Republican lobbyist Roger Stone has called on Matt Gaetz to investigate after he was outbid by the satirical news publication The Onion for Alex Jones Infowars network.
Stone wants Donald Trumps attorney general pick to examine the bankruptcy auction which he says was not a fair proceeding and involved epic corruption.
The lobbyist, who is an ally of Trump and Jones, sought to buy Jones company to ensure, if possible, that Infowars survives, he previously said.
The Onion said Thursday it prevailed in the auction with a bid that it says was sanctioned by the families of Sandy Hook Elementary victims who won a $1.4billion defamation lawsuit against Jones in 2022.
But a Texas judge later pressed pause on the acquisition over questions about the bidding process and what Jones has called a rigged, fake auction.
Stone, appearing on the conspiracy theorists network Thursday, branded the auction a tragedy and said the bankruptcy trustee has guaranteed himself major litigation for the remainder of his career.
Hes going to be sued because he acted corruptly, Stone said. Once Matt Gaetz is attorney general I think he should examine this entire procedure because there is epic corruption here.
He further argued his team had put together a very good bid and said they may have no choice but to bid on MSNBC to buy that, because perhaps that could be repurposed.
Republican lobbyist Roger Stone, (right) appearing on Alex Jones (left) Network Thursday, branded the auction a tragedy and said the bankruptcy trustee has guaranteed himself major litigation for the remainder of his career
Stone called on Donald Trumps attorney general pick Matt Gaetz, pictured at a MAGA rally in October, to examine the bankruptcy auction which he says was not a fair proceeding and involved epic corruption
The Onion said Thursday it had acquired Infowars, which for decades has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, and planned to relaunch the platform in January as a parody.
At a court hearing Thursday afternoon in Houston, the trustee who oversaw the auction, Christopher Murray, acknowledged that The Onion did not have the highest bid but said it was a better deal overall because some of the Sandy Hook families agreed to forgo a portion of the sale proceeds to pay Jones other creditors.
First United American Companies, which operates ShopAlexJones.com, submitted the only other bid at $3.5million. The trustee said he could not put a dollar amount on The Onions bid.
Walter Cicack, an attorney for First United American Companies, told US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez that Murray changed the auction process only days before, deciding not to hold a round Wednesday where parties could outbid each other.
Sealed bids were submitted last week, and the trustee chose only from those, Cicack added.
Murray said he followed the judges auction rules laid out in a September order that made the overbidding round optional. But Lopez said he was surprised such a round of bidding was not held and that he had concerns about transparency.
Were all going to an evidentiary hearing and I´m going to figure out exactly what happened, he said. I personally dont care who wins the auction, I care about process and transparency.
No one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction. No date has been set for the hearing.
Jones has raged against that very process since the winning bid on behalf of the satirical news site was announced Thursday.
Alex Jones angrily denied that his Infowars had been sold to The Onion after what he called a rigged, fake auction and a judge requested a hearing about the bidding process
Judge Christopher M. Lopez announced during a status conference in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas that the meeting would be held to discuss whether the people running the auction ran a fair an full process
In two videos posted later Thursday evening, a furious Jones claimed that the sale was not yet official.
[My lawyers] had a total consensus: theyve never seen anything like it. This was a private, secret sale... basically illegal, this is bankruptcy crime on its face disguised as an auction that wasnt an auction.
The people didnt even pay real money, they paid some weird FIAT thing that wasnt agreed to by the judges order and then they had the corporate media say that The Onion bought Infowars.
He claimed the judge told the trustee that he didnt give the trustee the authority to do that and that it wasnt an auction.
Jones said that the people behind The Onion didnt do anything and called it unprecedented, blaming it on his frequent targets at the Deep State.
Its crazy. Nobody sees how the federal judge, whos known for being straight-laced, cannot end this fake sale, where he basically said it didnt happen and bare minimum, therell be a new, open, public auction.
He then made a promise: Everybody thinking Infowars was shut down, youre in for a rude awakening.
Two hours later, he gave a further update on the process from the Infowars studios.
The headlines you see everywhere that The Onion bought Infowars today is not true.
In addition to his anger with the trustee not accepting the highest bid, Jones was frustrated that they wouldnt reveal who won and also that they didnt reveal that credit could be used in the auction.
They bought my company in a rigged, fake auction that didnt even happen with my money that doesnt exist, he claimed.
In two videos posted later that evening, a furious Jones claimed that the sale is not yet official
In this December 14, 2012 file photo, parents leave a staging area after being reunited with their children following a shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown
He claimed that there are good guys trying to buy Infowars - First United American Companies LLC - and that their lawyers have never seen anything like this.
Jones then accused the auction winners of having hijacked his website and shut down his TV and radio stations.
He eventually went off on the Sandy Hook families, saying hed barely ever even talked to them and says theyve raised money off me and had me defaulted via a show trial produced by HBO.
These people have jumped the shark and its why there was a referendum against the left and lawfare, why Trump got elected in a landslide, despite all the fraud.
He also complained that outside some of the law sites no one was covering this aspect of the story.
If the judge certifies this, its just another dark day for peoples rights.
Indeed, Judge Lopez appeared to have legitimate concerns with how the auction was run.
Nobody should feel comfortable with the results of the auction, Lopez said, according to Bloomberg.
Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onions parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said it will mock weird internet personalities like Jones who spread conspiracy theories
Trustee Christopher Murray admitted that the process seemed unorthodox but it went along with what the victims families wanted.
Ive never seen this before in any other case, and we did a lot of research, and weve never found it, he said.
But Ive always thought my goal was to maximize the recovery for unsecured creditors, and under one bid, theyre clearly better than they were under the other.
The auction stemmed from Jones personal bankruptcy case, which he filed in late 2022 after the families won lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas over his claims that the school shooting that killed 20 children and six adults was a hoax.
Infowars will be relaunched in January as a new parody of itself under The Onion umbrella, as reported by The New York Times.
Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onions parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said it will mock weird internet personalities like Jones who spread conspiracy theories.
The Onion has declined to disclose how much it paid for Infowars. The purchase includes the Infowars studio and a diet supplement business.
The dissolution of Alex Jones assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for, Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.
Sealed bids for the private auction were opened Wednesday. Both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars. The other bidders have not been disclosed.
The conspiracy theorist shared on his show Monday that depending on who purchases the company, Infowars may have to shut down
Bill Sherlach, husband of Mary, one of the Sandy Hook School shooting victims, speaks after jurors returned a $965 million dollar judgement against Alex Jones in 2022
The Onion, a satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd, bills itself as the worlds leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers.
The publication was founded in the 1980s and for decades has skewered politics and pop culture, including making Jones a frequent target of mocking articles.
Mass shootings in the US, such as the Sandy Hook attack, are often followed by The Onion publishing slightly updated versions of one of its most well-known recurring pieces: No Way to Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.
Jones has been saying on his show that if his detractors bought Infowars, he would move his daily broadcasts and product sales to a new studio, websites and social media accounts that he has already set up. He also said that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platforms.
Relatives of many of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting Jones and his company for defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.
Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones conspiracies and threats by his followers.
The lawsuits were filed in Connecticut and Texas. Lawyers for the families in the Connecticut lawsuit said they worked with The Onion to try to acquire Infowars.