\nIt\u2019s been five years since Alex Jones lost InfoWars to the Sandy Hook families.As the verdict came down, he asked: \u201cDo these people actually believe they\u2019re getting any money?\u201d He hasn’t paid them a penny.Well, The Onion is going pay them anyway.The new InfoWars begins July 2nd at 8 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social)<\/a> 2026-06-18T17:28:10.273Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
It\u2019s been a long, ugly time coming. After courts in Texas and Connecticut ordered him to pay more than $1 billion to the families of children and staff murdered in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the shitposting grifter simply moved his obstruction strategy to a new forum: the Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas. That bought him four years, in which he was able to run Infowars and loot it for parts. Now he\u2019s expanded the battlefield to include three separate state courts in Texas, as well as the Fifth Circuit.<\/p>\n
With The Onion\u2019s announcement, we decided to go spelunking in the dockets to see what the holdup is. Turns out, it\u2019s a truly farcical debate about the meaning of the word \u201cdeemed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bankruptcy bankshot backfires<\/h2>\n
In 2022, Jones filed for bankruptcy personally, and on behalf of his business Free Speech Systems, LLC (FSS). Both were denominated as Chapter 11 reorganizations, with the goal of discharging the jury verdicts so that Jones could pay the Sandy Hook parents a pittance and go back to grifting as usual. But in October of 2023, US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez ruled<\/a> that the vast majority of the damage awards could not be discharged in bankruptcy because they involved willful, malicious torts. At that point, Jones pivoted to using the bankruptcies as a means to buy time to build himself an off-ramp, replicating Infowars on another site and siphoning off its assets and audience.<\/p>\n
In June of 2024, Judge Lopez dismissed the Free Speech Systems bankruptcy and converted Jones\u2019s personal case to a Chapter 7 liquidation.<\/p>\n
Under Texas law, owning a company doesn\u2019t mean you own its assets outright. Jones owns 100 percent of FSS, but FSS owns the Infowars IP, back catalog, and supplement inventory. With FSS out of bankruptcy, the Texas plaintiffs immediately went to the District Court of Travis County and secured a turnover order<\/a> allowing them to collect on their judgment by seizing FSS\u2019s assets. With their comparatively paltry award \u2014 $50 million compared to the Connecticut plaintiffs\u2019 $1 billion \u2014 they had a strong incentive to take what they could grab, rather than accept a pro rata share of whatever the bankruptcy court manages to shake loose.<\/p>\n
In September of 2024, Judge Lopez blocked the turnover through what became known in the case as the \u201cdeeming order.\u201d<\/a> The order said that \u201call property of the estate of Debtor Free Speech Systems, LLC shall be deemed to have vested in the bankruptcy estate of Alexander E. Jones.\u201d The order created a legal fiction deeming<\/em> the FSS assets to be Jones\u2019s personal property so that the trustee could auction them off for the benefit of the Sandy Hook families.<\/p>\n
In November, the trustee held the auction and announced that The Onion was the winning bidder, despite the fact that its bid was lower than the one put forward by Jones\u2019 allies. In essence, The Onion\u2019s bid was a contingent structure wherein the Connecticut plaintiffs disclaimed just enough money to make the Texas plaintiffs better off than they would be with the higher bid. But in December, Judge Lopez voided the sale, finding that the offer had too many variables and failed to maximize value.<\/p>\n
For several months, Jones tried to convince the court to either sell Infowars to his allies, or hold a new auction. In March of 2025, Judge Lopez explicitly ruled<\/a> that the deeming order was \u201cnull and void,\u201d and in June, he more or less threw up his hands and told the parties to go sort it out in state court. At which point, the Texas and Connecticut plaintiffs jointly marched into the Travis County courthouse and demanded that a receiver be appointed to start disbursing the FSS assets.<\/p>\n
Deemed DOA<\/h2>\n
Jones\u2019s lawyers have taken a very odd stance throughout the state proceedings: They continue to claim that the deeming order is still operative, and thus FSS has no assets.<\/p>\n
In August of 2025, they had Jones submit a declaration<\/a> to the Travis County court attesting that \u201cBankruptcy Judge Lopez\u2019s June Order and September Orders vested ownership of all FSS cash and property of the Estate in my bankruptcy as assets in the Trustee for my personal bankruptcy, as of the date hereof, FSS has no assets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Texas plaintiffs\u2019 lawyer Mark Bankston furiously complained<\/a> to Judge Maya Guerra Gamble that \u201cJones\u2019 lawyers put a false statement in front of him and had him sign it. And they knew it was a false statement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones\u2019 counsel Ben Broocks affected to be greatly affronted at this slight, but, without wading into this thicket, Judge Gamble appointed a receiver and authorized the turnover.<\/p>\n
Broocks then swanned into Texas\u2019s Third Court of Appeals, chest heaving with indignation, and secured an \u201cadministrative\u201d stay of Judge Gamble\u2019s turnover order. That stay was issued on August 28, without any articulated reasoning. And there it remains, some ten months later.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Judge Lopez ruled once again that the deeming order is dead, excoriating Broocks for playing keepaway with the FSS assets. Here\u2019s a colloquy from a hearing<\/a> on October 1, 2025:<\/p>\n
\nTHE COURT: Well, let\u2019s just read it. It says, \u201cEffective as of the date of this pursuant to 349(b), all property of the estate shall be deemed to have vested in the estate as property of the estate.\u201d So, it\u2019s deemed as property of the estate, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s property of the estate.<\/p>\n
MR. BROOCKS: Well, it\u2019s \u2014 well, the order that you signed said, \u201cAll property of the estate shall be vested.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE COURT: \u201cShall be deemed to have vested.\u201d<\/p>\n
MR. BROOCKS: Well, that was the whole point. That\u2019s when the Texas Plaintiffs went back to the Texas court.<\/p>\n
THE COURT: I know, but let\u2019s just \u2014 I\u2019m just saying that\u2019s what the words say, \u201cShall be deemed to have vested.\u201d I can\u2019t \u2014 I don\u2019t have authority, nor does any bankruptcy judge in America, to make something property of the estate. Not one. It is what it is.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Judge Lopez\u2019s mealy-mouthed imprecision has screwed up a lot of things in this case, but that day he was speaking clearly. And to remove all doubt, he put out yet another order<\/a> \u201c(i) reconfirming that the Supplemental Dismissal Order is null and void and is of no force or effect, (ii) confirming that FSS\u2019s assets are not property of the Chapter 7 Estate, and (iii) confirming that any automatic stay applicable in the Jones Bankruptcy Case does not apply to FSS or its assets.\u201d<\/p>\n
And yet! In January of this year, Broocks told the Third Court that:<\/p>\n
\nThe indisputable facts are: (1) FSS assets were judicially conveyed to the bankruptcy estate of Jones (the \u201cEstate\u201d), (2) they are administered by the Jones bankruptcy trustee, Chris Murray (herein called the \u201cBK Trustee\u201d to distinguish him from the US Trustee) who is not a party to this case, (3) upon transfer, they became \u00a7541 property of the Estate, (4) they became immediately subject to the automatic stay of \u00a7362(a), (5) they have never been and no statute, rule or case allows them to later be, judicially re-conveyed or re-vested to FSS, and (6) the automatic stay has never been lifted, not even in October 2025.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
WTF, dude?<\/em><\/p>\n
Stayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy<\/h2>\n
All the while, The Onion still hoped to consummate the sale. In April, it announced a deal with the receiver to lease Infowars content and IP for $81,000 a month \u2014 money which would go directly to the Sandy Hook parents, who have yet to see a single dollar from Jones.<\/p>\n
The plan was for comedian Tim Heidecker to host a show doing his deadpan impression of Jones.<\/p>\n
\n \n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nIncredibly, the Third Court blocked that deal, too, in yet another unreasoned order!<\/p>\n
Sensing that the fix was in, the Sandy Hook parents petitioned<\/a> the Texas Supreme Court for mandamus and requested emergency relief. Five weeks later, SCOTX finally deigned to acknowledge the families, ordering Jones to reply by July 6.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Jones finally allowed Infowars to go dark, after staging a melodramatic livestream in front of the studio in which he directed all his supporters to a lookalike site. According to the Sandy Hook parents, he also made off with five years of the back catalog.<\/p>\n
This seems to have kicked something loose in Collins personally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve operated in good faith this entire time,\u201d he told me. \u201cAlex resigned from FSS. This is a guy who has no right to use Infowars\u2019 brand and logo and has been using them for months.\u201d<\/p>\n
On June 18, MSNOW reported<\/a> that The Onion will move forward with its Infowars parody content, with or without the blessing of the Texas courts. And, at long last, the Sandy Hook families will finally get paid:<\/p>\n
\nThe new website and social media channels will feature original programming, including a parody of Jones\u2019 old show, and will route more than $100,000 to the Sandy Hook families, an initial payment drawn from rainbow-colored Infowars merchandise The Onion has sold in anticipation of its takeover.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cWe still want to do an Infowars parody that goes after this dumb asshole, and all the rest of these dumb assholes that ruined the internet,\u201d Collins said. And if he makes some tremendous content along the way, so be it.<\/p>\n
\n \n\nGet on board.InfoWars launches July 2, 8 p.m. EST<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Onion (@theonion.com)<\/a> 2026-06-18T18:59:22.626516729Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
\nLiz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n
The post How The Onion Made Alex Jones Cry<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Last week, The Onion announced that it wasn\u2019t going to wait for courts in Texas to unlock the Infowars IP. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe new InfoWars will livestream every Thursday at 8 p.m. this summer across any platform you watch video,\u201d the company\u2019s CEO Ben Collins said<\/a> on social media. \u201cWe’ve got grand designs.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a long, ugly time coming. After courts in Texas and Connecticut ordered him to pay more than $1 billion to the families of children and staff murdered in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the shitposting grifter simply moved his obstruction strategy to a new forum: the Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas. That bought him four years, in which he was able to run Infowars and loot it for parts. Now he\u2019s expanded the battlefield to include three separate state courts in Texas, as well as the Fifth Circuit.<\/p>\n
With The Onion\u2019s announcement, we decided to go spelunking in the dockets to see what the holdup is. Turns out, it\u2019s a truly farcical debate about the meaning of the word \u201cdeemed.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2022, Jones filed for bankruptcy personally, and on behalf of his business Free Speech Systems, LLC (FSS). Both were denominated as Chapter 11 reorganizations, with the goal of discharging the jury verdicts so that Jones could pay the Sandy Hook parents a pittance and go back to grifting as usual. But in October of 2023, US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez ruled<\/a> that the vast majority of the damage awards could not be discharged in bankruptcy because they involved willful, malicious torts. At that point, Jones pivoted to using the bankruptcies as a means to buy time to build himself an off-ramp, replicating Infowars on another site and siphoning off its assets and audience.<\/p>\n
In June of 2024, Judge Lopez dismissed the Free Speech Systems bankruptcy and converted Jones’s personal case to a Chapter 7 liquidation. <\/p>\n
Under Texas law, owning a company doesn’t mean you own its assets outright. Jones owns 100 percent of FSS, but FSS owns the Infowars IP, back catalog, and supplement inventory. With FSS out of bankruptcy, the Texas plaintiffs immediately went to the District Court of Travis County and secured a turnover order<\/a> allowing them to collect on their judgment by seizing FSS\u2019s assets. With their comparatively paltry award \u2014 $50 million compared to the Connecticut plaintiffs\u2019 $1 billion \u2014 they had a strong incentive to take what they could grab, rather than accept a pro rata share of whatever the bankruptcy court manages to shake loose.<\/p>\n
In September of 2024, Judge Lopez blocked the turnover through what became known in the case as the \u201cdeeming order.\u201d<\/a> The order said that \u201call property of the estate of Debtor Free Speech Systems, LLC shall be deemed to have vested in the bankruptcy estate of Alexander E. Jones.\u201d The order created a legal fiction deeming<\/em> the FSS assets to be Jones\u2019s personal property so that the trustee could auction them off for the benefit of the Sandy Hook families.<\/p>\n
In November, the trustee held the auction and announced that The Onion was the winning bidder, despite the fact that its bid was lower than the one put forward by Jones\u2019 allies. In essence, The Onion\u2019s bid was a contingent structure wherein the Connecticut plaintiffs disclaimed just enough money to make the Texas plaintiffs better off than they would be with the higher bid. But in December, Judge Lopez voided the sale, finding that the offer had too many variables and failed to maximize value.<\/p>\n
For several months, Jones tried to convince the court to either sell Infowars to his allies, or hold a new auction. In March of 2025, Judge Lopez explicitly ruled<\/a> that the deeming order was \u201cnull and void,\u201d and in June, he more or less threw up his hands and told the parties to go sort it out in state court. At which point, the Texas and Connecticut plaintiffs jointly marched into the Travis County courthouse and demanded that a receiver be appointed to start disbursing the FSS assets.<\/p>\n
Jones\u2019s lawyers have taken a very odd stance throughout the state proceedings: They continue to claim that the deeming order is still operative, and thus FSS has no assets. <\/p>\n
In August of 2025, they had Jones submit a declaration<\/a> to the Travis County court attesting that \u201cBankruptcy Judge Lopez’s June Order and September Orders vested ownership of all FSS cash and property of the Estate in my bankruptcy as assets in the Trustee for my personal bankruptcy, as of the date hereof, FSS has no assets.\u201d <\/p>\n