Judge rejects proposed sale of Infowars assets to The Onion

HOUSTON (CN) — Following more than twelve hours of testimony across two days, a federal bankruptcy judge rejected the sale of Alex Jones’ platform, Infowars, to the satirical publication The Onion.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez, who has overseen the case for two years, denied the Chapter 7 trustee’s Nov. 14 decision to designate The Onion as the winning bidder. First United American Companies, a company affiliated with Jones’ supplement business, entered the only other bid, and the trustee designated them as the backup bidder.

However, Lopez also declined to declare them as the new successful bidder.

Although Lopez accepted the proposed waiver from Connecticut families affected by Jones’ statements on the Sandy Hook shooting of their returns on the sale in order to raise the returns for the other creditors, he ultimately found in a bench ruling that the trustee didn’t put in the proper work to get clarity on the joint bid.

Lopez emphasized that the bidding parties did not do anything wrong and that all parties, including the trustee, acted in good faith. But the trustee’s lack of clarity served as the deciding factor.

Above that, the judge felt that the trustee left a lot of money on the table for the estate, given the sheer size of the judgments bearing down on the case. He even stated that the losing bid of $3.5 million in cash is not enough, given that Jones faces $49 million from his Texas judgment, more than $1 billion in a Connecticut judgment, and tens of millions of dollars in reported liens from a third-party creditor.

In his late-night ruling, which came at roughly 10:25 p.m. Central time, Lopez left further decisions on the matter to the trustee, Christopher Murray, and said, “This case ends in 2025. It has to.” The judge will ask the trustee for updates at the end of the month.