On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," The Daily Beast's Will Sommer broke down the significance of the massive judgment against InfoWars webcaster Alex Jones, for his promotion of conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged with child actors — a claim that pushed his supporters to track down and harass parents who had lost children in the massacre.
The judgment, which totals almost $1 billion, is on top of a previous $50 million judgment in another lawsuit in Austin, Texas — and, argued Sommer, this could destroy his entire far-right media empire.
"I want to just get your bottom-line take on the scale of today's punishment," said anchor Ari Melber. "Is it unprecedented?"
"I mean, it's enormous. It's just massive," said Sommer. "I was watching the verdict come in today and the first plaintiff, as people saw in the clip you played, got $120 million in his favor. I thought, wow, that's hefty for all the plaintiffs, and you realize that's just one of them. So this is really enormous. I think obviously it remains to be seen how much they're going to collect of this money. There's still one more trial to go. There's a verdict in Texas already. But this is going the make it very difficult for Jones' InfoWars to continue to operate."
Even the fact that Jones has sought to use bankruptcy law to protect his businesses, argued Sommer, is unlikely to do much to help him.
"We saw him try to move his companies into bankruptcy as sort of legal maneuvers before this trial," said Sommer. "There are these accusations that are well-founded, that he's been kind of funneling money away to try to put it with family members, but it seems like the plaintiff's attorneys are on to that. But look, this is not a small company either ... this is a company that was once making 800 grand a day. Whether depending on how much they make, we'll see, but I think it still makes a point about the fact that if you're in this business of lying for profit, I think it's going to come back on you."