cannot do that Mr. Bankston,' I intend to do so."
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble noted that the January 6 committee could subpoena the contents of Jones' phone even if she did forbid Bankston from complying with the request.
"They know about them. They know they exist. They know you have them. I think they're going there either way."
Jones and Stone are both already heavily implicated in the events of January 6 and have featured in the Committee's previous hearings. Jones also testified before the committee, during which he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege.
On Twitter, the schadenfreude toward Jones was off the charts.
\u201cAlex Jones\u2019 cell phone is everything Republicans dreamed Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop would be.\u201d— Andrea Junker (@Andrea Junker) 1659553258
\u201c@emptywheel I can hear printers in DOJ and J6 printing out subpoenas right now\u2026.\u201d— emptywheel (@emptywheel) 1659550168
\u201cPaging Roger Stone\n\nYou are all up in Alex Jones's phone\n\nTik Tok!\u201d— Badd Company (@Badd Company) 1659628460
\u201c@KeithOlbermann @January6thCmte 300 gb of material! Let's gooooo!\u201d— Keith Olbermann (@Keith Olbermann) 1659629121
\u201cRoger Stone got a get out of jail free card and is about to go back to prison because Alex Jones's lawyers aren't qualified to be on an episode of Matlock.\u201d— I Smoked The Pentagon's Text Messages (@I Smoked The Pentagon's Text Messages) 1659629994
\u201cBankston just referred to Jones' "intimate messages to Roger Stone," which first, ew, and secondly, I think I hear the January 6 committee having a party from here\u201d— Anna Merlan (@Anna Merlan) 1659624452
\u201cWasn't it Roger Stone who told Alex Jones a long time ago 'you're going to prison...'\ud83e\udd14\u201d— Badd Company (@Badd Company) 1659638313
\u201cWow. After his attorney disclosed the contents of his phone to the Sandy Hook parents, various federal and law enforcement agencies have now asked for the contents of Alex Jones' phone, which include text messages with Roger Stone. \ud83c\udf7f\u201d— Aaron Parnas (@Aaron Parnas) 1659626277
\u201cAlex Jones\u2019 \u201cintimate messages to Roger Stone\u201d got me like\u201d— Jesse Hawken (@Jesse Hawken) 1659635926
\u201cBREAKING: Alex Jones' attorneys preparing to accidentally send the texts in shortly.\nhttps://t.co/uRfcQxZv45\u201d— The Lincoln Project (@The Lincoln Project) 1659557907
Judge Gamble denied Jones' request for a mistrial and the jury is currently deliberating on how much Jones must pay the Sandy Hook parents, who have requested $150 million.
The trial is the first of three civil cases filed by parents of victims of the shooting over Jones' years-long claims that the massacre was a hoax.