Elizabeth williamson who has family in the area i just learned has written an incredible book and has come to wisconsin to talk to us about sandy hook. I dont that sandy hook has a topic needs introduction though having been in the news more and more often over the last couple of weeks just means that ive been reliving and also celebrating the fact that elizabeth is going to be here to talk to us about it. This book is so important it is not just to look at a tragedy is look life after a tragedy and how people and communities recover from one experience one and where we go. Id like to turn it over to elizabeth williamson. Thank you. Thanks so much connor and thank you all for coming. Thank you for the invitation. Come here for the 20th anniversary of the festival. You. I join you at a pretty moment for this topic because just this past week, a jury in waterbury delivered a nearly 1 billion verdict against alex jones in the damages trial brought by the families of eight sandy hook victims. An fbi agent who was implicated in these conspiracy theories that, alex jones, has been spreading about sandy hook for years, beginning about 3 hours after the shooting and continue for years. So i was there for the trial. I covered it every day and it was quite something to see the families testify as to what theyve been through since, you know, alex jones spreading these theories and know what theyve been through at the hands of people who believed them they describe. Loved Death Threats threats of rape people defiling their childrens graves people that they exhume the bodies of their loved ones and prove that they died. People telling them that they made money from this, that they collaborated with the government, that this was a gambit for control. People looked their windows, followed them on the street dug through their trash. One father, robbie parker, is really at the center of this lawsuit that was just resolved this week, spoke how in 2016 he was in seattle attending an event that would have included a tribute to his daughter who died at sandy hook. He dropped his family off at a hotel where this event was going to take place. His to surviving daughters were really excited. They were to get to go swimming in the hotel and they would attend a kind of fancy that night and have a tribute to their sister and a man as he parked the car confronted on the street and followed him for blocks, calling him a liar mentioning emilys name, sort of slurred her and him and the two of them almost came to blows hearing his daughters come out of this mans mouth was kind of more than he could handle. And. Two years later. And, you know, he he, as he told me for the book, said, you know, here we are at a distance of, four years and 3000 miles from this tragedy. And this man recognized from a video that alex jones had been airing just a split second of that video, though it was a tribute robbie gave to his daughter the night after the shooting. He ill just quickly you this story for those of you may not know so robbie didnt know it at the time but he was the first relative to speak after the shooting and so this was on saturday night, december 15th, 2012, after the shooting and he he, you know, just stepped to the microphone at, a lectern outside of his church. He thought he was meeting one reporter who would then you know, the family is mormon and have a lot of relatives in utah. So he thought he would meet a Network Affiliate reporter, give a little bit of emily life and just have that to share, you know, for family back at home because reporters calling all of their relatives and. He and emilys mom, Alissa Parker, wanted to be the first ones to speak about her and they wanted anything that would be said to come from them. Instead, it was a sea of reporters and, blinding camera lights and. So as he stepped to a lectern quite this one he gave you know just a sort of smile and a kind of laugh and then he started what was really a heartbreak, aching tribute to his daughter. Alex jones seized on split second of that laugh. He called the entire disgusting and for years, replayed this video. But just that moment, and called robbie an actor. A soap opera actor, a liar. And who, you know, profited from his daughters faked death. So people instantly recognized him and including this man on the street in seattle all, four years later. So he still remains silent for all of those years because he didnt want to poke the bear, was really afraid that, you know, the whole family was afraid that if he spoke up about this or if he confronted people or, you know, went public with what was happening to them, you know, people sending, them these letters confronting them, one man was writing to him, he was a person who had Serious Mental Health problems. He had been stalking the survivors. Several Mass Shootings. And he was writing to the for years. And these were letters. So he knew where they lived, but they still remain silent about this. They got to try and monitor their house they tried to protect themselves, but then in 2018, robbie and Alissa Parker sat down with parents of a girl who died in the parkland shooting and they described a phenomenon which was absolutely similar to what robbie had endured after spoke publicly, the father, this girl who died at parkland, said i, i said a few things publicly. Now people are attacking me online, saying and and confronting me. And that was when he thought this isnt going to go away. These people are not going to move on to the next target. In fact, they move on to the next target. They retain all the other targets and they continue. And so he felt like, i really need to step up. And he joined the lawsuit that the families of ten sandy hook victims in total filed in the middle of 2018. It took until october of that year to. Join that lawsuit. But he was at the centerpiece of this case which resulted in the 1 billion judgment this week. So i first got interested this in mid 2018 when the families filed these four separate lawsuits because felt like this would be a very interesting test of the First Amendment does, the First Amendment and our right to free speech really protect people who would share, you know, lies like this online that travel so swiftly to so many people and damage such vulnerable individual as the sandy hook families. And, you know, i saw as i began working on it and with the help of lenny pozner, is the father of the youngest sandy hook victim, Noah Pozner Lenny said, look, this is not a one off. This is not something that is about gun control or the horrific nature of this sandy hook shooting. This is really a foundational story in how disinformation, false narratives travel in our society today. And you have seen the decade since sandy hook you know first its been pizzagate the falsehood that democratic elites were trafficking from the basement pizzeria in washington just a couple blocks place ive taken my own children in you know in d. C. Then you had coronavirus myths, had the great replacement theory, drove the violence in charlottesville, virginia, and you had the 2020 election conspire to see that brought a mob the capitol on january six, 2021. Alex jones had a role in spreading all of pernicious conspiracy and fanning the violence that resulted in some of those cases, like at comet ping pong. The pizzeria, the pizzagate gunman showed, you know, fired an Assault Rifle in in a pizzeria full of little kids. And then of course weve seen what happened on january sixth at the capitol. So i just know it was a story that morphed into something quite different because. I did think that this would be a First Amendment case and that alex jones was saying, you know, this is my my right to free speech is being infringed upon. But in actual fact, what happened was over the four years that this litigation on he refused submit Business Records financial records you know any kind of document ins and testimony that was ordered the courts and so at the end of last year the courts in two states you know these lawsuits these four lawsuits were filed in texas and in connecticut, the the one large one that we just had the results of was filed, connecticut. Then there were three more later combined into two. He lost all those by default because. He refused to cooperate, participate in the justice system. So he lost. He found liable for defamation and infliction of emotional distress. And then they moved into three damages trials. So first one was in august in austin, where infowars joness business and his online radio broadcast, his based there, a jury awarded 50 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the two. Neil heslin, Scarlett Lewis, who are the parents of jesse lewis who died at sandy hook and in that case, lewis actually had the opportunity through a kind of accident in timing to address alex jones to his face as. He sat at the defense table and she was on the witness stand and it. 90 minutes of some of the most powerful testimony. I think ive certainly ever seen. And, you know, if any of you caught some of that was just an amazing she addressed the answer to every question directly to him and really stated what the sandy hook families have said from the beginning of these lawsuits that is a battle for truth. This just their effort to reclaim their own story of what happened to, their children, their siblings, their mom, these six educators and 20 children who were killed. But that this is an effort by them to warn all of us about the spread, the rampant spread of disinformation and false narratives and what theyre doing not only to people like them, but actually what theyre doing to to erode democracy and. On january 6th, you really did see the impact of what happens when people who believe these theories are willing to defend them, confrontation and with violence. So thats kind of what i have to say and i would really love to hear your questions and and you a little bit more if you would like what i saw in waterbury connecticut these last four weeks of the trial or whatever you would like to hear about. So i guess whoever wants to ask a question has to go to that microphone then. So dont out and i will be happy to answer. First of all, thanks for writing the book and covering all of us. As you know, i was at the fetzer here in madison, so it went mostly out of. Curiosity. Yeah, about who believe in conspiracies and all this stuff. And it wasnt really until i your book and saw these other two trials really understood kind of how you the amount of impact this had on on the people so yeah i appreciate you that story. My question today about so jill can i interrupt just quickly for those who dont understand the fetzer so right here in madison in dade county court, lenny posner, who i mentioned earlier, the father of noah posner, the youngest sandy hook victim, sued man named james fetzer, who is retired of minnesota. Believe it or not, philosophy and logic and wrote a book, edited a book with a contribution of a lot of conspiracy theorists called nobody died at sandy hook. Very subtle title and lenny sued him for defamation. He won he a 450,000 judgment which now with the addition court costs is over 1,000,000 and and doesnt have this money obviously. And lenny has is determined, erin really, he and his lawyers forced the sale even of fetzer as up camper to try and get this money like they are and and was really one of the most pernicious conspiracy theorists and not on sandy hook but he he is a holocaust denier he is a 911 truther. So hes a he is a really pernicious force in conspiracy world. So lenny did us all a big service in bringing him to heel. So im sorry to interrupt you there. Thats all right. To let folks know what happened here right here in madison. So so i was curious, as youve sat through now, i think three of these trials maybe for now the obviously these are different than a criminal trial in that in terms of the representation that somebody is entitled to. But im curious kind of your reaction to and i know there have been a lot of them, the lawyers have represented alex jones, whether, you know, some or all have a role in furthering the conspiracies or whether they have really just been there to you know provide you know in a Legal Service that hes entitled to or whether theyve gone beyond that or of what your impression about his lawyer alex jones his lawyers are through all this what a fantastic question because i have a lot of thoughts on this so alex jones has had a cast of lawyers there have been, i think at last count, nine or ten different lawyers who have represented him in these cases. And they range from people who you might would represent someone like alex jones, a guy named norm paris who represented him in the connecticut just concluded, has a reputation taking on the cases of really difficult, unpopular, unsavory. So his last case before this one was a man, fotis dulos, whose wife, jennifer dulos, he was arrested did charged with her murder, but they never her body, although there was substantial evidence that he committed this crime. I have just a weird inside story about that. So, norm is hes based in new haven, connecticut. So jones brought him on because. He, you know, had is licensed to practice in connecticut. So. When he was working him, he took on other cases. So including a sidekick of alex jones is named owen shroyer who was arrested for disrupting congress by shouting out some theory during a congressional hearing having to do with january 6th. So when norm came into town, bail him out of jail and plead for him in d. C. , he called me and said, why dont we meet at Union Station . Ive got to get back on a train and had backups in new haven. Ill bring you up to speed on whats going on with jones. And he was always great about, you know, off the record spinning joness case to the media so i went sat down with him. He was on the phone about the fotis dulos case and he was saying he gets off the phone, sorry, you know, didnt mean to be on the phone while. Youre here. But he just tried to post bail and. He put up some properties that didnt have clear title. And so were telling him, hey, you know, youre probably going to go to jail. You cant post bail. Theyre not going to these properties. So get ready to go to prison and then we have our conversation leave. I go back to the bureau, the times. You know where i work in dc and i see coming over the screen that fotis dulos has tried to kill himself. He went into the garage, turned the car on and and hes been rushed to the hospital and was, you know, did later die. So my cell phone rings. Its norm paris. He says, jesus is when i told him to get ready to go to prison i didnt mean that. And i thought, wow, you know, like that, like next level. So hes a, you know, a character. But on the other side of it. There there is a guy named mark balan who is a very well known First Amendment lawyer, has the times in libel cases. He operated really under the radar, but was still taking a pay paycheck. Baker hostetler, really big, Prestigious Law Firm and was trying to figure out how many times trying to help alex jones in the sandy hook cases, trying to figure out how many times hed actually mention sandy to try and build a defense. And i discovered that the help of some other lawyers for, the families and some documents where his name surfaced and and, you know, tried to confront with this his wife by the is Jessica Rosenworcel who is now the head of the fcc. So he was under the radar trying to help alex jones. So i asked him it in the context her nomination for that position at the fcc and he really came after my and was saying that i had unfairly these questions this outrageous why is she bringing this into it and how could she call, you know, the senator, from connecticut who was pushing for his nomination to the fcc who had no idea and wrote and wrote blumenthals son was defending being the sandy hook not defending but working for the sandy hook families bringing this lawsuit in connecticut. What a tangled web. We we right. So here is the senator from connecticut who of immeasurable help to the sandy hook families after the shooting. His son is suing alex and he is pushing for nomination to the fcc of a woman whose husband was actually lee helping alex jones in this connecticut lawsuit. So this man no longer works at baker hostetler. I wont speculate as to why. But we did put in the paper not only that this was the relationship, but also that he tried to work contacts inside the New York Times Legal Department to blunt mr. About this fact. So that gives you an idea, alex jones is absolutely entitled to. He has no shortage of people who are willing to take a paycheck from him in his bankruptcy records. Norm paris is making 100,000 a month to represent him. So it gives you a, you know, is not an indigent client who find counsel because no ones willing take him on whos competent. This is someone who is paying a of money to try and get out from under this. And there are a lot of people who have been willing to help him for. A pretty big paycheck. So you know. Yes, hes absolutely entitled to counsel and know that he has shortage of people willing to help him out. I that ill read something that tends to confirm one of my beliefs and ill say oh that makes to me. So my sense is, you know, thats part of human nature. Do you have any any comments on how hard it is to use facts to change peoples opinions . Thats a great question. Thank you. So once people embrace these theories and as of my book, i talked with a lot of people who have really gone whole hog into the sandy hook conspiracy rabbit hole. Theres two animal analogies i just mixed up there but anyway people who are really to this and the idea that sandy hook was a hoax and once people embrace theories its very hard to peel them away. Lenny posner who has hes at the center of my story of the book. He initially to to debunk these theories and two to he actually went into a Facebook Chat group with called sandy hook and for hours entertained these individuals questions just said here he offered documents he offered noahs birth certificate his death certificate even his postmortem report which is extremely painful reading and offered it to these people to say im here to, answer your questions. Im familiar conspiracy world. Lenny has a tech background. Hes very familiar with algorithms that propel these theories through the internet. He also had listened to alex joness show from time to time, you know, driving to tech clients in new york from from. So he like he had kind of an edge on you know how what it look like to sort of debunk this stuff and to answer people and maybe satisfy their questions. But he quickly learned that with exception of a few people, it was really hard to do that because what these folks were getting was a sense of community a new identity, a real cohesion and and sort of a new tribe and, you know, conspiracy theories. We all kind of have one in our family. They tend to be pretty isolated. They might be the you know, back in the day, who would hand you a sheet on, the subway or confront you at the Family Reunion and get you in the corner . Tell you about his jfk theory or but the internet. These people find each other and they form really cohesive and tight knit communities and theyre really reluctant to leave the comfort of that community and will defend these false hoods in the face of a mountain of facts to the contrary, because thats what theyre getting out of it. And i said this once, you know, and actually heard me say it, and he corrected me. He said, its not only the of community, its a brand new identity that theyre getting. And to illustrate that, i interviewed a woman named kelly watt, who is a woman who has a cleaning business in tulsa, oklahoma. She described herself as a janitor before time with sandy hook, hopes she in the nineties became convinced shes you know its a sort of mindset and a kind of a sort of aspect someones personality that they embrace these theories and she in the nineties became convinced that liberals in the department of education were indoctrinating tulsas Public School children with negative values and. She really pursued so she was showing up at members of the school board in the middle of the night she was attending all the meetings she was picketing. She was really trying hard to get people to to listen to her about this threat that she was was lurking in the school system. But she was shut down the local paper. And by the, you know, the sort of powers that be in, tulsa. And that was kind the end of it. She had all these files and they sort of molded away in her attic. But when embraced sandy hook she had the internet and she had social media and so she found a community of people and. She reinvented herself as a citizen, as an investigator, as a researcher, someone who contributed a chapter to jim fetzer book, nobody died at sandy hook. And so she got an entire new life out this. And she was a person who had a lot of trauma in her background. She had a lot of disappointments in her life and this her to you know well into her sixties to become a completely new persona so there was no way you were going to convince that everything she had invested in this was for naught because this was a lie. So its hard and theres effort being made right now to sort of prepare people. So that theyre more skeptical when. There arent when they, you know, surf and they come across these theories. If they have a conspiratorial, theres a of, you know, even a game that people can play where it tells you, like, how to invent a conspiracy theory. So you get an idea of how the sausage is made. And then because these are skeptical by nature, when they come across these theories online, they can be like, oh, i know what theyre trying to do here. And so they can turn that skepticism ism against the conspiracy theorists against rather than against those who are distributing the official narrative. So the way to really get to people is before they embrace these theories rather than after because they get so much out of it. I hope that helps even though thats depressing. Sure. Anybody else. No one has a question. Any observations . Oh, someone takes some water. Hello and thank you for being here tonight. So thank you for being here. As the trial ended and alex jones and the all that are the families are they getting any kind of relief from the harassment and the hoax and the whole nine yards because i cant imagine their poor like what theyve been through to lose a child that any child at any way is horrible that way is horrible. Yeah. But then to be that kind of harassment so will there be any is it are they laying off the conspiracy theories, letting the families grieve and and try to move on as much as they can . Well put the the answer to that is that yes, its a lot of the conspiracy theories around sandy hook are laying off because. Lenny posner has really made it his lifes work to combat this. So back when described that he joined the sandy hook hoax group that was in 2014 and at that time the the internet and social media were alive with this material mean it was thousands of videos and websites and and posts on social media facebook and he started use different tools to get all that taken down he found and found it an Organization Called the Honor Network and he has devoted life to preventing online abuse and to getting this kind of material taken down. He started out with i mean, he got zero cooperation. Lets be really clear. The social Media Companies, facebook twitter, youtube, which operate operated by google, nothing. He described it as, you know, standing in front of iron doors and beating on them. No one hears you. He would get like an automated message or there was no phone call, you know, there was nobody that you could reach. And so hes he started to find ways to kind of get around that these iron doors. And the first thing he came up with was through the copyright laws, because a lot of these hoaxers were taking material off the familys own website. So like their tribute to their lost or these educators, they were taking their family photos of these these individuals. They were taking their home videos that. Maybe they had put on to facebook or their friends had posted and they were using them in their own hoax videos. And thats illegal because they own that. And that was something that the social Media Companies knew get into a lot of trouble for if continued so he started all of this and under the copyright laws they had to take it down and often what the social companies would do is worried about this they would paint with a brush, so theyd take down someones entire Youtube Channel or theyd just annihilate their whole facebook page. And that made these hoaxers really angry, including alex jones was doing it to alex jones social media channels. So lenny has had to move a dozen because the hoaxers have posted his personal information and his home address and have showed up at his house so many times. But he just continued. And now today these organizations facebook, youtube google, googles, youtube, twitter, hes on hes a socalled trusted filmmaker, which means that if he these lists of urls where are lying and they do it after every shooting, they will nuke those immediately. Oh, they paid attention to him. Now. And he used, you know, not only the copyright laws, but also his sort of as a grieving parent of this high profile tragedy to write ed, including 1 to 1, directed directly. To Mark Zuckerberg, you know, calling out for, you know, after Mark Zuckerberg talked about how Holocaust Denial was a matter of opinion lenny seized on that and said, youre actually affording more protection to holocaust deniers than you are to people who deny the that killed my six year old happened and that worked because right after that alex jones got taken down entirely from the social media platforms. So theres a lot less material out there and. I put i credit lenny pozner with that development so what the family suffered kind went like this it hasnt tapered off completely and actually during the course of the trial the live feed of the trial had to take down the comments because there was so much abuse coming into the families because they did poke the bear by suing him and by this, you know, weeks long trial that so publicized. But its its significant less and that is because they have fought back and especially lenny to anybody else. Anyone are we done the job its like an going going i could come up with all day but i you can stand there as long as you know. Are there certain types of the i mean weve had an obviously have frequent Mass Shootings and these there are other things that sparked kind of stuff. But Mass Shootings seem to work really well for. It basically the School Shootings is there about those types of events that you think sparks this more and and i think about maybe its just i havent heard much about it maybe i dont know whether jones or others talk about it doesnt like as much has come out from like the las vegas and i have a couple ideas about maybe why that is but maybe im just not aware of, of it happening. I mean, that one almost seems to be more ripe for it because we almost have less information about why it happened, who this person was like. Theyre more space to generate conspiracy out of. Right. But it seem like its it has generated as much. But maybe im wrong and i just curious what you know, what is it about these types of ones that generate a lot of this kind of. I would love to agree with you and say that sandy hook was an anomaly but in actual fact, at the time that it happened and that this hoax material circulating and people started denying this was a real rarity i mean it was really on the fringes it was exploited and spread and popular authorized by alex jones which is why responsibility is rightly placed with him but you mentioned las vegas. You know a lot of people were i mean, 52 people were killed. And people injured. They were in hospital beds. They were signing on to facebook to say, i survived, i was at the concert. Im here only to find all of this abuse. You you staged this. This is you know, this is false. What you know, you you didnt you werent ever there. It this never happened. Today, ill share with you this really depressing statistic. Nearly 20 of americans believe all high profile shootings are staged. Usually the government. This was not the case when sandy hook happened and denying Mass Shootings usually by saying that their gambit for gun control, that theyre plotted by the government as a socalled false flag operation, a pretext to confiscate americans has become the sort of go to after a high profile mass shooting its happened to have all day in fact it was the same the same sandy hook hoax founder, you know, on facebook who went facebook and said another fake shooting time in uvalde. They lenny wrote to me right after that and was like, here he is. And that stayed up for more than hours on facebook. So they also didnt act. Its like groundhog day whenever. This happens. You know, people get on they they say it was fake, you know, take to social media social doesnt take it down. And then, you know, people like lenny have to take and make sure they enforce their own terms of service and take this kind of denial down from their platforms. So, yeah, its it still happens as to why Mass Shootings i its not confined to that i mean look at all this the theories that circulated around coronavirus and you know, masking vaccines and testing and then elections. It spread to elections is the really worrying development because thats the basis of our democracy. So if everyone thinks that, you know, the result of an election, malleable or arguable or to be reversed through protest or violence. S where does that leave us . And i think thats the question the sandy hook families were asking with these lawsuits. You know, where does leave us . Forget about us. Were Vulnerable People. We are living through. Were trying to take back our story. I think theyve been successful, but theyre really saying is, you what kind of a country are we living in where, you know, objective truth, established science is somehow subject to denial and and revision . I mean thats what we base our life on. So where does that leave us . And thats what Scarlett Lewis directly to alex jones court. You know, she was like truth, truth, you know, looking right him this this is the basis of our society. This is a more dangerous place. And that is partly fault. And, you know, that was incredibly power full. And we owe them an enormous debt. And our gratitude that they are among the voices these Vulnerable People have been through much saying you please Pay Attention and, help us because this is of us. Its this not just them. And. I answer anyone elses questions. So let you go early. My sister this is my sister. So, so with all these lawsuits and judgments against alex jones where, do you think hes going to go from here . Do you think that this will actually shut him up up . Hasnt so far. He livestreamed verdict. As we talked about as the know as the the court read off 15 plaintiffs and how much each them got for a total of 965 million. He was his show saying youll never get the money ill appeal and worse raising money fund his legal fight hes done all along his sales and and outright contributions his for profit business have surged in light of these lawsuits. So thats kind of a sobering and depressing fact. But at the same time, these are real. And its a measure how effective he is that. Even i was thinking, well, i wonder how its like, no, this is our justice system. These are actual enforceable. He will appeal. The appeal will take a really long time. It will be no one, you know, no one among these families is changing their lifestyle now because this money is not coming tomorrow, but they dont care. I mean thats the thing. You know, they have been through so much theyve through like the worst thing that any parent can imagine. And then theyve kind of been through it twice because people have come to them and said, no, it didnt happen. Or you did. You killed your own loved one, or you faked it and you did it for money. And they you if anything comes, Something Like that, that kind of you secondary, you know, twofold. Its enormous patience and they have huge patience they will as their lawyer said yesterday, they will chase him to the ends of the earth to get as much of this money as they and not because they want to buy a yacht, but because they want to really down this message and shut up. Whether that will happen, i mean hes constitutionally unable this trial showed he was his own worst enemy. In this trial. He sat in the courtroom in front of these weeping family members, filling the first two rows of the courtroom and im done apologizing. I mean, i the jurors faces they were shaking their heads. They were know they were agog at that that he would say this as these families were weeping, they had just played the video in which robby parker was reminiscing about his daughter the night after her death. So the jurors, some of them crying at that. So the idea that he would sit there. But is hes forever on transmit, hes never on receive. He is absolutely unable to stop talking, even when silence would really him. So he will bring about as he has here, the end of his own business. How that happens. And in what way its going to happen he will fight crazy. He has a lot of resources the families are already hes declared bankruptcy the families are already suing him about that saying that hes siphoning money out of the business to himself and his family to try and escape these judgments. Hell try every trick in the book, but there are a lot of people. I mean notable that the lawyers on the family side, a lot of them just volunteered to work for free. I mean, they were just and when they said they were representing him. Lawyer other lawyers came out of the and said, how can we help you . You know . So there are a lot really talented bankruptcy lawyers on this and and theyre ready to chase him down to. So i its it is a, you know rarely do we find, you know, such a clear cut story of good and evil. And, you know, people dont often accuse lawyers of being great humanitarians but in this case, there are quite a few of them involved involved which reminded me there was a moment in that trial where his own lawyer it was revealed that his own lawyer had divulged texts, text exchanges to the other side and the familys personal and medical history. Yeah, which i have to admit that that week i wasnt too deeply into that news story, but did take note of it. I dont i dont think that was an accident. Do you was that was that an intentional slip and in my assumption that it was intentional i thought theres still hope even though theres people like him out there and they wont go away. And it feels like this world is full of injustice right now. Theres still even in the person representing this man has a conscience somewhere. But is that accurate . And do you find hope in, that moment that there will be more like that . Yeah, actually think they just screwed up. Yeah. Yeah, i i would like to think that, you know, and you know right now who is lawyer in the austin case and you know accidentally sent a huge body of alex joness Text Messages to the families, lawyers and alex jones had been saying for years you know that was among the material that he was to submit during discovery. And thats one of the reasons he was defaulted. All of a sudden he was saying, i dont any Text Messages i have to Text Messages from alex jones. So i know he sends Text Messages but he was like, no you know i dont have phone anymore. I dont have Text Messages. And and then all of a sudden, here he is, the stand. And its like, you know, here are the Text Messages. And they were pretty. They showed how he was really checking, how much money he was making as spread this hoax. So and how many products was selling because i dont know im sure everyone probably knows this, but his business model, he sells merchandise geared toward the paranoias of his audience. Its survivalist gear and diet supplements for people who are distrustful of established medicine. And, you know, food for your for your shelter for the end of times and, you know, gear that mostly supplements and quack cures and things like that and he does this through these conspiracy broadcasts and what they proved in court that every time he spoke about this sales you know, his audience, his sales were surging. And so that was the material didnt want to surrender, but would like to think that, you know, just the radar these lawyers him had an attack of and and that but im sorry to say you there have been many screw ups on his legal team partly because there are so many of them and some of them are at daggers drawn fight with each other theyre short timers or you know what ever some of them are in the case out of the case, then back in and i think this just in the shuffle. It ended up in the hands of the familys lawyers who really knew how to use it. Hello following on your sisters question. Where did the rest of us go from here . How do we restore a balance . Where mean something and maybe social media is deemphasized. Actual paid media and reporters that work for a living are thriving again. A newspaper source. And i think again, how do we go . Its a great question. I think one of the lessons of of the sandy hook family saga is that, you this idea of dont feed the trolls and theyll go away doesnt work. We have to as people who believe established truth and objective. And and you know science and and medicine we have to really speak out against this the you know the january six proceedings are you know, one great case study in this that you look how precious few Members Congress would stand up and say after the politics of it became clear initially they condemned it but the politics became clear and. You know they realized that there were a lot of people who were still embracing this 2020 election conspiracy theory. They lost their courage and they reversed themselves. And they said, well, you know, if thats the voters in my district are saying, well, then i should just either go along with them. Some have done. Ron johnson cough or remain silent and and so theres been you an unbelievable lack of courage somebody me at the beginning of my reporting career washington which is a long time ago they said really never underestimate a member of congress will do to stay in office and boy has this been a case study in that. But speaking up is important and. I think thats the familys message. So thats the short and simple answer. I think we have to engage people in a way, though, that that doesnt polarize us further. You know, i think asking questions of people who express these theories or saying, you know, are you really sure or, you know, not them down or fighting with. I think that actually unfortunate partly contributes to the problem people tend to double down on these for the reasons that i described but you know thoughtful, constructive but firm debate and push back, i think is really important. And i do think its very important. Let our members of Congress Know what we think of the kind of weakness in, the face of what we can identify as obvious lies that is inexcusable, mean they are our leaders. They should be confronting this. Theyve bipartisan expressed the interest in reining in social media and this sort of impunity that they operate with when they spread material on their platforms and they dont crack down on people who violate their terms of service by spreading. But they also need to you know, there needs be a tightening of the screws them as well. Congress says that they want to do that. But their motives are somewhat
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