A federal bankruptcy judge paused the satirical news outlet The Onion’s winning bid of Infowars’ media platform to review the auction after owner Alex Jones and his lawyers complained about how the process was handled.
Judge Christopher Lopez on Friday said he also had concerns about how that process played out and ordered a hearing to review the proceedings slated for next week.
“We’re all going to an evidentiary hearing, and I’m going to figure out exactly what happened,” he said. “No one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction.”
The court order came a day after Global Tetrahedron, the parent company of The Onion, announced it bought Inforwars, Mr. Jones’ right-wing platform that he planned to rebrand in January.
“Our goal in a couple of years is for people to think of Infowars as the funniest and dumbest website that exists,” Ben Collins, The Onion’s CEO, told The Associated Press. “It was previously the dumbest website that exists.”
The auction of Infowars, and its subsequent pause, is another chapter in Mr. Jones’ legal saga with the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting, where a gunman killed 20 first-grade students and six teachers.
Mr. Jones, at the time, claimed the mass shooting was a hoax meant to jump-start the enactment of federal gun control legislation. He filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after he was handed a $1.5 billion fine for defaming the victims’ families, and he has since said the massacre was “100% real.”
His move to file for bankruptcy meant that Mr. Jones’ personal assets and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, were to be sold, while the families of the Sandy Hook victims and Mr. Jones’ creditors would have been awarded the proceeds.
Judge Lopez’s concern stemmed from the revelation from Christopher Murray, the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy auction, that The Onion didn’t have the highest bid.
The Sandy Hook families agreed to forgo some of their award to pay off Mr. Jones’ other creditors, which made The Onion’s bid the best overall deal, The Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, First United American, a company affiliated with Mr. Jones, offered to pay $3.5 million.
Mr. Murray didn’t reveal the price tag of The Onion’s bid.
Infowars reopened Friday, and Mr. Jones accused the auction process of being “rigged.”
“Infowars’ sale to The Onion never happened! I am back broadcasting from the Infowars studios,” Mr. Jones posted on X. “We did a live show last night from our recaptured headquarters. Watch the historic broadcast below. This is a huge scandal! [Mainstream media] is still falsely reporting that The Onion is the new owner.”
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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