US judge blocks The Onion’s purchase of Alex Jones Infowars

A US bankruptcy judge on Tuesday blocked satirical news site Onion from buying conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars website, ruling that the bankruptcy auction did not yield the best possible bids.

US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez rejected Jones’ claims that the auction was plagued by “collusion”, at the end of a two-day hearing in Houston.

But he said the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee who ran the auction made a “good faith error” when it quickly requested final bids for Infowars rather than encouraging more back-and-forth bidding between Onion and a Jones supplements subsidiary. Selling companies, which was in second place.

“This should have been opened back up, and it should have been open back up for everyone,” Lopez said. “Clearly the trustee left the possibility of a lot of money on the table.”

Lopez said neither offer for Infowars was sufficient given the scope of Jones’ debts, and he asked the trustee to work out some disputes between creditors before making a new attempt to sell Infowars.

The Onion was named the winning bidder for Infowars in the November auction, but Jones and First American United Companies, a subsidiary of Jones, claimed the sale was tainted because The Onion took too much credit for enlisting the support of the families that won. Large court rulings against Jones.

Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022 and was forced to liquidate its assets to pay more than $1.3 billion in legal judgments to the families of 20 students and six employees who were shot and killed in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

An alleged mass shooting took place

Courts in Connecticut and Texas ruled that Jones defamed the families by repeatedly making false claims that the mass shootings were carried out as part of a government conspiracy to take guns from Americans.

Jones’ attorney, Ben Brooks, told Lopez at a hearing Monday that Onion offered only half the $3.5 million in cash offered by First American United Companies, but bolstered its offer with “smoke and mirrors” calculations.

The Sandy Hook, Connecticut-based families, Jones’ largest creditors, bolstered Onion’s bid by agreeing to waive some of the payment from the sale of Infowars so other creditors could get more money. This lien caused the bankruptcy trustee to value Onion’s offer at a total of $7 million.

Chris Mattei, a Connecticut-based attorney for the Sandy Hook families, said the ruling was disappointing, but it did not change the fact that Jones owed his clients huge sums of money.

“The families, who have already persevered through countless delays and barriers, remain steadfast and more determined than ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt companies accountable for the harm they have caused,” Mattei said.

Jones celebrated the ruling on Infowars.

Onion CEO Ben Collins said the company was extremely disappointed by Lopez’s decision, but remained interested in buying Infowars and creating a “better, more entertaining Internet.”

The Onion had planned to relaunch Infowars in 2025 as a parody site filled with “significantly less hateful misinformation” than before.

Christopher Murray, the court-appointed trustee tasked with selling Jones’ assets, testified Tuesday that the auction was fair, and that First American United Company only complained about the process after learning its bid had not been selected.