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.
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.
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.
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