Transcript/803: Mark Bankston, Tapestry King

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Theme Song (00:00:04.000)

Red Alert. Red alert red alert. Red Alert knowledge five days Damn, Jordan I am sweating knowledge party.com It's time to pray. I have great respect for knowledge like knowledge. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys Shang chi or the bad guy knowledge on Dan and Jordan knowledge fight need money Andy and Sandy are stopping Andy and Pam handy in Kansas Andy in Kansas you're on the airplane for Tim Keller was huge fan I love your word. Knowledge by

Dan (00:00:55.000)

knowledge fight.com. Rene Welcome back to knowledge right I'm Dan I'm George verbal dudes like to sit around worship at the altar of saline and talk a little bit about Alex Jones.

Jordan (00:01:07.000)

Oh, indeed. We are Dan Jordan.

Dan (00:01:09.000)

Jordanne 40 bucks up put your spot today my bright spot today. Jordan is I just came from a little bit of a hello an old friend of mine. Excellent. Someone I started stand up with back in Columbia, Missouri, who also moved to Chicago and we had some good times here now is moved away but he was visiting and I got to see it while he was in town with my buddy Daniel. Shar. Shout out to him. That's wonderful, delightful time

Jordan (00:01:37.000)

yeah. My my bright spot is the new album by Jessie were dropped.

Dan (00:01:42.000)

Okay. That was a Jesse snow that'd be a great

Jordan (00:01:47.000)

album. But it turns out it was written by somebody else. Okay. Ah, all right. No, it's it's it's really good. It's I swear to you, it doesn't like change anything about music but it's the greatest episode of Soul Train you've ever watched. Okay. It is what the album is everywhere. It does everything from Doo Wop to straight up there's a there's a baseline from discovery from Daft Punk discovery. It's all in there man. Disco disco disco.

Dan (00:02:15.000)

What if I've seen

Jordan (00:02:16.000)

every episode of Soul Train by well then you'll find that there's a better one. Okay.

Dan (00:02:22.000)

So Jordan today, we have a fun thing to do. You had a wonderful interview that we had for Monday's episode, right yeah,

Jordan (00:02:29.000)

thank you very much to Sean Yeah, absolutely.

Dan (00:02:31.000)

Yeah. And I know that we're having another interview today it's perfect timing really because Alex has been out of studio he's been there's there's not stuff to cover. I'm not going to do it oh in episode and hell no, no, we don't want to get too bullish on the 2004 episodes. I don't wanna have like three of them in a row.

Jordan (00:02:50.000)

We're not really stay the same track guys. We did like to do something different all the time. Like to

Dan (00:02:54.000)

mix it up, mix it up. And so today, we are very thrilled to have with us once again, the tapestry King himself is sitting in front of a tapestry the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Sandy Hook case for in Texas, Mark Paxton. Welcome back.

Mark Bankston (00:03:15.000)

It's good to talk to all the wolves out there again.

Dan (00:03:18.000)

I'm sure they're thrilled to to hear from you. I'm sorry to label you have a tapestry king, but I have tapestry on the mind.

Mark Bankston (00:03:26.000)

Yeah, no, no. I am always in front of a new one. It's not the Pink Floyd one today. But this beautiful abstract dish mountain scene is

Jordan (00:03:36.000)

now you just opened up a whole can of worms you're always in front of a new tapestry. Yeah. That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard anyone say? No, no. The Last Crusade

Dan (00:03:55.000)

I just gotta do one myself because I have behind me I have a closet and the closet door is mirrors and I don't like that. So I have I just got a new thing to put up over the mirrors, but I haven't hung it yet. So anyway, it's fresh on the mind. Anyway, nice to have you mark

Jordan (00:04:10.000)

his main problem with the mayor's election.

Mark Bankston (00:04:14.000)

Talk about home furnishings the rest of the episode I got all sorts of things talking

Dan (00:04:17.000)

about I want to talk decor. So what's new man? What's been

Mark Bankston (00:04:26.000)

great, good stuff is going on. I don't know the world has been really good in the wake of everything that happened last year. Got some exciting cases going on. I just started working on a a really a police shooting case that really makes me feel honored to have it. Where you know, it's one of those issues how you know, no matter how much you press and how much you do in the streets, or how much you try to do in the voting booth, like you just can't seem to change it. They're just the police are killing people at a ridiculous rate and under ridiculous circumstances. And the only thing that seems to be able to be changing some of these cities behavior and how they're running their police departments or managing or train them is large lawsuit liability.

Jordan (00:05:10.000)

Right? So which side of the case are you on this time? Oh,

Mark Bankston (00:05:13.000)

that's funny, Jordan.

Dan (00:05:16.000)

I'm sure a lot of people are listening and they're like, Wait, Alex became a cop shot somebody.

Mark Bankston (00:05:21.000)

Exactly. Yeah, that's That's adorable. Like yeah, I think I think everybody knows who I would be representing in that situation. And ya know, it's it's a really nasty case. Hopefully, I'll be having we'll be announcing a lawsuit on it soon. So you'll probably see me in the news for that. But yeah, we've been having some other really good stuff going on. We were able to really take some some good time off there towards the end of the year, which I desperately needed because I was overworked on on so many other cases, including the Alex Jones thing. But yeah, we're popping back into the swing of things right now. springs in the air. Just got my kid new we got a pair of new mini dirt bikes we're gonna be riding around garden coming in, you know, it's just couldn't be better.

Jordan (00:06:07.000)

Come to lock out

Mark Bankston (00:06:11.000)

snows of yesteryear, melting away and really all new adventures.

Dan (00:06:16.000)

I think I started this interview wrong by talking about tapestries. We've gotten to dirt bikes and gardens. Yeah,

Jordan (00:06:25.000)

ratio, Alger got to territory

Dan (00:06:30.000)

what do you what do you what are you planting?

Mark Bankston (00:06:33.000)

Oh, I definitely am. Yeah. So so I have like, gosh, okay, you'll make me nerd out because I know people like to hear about this kind of stuff. But I have what is basically a semi Skyrim themed garden like it's a wizards garden with Dragon statuary. And, you know, like, like, there's Viking shield like Skyrim style Viking shield up there, like, so. Like, just as magical place for my kid to be

Dan (00:06:56.000)

and hide like cheese wheels around for him. Particularly has

Mark Bankston (00:07:01.000)

like, okay, so like, if you're really I know, y'all are Skyrim people. So like, like, it's kind of based upon when you wandered around in Skyrim. And you'd find like this weird like necromancer altar where there would be like these flower gardens growing and it would be these beautiful moonlit places with like, and there's crystals laid out and I mean, a corpse. Yeah, so we've got schools yeah, there's just like a school there. So yeah, we have we have a school with, with Nordic runes ruined into it, like lying in the garden bed and like, it's all to give it that kind of feeling like a legit dragon statue, the whole the whole nine yards.

Dan (00:07:37.000)

I don't know if you heard this, but Jordan thought that ebony was actually a rock

Jordan (00:07:41.000)

totally 100% 100% It's entirely Skyrim spawn. I've never experienced 70 in the wild. I've only experienced in Skyrim. And if you can turn it into armor, it's not wood.

Mark Bankston (00:07:53.000)

Yeah, it must be

Jordan (00:07:57.000)

that shitty armor.

Dan (00:07:58.000)

Yep. Jordan got raked over. I got very insulted by it.

Mark Bankston (00:08:06.000)

In Houston, so so you know it's all peas and beans alternating out on cycles, chili peppers. Shit like that. But yeah, we're in my son's getting into it. Yeah, we're having a good time.

Dan (00:08:17.000)

That's some that's some good family. Fun times.

Jordan (00:08:22.000)

In that case. In that case, now that we've done gardening, I feel it's time to get an update on how our the pet

Mark Bankston (00:08:32.000)

don't even get me started on the dam. Oh, gosh, we got a new addition to the family. I'm so excited about this. Oh. Oh yeah. So people know that we have a Staffordshire Terrier. And we've got a little three legged terrier. And then we've got a two different crested geckos house full fish, but we just added a giant blue tongue skink to the mix. And that sucker is so much fun. I'm talking on this guy's like a little sausage with arms as big as my arm.

Dan (00:09:02.000)

Oh, wow. That's a big skank.

Mark Bankston (00:09:03.000)

Yeah, he's he's down. He's a good foot and half two feet long. A big, big, big honkin Jungus of a lizard.

Dan (00:09:11.000)

I used to chase those around back when I lived in Hawaii but they were a bit smaller the ones that I was experiencing

Mark Bankston (00:09:19.000)

a full blown Australian variety right here this right some some little bohemian lady up in New York just sits and sits up nerd country state and breeds these by the hundreds wow and and yeah mailed me down a skink to join the family. So yeah, we're adding to the Zoom Menagerie.

Jordan (00:09:36.000)

I appreciate that both of you are more well traveled than me in the in the Midwest. I just assumed that skink is some sort of racial slur of some sort. It's kind of sour that right sounds wrong. It sounds wrong. It does. It wasn't a comfortable, comfortable word. It's poorly chosen and whoever named him should change it.

Dan (00:09:54.000)

Yeah, I was. I was down in Florida to give a talk about Alex Jones and I when I was walking down the path, a lizard ran by me and I had just I was triggered. I just went back to my place as a child. And I was like, I love I love them lizards back to the Secret Garden. Yeah. So I'm jealous. I'm jealous of your your lizard friend. But that's awesome. I'm glad the glad to hear that you're here. Your mini Zoo.

Mark Bankston (00:10:21.000)

Yeah. The burgeoning Zoo.

Jordan (00:10:23.000)

All right. Well, now that we've handled pets, I suppose now is the best time to get into what's been going on with the Alex Jones trial situate. Goddamnit. Dan Oh, you retry it. You're supposed to come in with another bit.

Dan (00:10:36.000)

I thought that we had reached the end of that. And I thought you were going to use your new newly Lex interview skills. Mark, you're here. Rude. I I'm waiting

Jordan (00:10:49.000)

for it. Jordan know what's going on? We're having a slight marital fight. Right.

Dan (00:10:55.000)

Jordan, Jordan has been doing some interviews. And so now that we're now sort of in a in a conversation interview setting,

Jordan (00:11:02.000)

you're sure. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mark. Let me ask you a question. How's the wife doing? Doing?

Mark Bankston (00:11:11.000)

She's fantastic. Man. I can't even Yeah, she's prosecuting polluters doing what she likes to do.

Jordan (00:11:16.000)

Oh, no shit, you're I didn't know. I didn't know say your wife is also a lawyer tell me.

Mark Bankston (00:11:22.000)

If I've really talked about this on the show. My wife is like a professional Captain Planet. That's like what she does. The goes after polluters and those who would want to mean a lot of other cases right now because he works for Harris County, for city of Houston County. And what she mainly goes after is water pollution and air pollution. And it's strange, because most 99% of prosecutors you'll meet are people who go prosecute individuals for in doubt. Like it's the state versus an individual. And there's very few forums where like, there's actually just a little bit of corporate accountability. And I think, thankfully, environmental justice kind of is one. So yeah, she's she's, she's Captain Planet. She

Dan (00:12:06.000)

wrote I've got a I've got to say if she's actually Captain Planet, that that means her paralegals are all children, right? I mean,

Mark Bankston (00:12:14.000)

yeah, an International Baccalaureate group of kids with rings.

Jordan (00:12:18.000)

Yeah. And then when you bring up that she's a professional Captain Planet, I have to then reconsider my relationship with a childhood version. And I realize that the original Captain Planet amateur, that's an indentured servant, basically unable to make agency choices on his own. Realistically, it's more of an elemental. That's fucked up.

Mark Bankston (00:12:37.000)

I thought it was funny that my wife was a public servant. And you thought she had a paralegal like, the idea that oh, no, that's that's kind of luxury, only a private Buccaneer like me. And

Dan (00:12:50.000)

I see, I see. All

Jordan (00:12:52.000)

right back. So you have you have allowed us to annoy you for about as long as human being could.

Mark Bankston (00:13:03.000)

The tangent itself, and therefore Yes.

Dan (00:13:09.000)

One of the problems is we're recording a little bit late. So we're a little we're a little slap happy for a little loopy. But yeah, let's we can get in line we can talk discuss.

Mark Bankston (00:13:23.000)

I've spent the last six months in that state of mind. So

Dan (00:13:26.000)

it's, in that time after the case,

Mark Bankston (00:13:29.000)

oh, gosh, ever since I walked out of that courtroom, I've just been ridiculous. You know what I mean? Like, nothing can bother. Like, I don't know, like, like, you get the feeling of like, you accomplished something that you set out to accomplish for so long, right? Like, that's already one of the feelings of it. But you do it in this like, really public way that was way more public than you even dreamed of it being and you knew it was going to be extremely public. Sure. Yeah. And coming off of that, like, yeah, you just

Jordan (00:13:54.000)

feel bad. And again, you had your pay you I bet you could not live more of a fairy tale moments in a movie

Mark Bankston (00:14:02.000)

about it, right? It's not even just like, oh, the trial turned out a certain way or a certain things are not sorry, it turned out a certain way in also a certain like two and a half minutes that was uniquely consumable by the entire planet. And like, I don't know, it's a little weird. Like it took me it was a while getting used to that idea. But now it just makes it like you're just coasting through it like that. What a lot. I know your fans keep up with the hearings that we've been having. We've been having some post trial hearings, and we should definitely talk about that. But But what I find funny about it is they know me from those hearings, but if they saw me in other hearings right now, like I am the most relaxed laid back dude in the world because like I'm not dealing with the bullshit that I've been dealing with so much. In this case, like I'm with I used to be such an aggressive young attorney, and now I have so many other attorneys. I'm like, they'll pull something and I'm like, Yeah, whatever. No big deal. I've seen so much worse. And like I know what actual madness is. Right? Right. I've been DAB I've been down the river to see Doctor Colonel Kurtz, I know what happened.

Jordan (00:15:04.000)

I think I think that's a really good question to ask you though, is, yes, you've had this huge moment. I mean, it doesn't get bigger than that. Global global, literally

Dan (00:15:16.000)

global moment, just like you couldn't script it.

Jordan (00:15:19.000)

It's impossible. Impossible. And yet at the same time, it's not done. Do you know what I mean?

Dan (00:15:27.000)

It's that mix of catharsis and then it's still totally annoyance still continues. Yeah, it's gonna be a weird push and pull.

Jordan (00:15:34.000)

Yeah, you came with the finger up your ass and they didn't take it out of your ass after like six months, what happened? Were a little slap happy.

Mark Bankston (00:15:40.000)

Oh, it's you know, when I started the cases, and I first brought them and it was just this thing that I concocted to do and, and I was out there all alone doing it. And then as this has gone on, like there was another case of joined and then we had more families come in, and then now we're in this bankruptcy. Good God. There's so many people involved. There's bankruptcy judge, the US Trustee is subchapter five trustee, individual attorneys for every corporate entity attorneys. For the families in Connecticut, the attorneys for down here, there's the attorneys for the universal, the unified creditors. I mean, there are so many damn people involved, that for a trial lawyer, it's a weird feeling, because I am now just a very small part of this, like I am not. There's anybody who right now has the sense of waiting for the story to end and thinking that like Mark Bankston is at the controls of the fighter pilot like No, no, not anymore. Like I had control of my trial and my cases. And now, it is a weird world we have entered in this bankruptcy court.

Dan (00:16:37.000)

Well, actually, I mean, I heard from a very reputable source named Alex Jones, that everything is pretty much resolved, and it's gone great for him.

Mark Bankston (00:16:46.000)

Like, yeah. Is bankruptcy court proceedings are meant to wrap up pretty quickly. Like they're supposed to go pretty fast, and they haven't been able to. And I, everybody without me even saying that those why they haven't? Yeah.

Dan (00:17:02.000)

Well, I mean, maybe a pattern of behavior, right? Yeah.

Mark Bankston (00:17:05.000)

There's they're just did this this, these things keep happening? Like, oh, suddenly you find $7 million in assets? You didn't? I just found that. And suddenly, oh, I'm making a deal with a third party company to sell advertising on Infowars and pocketing that outside of the bankruptcy. Oops, we got to got to deal with that. We'll see. You know, another

Dan (00:17:26.000)

that happens to me all the time, though. I accidentally fined $7 million of stuff that I didn't know I had.

Jordan (00:17:32.000)

I mean, this apartment is just rumbled and filled with millions of dollars. I believe. That's what Elizabeth left that part out of the New York Times. Yeah. Well, here's

Mark Bankston (00:17:42.000)

the here's the difference between what we were doing in state court and what we're doing now, is that in state court, if you'd asked Jones, Gibb turn over the evidence on this, these certain topics, you're supposed to produce any didn't do it. And he just gave you the middle finger. You could just say, alright, fine, legal magic wand, those evidentiary matters are now taken as established. We don't have to worry about that shit anymore. Because you've been just uncooperative, right? But in the bankruptcy court when he does that, you can't just magically lay wave illegal wand and create money, right? It just, you just can't go boom, poof, right. Like, it's not fairy dust stuff going on there. And so you really do have to drill down, you really have to do all of these things. And it is like pulling teeth. But but the teeth are getting old. Right? I don't. I've always said and I continue to say I don't know exactly how this ends. But but it's ending. And it's not in a way that Jones likes like, this is not good. There's no There's no version of how this plays out. That is like really good for Jones. There's only a version of it, in which it doesn't, he's not a guy in a barrel with suspenders. Like he has a life skill. And he, he has the ability to have a career and make money and all that kind of stuff. But but there's no version of this where Jones is like, like laughing carrying bags with dollar signs on them running out or something like that. This is all going to do.

Dan (00:18:59.000)

Well, it's interesting, because if you just have the view of it from his show, like I said, you have the forward facing appearance that he puts on of like, everything is cool. We made it through the reorganization, and it's just a matter of you guys got to keep giving me money. So you got that. And then you also at the same time have him like disappearing, like not being on the show and having to go to hearings and be like pretending that's not what he's going to do. So you have this this, like just from watching his show, you have this weird image of like, there's trouble, but he's pretending he's putting on a brave face. And that I always find very interesting,

Mark Bankston (00:19:36.000)

you know, I don't think he's doing anything. any different than almost any company that is in chapter 11 does is they may be in chapter 11. But they try to send out every signal to the world of No, no, no, everything's fine. Right.

Dan (00:19:50.000)

And why would you support the business if you if you knew we're not good?

Jordan (00:19:54.000)

Yeah, as we watch the banking system collapse, I think we all know what bad news does for you?

Mark Bankston (00:20:00.000)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, there's no question that what bankruptcy is designed to do is to keep the business operating while stuffs figured out, right? Like you've got to, you got to figure out what to do here. And, and so, Jones has a bit of an advantage over other businesses that if other businesses are in chapter 11 and very publicly are sinking into the to the ocean, right, that's gonna scare off people from giving them money. But we've Jones's case, there are a good cadre of people out there who will throw money into the very tip of the Titanic seeking done the right doing. Yeah,

Dan (00:20:33.000)

you might come back. That might float again.

Jordan (00:20:36.000)

Hey, Jim Baker got in prison and went right back to work. Probably more success, probably more successful than before. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's actually, my next question about whenever you brought up that there are so many people now added into this process. How many of these people do you think are actually equipped to deal with what we're dealing with? Do you know what it's like? Yeah, like, we've spent years be becoming equipped to this. And these people are still in this space of like, Yeah, this is a bankruptcy, as opposed to this is a cult leader exploding into a fire in front of us all

Mark Bankston (00:21:12.000)

know, yeah, everybody. As opposed to like some stages of this case, literally, everybody involved and I'm including the people who are representing Jones and his business entities at this time, like everybody involved is incredibly sophisticated about what's going on. And it's, it's wild to me, because these bankruptcy professionals are in their own universe, right? Like they are in front of the same small group of judges every day, day in and day out. They are not playing around with reputations for Alex Jones. Right. Now, there may be things that Jones does, and they have to go in there have egg on their face, but they're not. Nobody there has any illusions about who Jones is and why he's a problematic debtor. Like that's everybody gets. And so it's, it's, it's an interesting thing that like, Yeah, you think, oh, man, we've had to spend four years of getting up to speed on exactly how these people operate and whatnot. The good news is a lot of people who've been involved in that process are still involved in the process, right? Like a lot of the people in that mix. US Trustee knows what's going on judge knows what's going on debtor, Jones knows what's going on. Right? Like, gets it at this point. It's just it's just a matter of, there's really two sort of things that rub up against each other in any bankruptcy proceeding. And it's one is the discovery and declaration and figuring out of what the assets actually are. And to the creation of a bankruptcy plan that gets the creditors paid in such a way that that Jones are any veteran his position doesn't decide to just say a pox on all your houses, go nuclear, destroy everything, including all of his, like he has some abilities to he's sitting there at the end of the track. You know, he can he can jump if he wants to. And that's a

Unknown Speaker (00:23:02.000)

but what does that look like?

Mark Bankston (00:23:04.000)

So I don't think

Dan (00:23:05.000)

would that just be like destroying his businesses? Is that like,

Mark Bankston (00:23:09.000)

yeah, there's a lot of different ways that can go down. But yeah, exactly. Like, like if, if if this can't get resolved through a bankruptcy, right. Like, if that can't happen, then they would have to get resolved outside of the bankruptcy. If the bankruptcy gets dismissed, or, or however, that ends up wrapping, where then where there is no discharge of whatever these debts are, then it has to go back into state courts, and they got to resolve those ways to collection and none of these options of how the different things could go. None of them are good. Like they all

Dan (00:23:34.000)

suck. When you said if it can't be resolved in a bankruptcy, it's got to be resolved. And other way I just think it like, well, street fight. Yeah.

Mark Bankston (00:23:43.000)

Whatever. Yeah. Check my

Jordan (00:23:45.000)

watch. I guess we're getting on a flight here in a couple of weeks. I don't know what's it

Mark Bankston (00:23:49.000)

look like when you're in that route, and there's no bankruptcy and you're talking about collecting on on verdicts that you've had, you're talking about having sheriffs show up and seize the stuff and sell it at auction and stuff like that's what you're talking about? And that look you do that there's no future there's no there's no if free speech systems is liquidated, that's it Jones is going and doing something else. Right? Jones is not going to create more free systems for you to come take in the future like in other words, if Jones could be in a situation where he could say I don't I don't care that I am a guy in a barrel straps as long as everybody's a guy in a barrel with straps, right maybe that doesn't even make any sense because there's assets there they can be seized. Well, I mean, Jones would have to do something completely irrational. Well not for this to somehow resolve in a way to bankruptcy where he is brought to heel.

Dan (00:24:44.000)

Well here's here's what I'm thinking like with you're saying like if Infowars and free speech systems is liquidated Alex is doing something else. This brings up the attempt at Alex Jones live the

Mark Bankston (00:24:57.000)

right way. I got shut down real quick. Yeah, he No, no, we haven't

Dan (00:25:00.000)

talked since that came about. And I don't know, if you if you had any, not involvement, but if you if you watched anything happen with that very clear attempt to create something that was completely separate from Infowars. Yeah.

Mark Bankston (00:25:16.000)

Oh, yeah, no, you got to understand that that that our side and the UCC, the creditors committee brought that to the attention of Jones's lawyers in the court. And what I mean, I can't speak, you know, what, what I can say is that has stopped, right, Jones's attorneys haven't noticed,

Jordan (00:25:32.000)

or the judge didn't go like, Oh, you got us this time?

Mark Bankston (00:25:37.000)

Oh, right. Yeah, no, it was he did say it was totally

Dan (00:25:40.000)

unrelated. Like, every time,

Jordan (00:25:42.000)

we'll see you in Arkham, asylum, you keep seeing

Mark Bankston (00:25:46.000)

things in this bankruptcy that that I put it this way, they look really bad, right. Like they looked like Jones was doing something to try to defraud his creditors or whatnot. But it is always in such its infancy. And so stupidly tried to implement that it like immediately falls apart within like, 20 minutes of him saying it and, and so therefore, there's not really like nothing really happens because of it, because it never really got off the ground. Right? It's not that there are attorneys who are totally mustaches and hiding, finding ways to scheme and hide his money or something like that, right. At this point, he's in a state of desperation on some of these issues, because he's just trying to shove shove money under the mattress wherever he can. Right. That instinct. But

Dan (00:26:26.000)

here's the greatest piece of evidence that we are not in collusion. You and I, you say that you brought it to the attention of the lawyers that Alex was doing this Alex Jones live thing? Yeah. If we had collaborated, and I had any poll on this, I would have said, hold off for a second. Yep. Alex is planning on doing a painting,

Jordan (00:26:47.000)

painting show. Everybody calm it down. We're all gonna pretend we're all gonna pretend we're all gonna live in a space where it's like, oh, you fooled us, Alex. He was really no way I'm gonna do in the Bob Ross. Does it Alex Jones, Bob Ross show. And now we're all happy again. You guys ruined that. You basically did. Yeah. We're not always happy with the lead plaintiff of the

Mark Bankston (00:27:15.000)

well, hey, look, when you see a leak in the in the bathroom, we got to shut it down for the floors full of water. Like that's just how it is. I think I think

Jordan (00:27:21.000)

that's where I want to go next. The credit these interview? Sorry, sorry, no, yeah. My interview chops off cutting you off. Shut up. I've got a question. No, I'm doing

Mark Bankston (00:27:35.000)

wonderful. Barbara Walters, like I don't know how you do it Jesus currently

Jordan (00:27:43.000)

have, as far as the setup goes, like what I'm hearing from you about the bankruptcy plan is that its idea is to allow Infowars to continue operating so that the business itself can continue paying the people of which it owes insurmountable amounts of money. Right.

Mark Bankston (00:28:04.000)

I suppose that's one way this could. That's not necessarily how it ends in bankruptcy. No, like, liquidate that company. I think

Dan (00:28:12.000)

that's what you're describing as the way Alex would want it. Right. And that's what I'm asking. Yeah.

Mark Bankston (00:28:18.000)

Let me add the caveat that, once again, I am a very small part of this process. I'm speaking of this in the 50,000 foot view of how does this play on traditional bankruptcy strategy, things like that, in terms of on the ground, what a bankruptcy plan, even like 90% of what's in a bankruptcy plan would be like trying to get me to understand a manual and brain surgery. Like that's a different language. Like, I'm not qualified to even have opinions on that. Right. So what and even the questions of ultimately, what happens to the parties like like, how is our arm? Because the question is, is how to best guard the interest of the debtors, while at the same time maximizing the recovery to the creditors like it's supposed to do that. Often those two things are going to be in conflict, and you don't know which one's going to give right. So there's so many different ways of bankruptcy planning could take it could be implemented. And it would depend on the on also the amount of assets and, and whether some of those are legally exempt and what the parties decide the debts are dischargeable because you have to remember, you're still just talking about Jones and free speech systems in bankruptcy. There are other entities in the mix, too. There are fraudulent conveyance lawsuits out there. This thing is a giant complicated ball of wax. And so I I have learned that it has now entered a tariff. I'm a trial lawyer, I go get a verdict. I go to the insurance company. They write me a check. We're done. We move on. But But now I realize I've entered a world that is so labyrinthine and arcane and full of weird ceremonies of lawyers spinning in circles three times and shaking hands and putting the seat like I don't get it. Yeah, and it's it's it sucks, but that's how this that's how that's how you deal with the intractable problem. Have you have a rich guy? Now? How do you get his money? It's not an insurance company. The answer is this weird arcane process, which is not good for him. I mean,

Jordan (00:30:09.000)

can you hit him with a giant ball of wax?

Mark Bankston (00:30:13.000)

just nailed with a giant ball. I

Jordan (00:30:15.000)

mean, he's the one who made the giant ball of wax, you just let it roll down the hill and see what happened. wax. Wax wall street bike

Mark Bankston (00:30:23.000)

thing I've learned as a lawyer, and this case underscores more than any other perhaps, is that retribution really feels nice when it happens. But it's pretty meaningless for the people who were hurt. And, and at the end of the day, it's crap. Because it's America. Some money's the only way we compensate. Like, that's what compensation is measured in value. But like, there's no question that we're after everything that these people have gone through, they just serve to not have him profit from him, and they deserve those profits. And like, that's, that's it's just, it's pulling teeth to make that happen. But it will happen. Like, um, if there's one thing again, that I can emphasize, though, the only thing that I can really state with certainty about the bankruptcy because so much of it doesn't is beyond my paygrade is that he's not going to be running away. If the bank's money on it, they're not going to be Alex Jones laughing at the end of it of how well he did like,

Dan (00:31:16.000)

the process is not something that you can wiggle through is the sort of sense that I think,

Mark Bankston (00:31:22.000)

I think the underlying sense of frustration that might arise from a lot of people, after seeing this is, is that Alex Jones is going to lose a lot of money, but But what they may be disturbed by is just how much money some of the people involved in the bankruptcy itself. Alright, like those lawyers who now represent Him and His entities, how much they make, I mean, when you start seeing some of these disclosures, right, you got you had a solo lawyer who was representing Alex personally, did like a $500,000 retainer, I saw there was another one representing free speech systems who had a million dollars in pre petition conduct. I just saw thing about the CRO, the chief restructuring officer that they hired for Infowars LLC, as submitted a bill. And like, again, hundreds of 1000s of dollars.

Dan (00:32:10.000)

But isn't that like not a real company?

Mark Bankston (00:32:13.000)

Right, right, a guy who like and we even mock it that much, but like even for the bankruptcy purposes, and for the CRO, they went and just rented a weird office and empty office in Victoria, Texas, stopped two desks in a chair in it and said, boom, now that's a company in Victoria, we're filing the bankruptcy in Southern District of Texas. And like that was that's that's not like if you hear that and you see it portrayed in some movie or something you're like, this is mass fraud, like you are comically portraying mass fraud by showing an empty rental office and you stopped. No, this is an absolutely sanctioned and totally kosher practice that

Dan (00:32:48.000)

Saul Goodman business,

Jordan (00:32:50.000)

people don't like lawyers on the whole, it's really strange to me that the profession as a whole is denigrated, based entirely upon the behavior of all the people who do it.

Mark Bankston (00:33:02.000)

President company Jordan,

Jordan (00:33:03.000)

hey, hey, come on. You're my favorite lawyer.

Dan (00:33:07.000)

As this goes on, and continues longer and longer, I am imagining from your standpoint, it becomes less likely that these other cases like Posner and Fontaine that are on hold, are ever going to see court. I don't know if that's your sense. What are your feelings on that at this point?

Mark Bankston (00:33:26.000)

You know, everybody else? There's so many people who want to know the answer to that question, and then there's a smaller group of people closer to me, including Linnaean, Veronique, who need to know the answer to that question. And I don't have an answer to that question. I don't look at obviously depends on whether this can functionally end in bankruptcy court. And if it can't, then there's no positive trial. There's no Fontaine. Travi if it can't, then I think there kinda has to be. And it's not something you necessarily want to have happen because it's not that productive to go those routes and whatnot. But on the same level, you actually do want it to happen because Lenny Posner has never had a story told in a courtroom and I tell you that that's an important thing to clients. Is it their day in court? Yeah. It emotionally meant so much to Neil and Scarlett. And so like, Yeah, it sucks. I don't know whether that's gonna happen. My if people asked like, when I was early first getting into bankruptcy my instinct was there was no way that trials never happened. Like it would you would have to have a completely irrational outcome for that trial to have have happened. But then like, I keep thinking like, that's exactly what has happened every step of the way. Something completely irrational. So

Jordan (00:34:44.000)

yeah, that is that is kind of my but that goes back to my question as far as people that are equipped to handle this because I feel like that you're elucidating why no one is equipped to handle this. Because at every step of the way, every one of you assume someone will make Make a rational choice, everybody.

Mark Bankston (00:35:02.000)

I mean, there is some of that but like how can you possibly structure things otherwise like because otherwise you're guessing at the irrational choices and you'll never hit those either. Right?

Jordan (00:35:13.000)

But but that is that isn't that the that is the problem, though is everybody is allowing him to make so many choices. He should have zero choices now he gets to take the lead with the irrationality of responding to he should have no lead no agency whatsoever. See,

Dan (00:35:29.000)

here's what I'm thinking. What are you thinking? We need a quite a bit of nonsense. Judge. Okay. We need a chaotic judge

Jordan (00:35:36.000)

founded this no nonsense. All nonsense. Judge? Yeah. Keep

Dan (00:35:39.000)

Alex on his back foot. Cool. Yeah, it's

Mark Bankston (00:35:42.000)

a lot of them. Right. Yeah. It's complete maniac, right? Yeah. Yeah. Somebody who's more sincere,

Jordan (00:35:48.000)

Alex to like were one of those chains with very heavy ball attached to it. Mills Lane.

Mark Bankston (00:35:54.000)

I will push back on this. So this idea like that, Alex at present, has say and a lot of like, or has control or anything like that. Because he really is in a bag right now. And any financial prison like, you got to think if you're Alex Jones, do you really want to have every expenditure of dollar you make personally or in your business have to be approved by a group of lawyers in a court? No, sure.

Jordan (00:36:22.000)

I mean, the argument against that, though, is that 99% of this world lives in a place where that prison is the happiest, nicest, most wealthy place they've ever existed.

Mark Bankston (00:36:32.000)

There's, there's no question that Joe has been allowed to live at a fairly high standard of living, right guys, most debtors in that situation are but substantially less than what he was. I mean, he is not. The tightening of the belt on Jones has been pretty impressive. Look, there are still some things that you know, like, look, I so for instance, you you know, some people were, were complaining about I think it was something like $30,000 a year and housekeeping. And like, that's, that's if you pay your housekeeper less than $30,000 a year if they if you're the kind of person who has a housekeeper and you pay less than $30,000 I look down on you. I'm sorry. That's Yeah, wonderful time housekeeper and you pay them less than that. Socks. You. You're exploiting labor. And like, you know, in so so there are some expenses in there. Like,

Dan (00:37:18.000)

what about the 10 million phrase? Cat? Yeah.

Mark Bankston (00:37:23.000)

A little bit, that cat has now decreased in value depreciated quite rapidly to $199 or whatever. I

Jordan (00:37:28.000)

mean, once you take them off the lot. You know, he did put

Dan (00:37:32.000)

out that video where he was yelling about how everyone wanted their the court wanted to take his cat away.

Mark Bankston (00:37:38.000)

Yeah, he'll be fundraised off of that. They're like same mooshu promo codes you can use and stuff like, Oh, of

Dan (00:37:43.000)

course. He's a pro.

Mark Bankston (00:37:45.000)

Yeah. So I don't know. I think things are looking good there on that front. And then death thing I wanted to make sure to update you about, because this kind of big news. I know a lot of the fans had been following the sanctions hearings. Yeah. Versus the attorneys. Right. And complicated explanation, but basically, there's a time limit that is running and hustlin or actually it ran out a few days ago. For when the court has to enter any final orders after judgment and like wrap up the case before it's all kind of set in set when the bow and so judge Gary gamble issued orders on the sanctions versus andina right now. Still has the sanctions on Eric Tauber are still sitting out there. And those can be ruled on later. But she actually sanctioned in Dino right now to pay the Nealon Scarlet $100,000. And then if he appeals that order to the Court of Appeals and loses, he has to pay another $55,000 And if he appeals that order to the Texas Supreme Court and loses then he is paying another $62,000. So it's sort of you know, and these are all expenses relating to you know, the trial preparation and bankruptcy, the fact that the trial was was moved in April from when it was originally like so all these expenses that are related to that and

Dan (00:39:07.000)

so if I if I remember correctly also the the first bankruptcy that was sort of

Mark Bankston (00:39:14.000)

that's what I mean. Yeah, right. So so so Nealon Scarlets case was originally scheduled to be tried on in late April 2022. And days before that trial was scheduled to start they filed a bankruptcy and but it was a scam bankrupt Yeah,

Jordan (00:39:27.000)

He still owes me for the plane tickets. We thought that we use I didn't get the sanctions here he your flag guy I got

Mark Bankston (00:39:36.000)

yeah

Jordan (00:39:41.000)

I'll live you can eat that.

Mark Bankston (00:39:43.000)

Judge judge Gary Campbell wasn't about to let him get stuck with this kind of expenses after after the bad faith of that. I mean, it was it was pretty ridiculous what happened? And so that's I gotta say for an attorney like every now and then you'll see some sanctions or a court will say hey, you already you use almost slap your wrist on the hit you have 5000 10,000 and origin sanctions, stuff like that. I've never seen a six figure sanction against an attorney like that. I've seen it against like a law firm like and there's like, say you got a case like Apple versus Samsung, and you've got two mega law firms going against each other. And one like, seriously covers up evidence or substrate like you can get a million dollar sanction against that law firm for all of the legal work that occurred over the course of years, right? Or hell, in this case, right when Jones hit his like fifth sanction, and the court was like, alright, well screw it, you don't have to pay for any of the discovery you've ever undertaken in this case. And so that was a million dollar instant sanctions that Jones paid. But with Reynaldo paths pay $100,000, you know, like, and if he, if he appeals and messes up, he could be looking at close to a quarter million out of his pocket. And in some cases, it is a lot.

Dan (00:40:48.000)

So think about how much he got paid by Alex though, too, I mean, no head for the trial. Right? We kind

Mark Bankston (00:40:54.000)

of we kind of know how much he got paid by Alex because he had to file his contract to the bankruptcy court. So we know that upon retention, right, he got paid $100,000 for the retention. And then for the mumps that he actually represented Alex, for instance, like it was it was cut off if the bankruptcy like there was a clause in the contract. So if there's a bankruptcy and and Dino is not working, basically, then he doesn't get paid. But then, so when he comes back, though, then he gets paid another $100,000 for the month. So we know that for when he was retained in in march up until April with the bankruptcy. There's 100,000 Right there. And then it comes back. And it goes to trial in July, you know, late July to early August. That's another month. Right there. So you're looking at $200,000 through the trial.

Dan (00:41:36.000)

That's half of it, then yeah, to give up half of his fee. Right. So all right. Well, I thought I was I was picturing it as he made a bit more from Alex. Yeah, well,

Jordan (00:41:49.000)

once that one place was 400, grand or 500. Grand, you know, that kind of thing.

Mark Bankston (00:41:54.000)

We may find out when Alex makes certain disclosures in the bankruptcy court later about what in Dino has been paid since then. Right?

Jordan (00:42:04.000)

You can reasonably understand exactly why everyone is furious about that. Because it seems as though if you're going to punish somebody, you have to take their entire fee, and then punish them, you know, because some of their fee that's taking a cut of their fee, do you think that way?

Mark Bankston (00:42:23.000)

Look, here's the deal is if I if I'm sitting there after a trial, and I have $100, and you come in, you take $50 out of my wallet as a punishment, that's gonna be a serious deterrent. For me doing that kind of work again, I was never thrilled

Jordan (00:42:36.000)

unless you make $25. If you only make $25, and this time you make 50. That's arbitrage maybe?

Mark Bankston (00:42:45.000)

No, he's actually, this is the kind of lawyer who, who, who trades on this kind of level. And so taking this kind of hit is not great. There's not? And I mean, look, you're talking about a guy you'd like there was some level of me that I thought, Man, I don't know how much this court is really going to come after this attorney. Because good God has suffered in his public image. There. I can't think of an attorney who is broader known to a public audience as having made a big screw up publicly I don't know. Right. And the idea that he was the butt of all of those jokes that he was all of that, that, that there are social media memes of him that will live on forever that that he's constantly like, people will recognize them from the picture of him and Alex turning around really quick. And he's in a that's forever, you don't walk away from that. And, and you know, that's that was already a big hit. And then he takes this, this embarrassment up in Connecticut and gets his license suspended up there to now take a sanction on top of that, and this That's rough.

Dan (00:43:50.000)

Yeah, it's weird, almost almost think of the reputational in kind. So sanction. Yeah, maybe even more than the actual sanction. Yeah, yeah,

Mark Bankston (00:43:59.000)

I think so. But he also

Jordan (00:44:01.000)

did he also get divorced. Because of this, let's just add in as many different possible terrible marvic

Dan (00:44:07.000)

stole his lizard.

Mark Bankston (00:44:10.000)

Well, I don't know

Jordan (00:44:12.000)

that this was the skunk now.

Mark Bankston (00:44:16.000)

But immediately before Jones, before ran off, took on Jones as a client. He was at a law firm called Fertitta in Reno. And then within a couple of weeks after taking Mr. Jones as a client, he is at a law firm called the rain law firm PC. And I don't know if those two things are related, but But man, they're right around the same time. And so right as He's launching this new firm, whether because of this or not, like that's a pretty big hit to take. I mean, I can't imagine, you know, I remember talking to a lawyer who was involved in this case, whose name I won't say who had mentioned that after getting out of the case that they had paid a significant amount of money to try to have search engine optimization was going on. I'm smart, but and but a guy like right now you'll never he'll never be able to get away from you just you just can't.

Dan (00:45:05.000)

And that's true, but I'm not sure I'm not sure he his name itself is a household name. But you're right about the images and you can't,

Mark Bankston (00:45:13.000)

like, Look, if you're going to be hired a criminal defense lawyer of that profile, right? Like you're going to be paying you. I mean, he was a guy who was going to charge $100 an hour for his work or something, you know, like, like, you're gonna Google that guy before you sign the paperwork. And like, you're gonna have to be comfortable with what you find on Google. And that's, that's gonna hurt. Yeah, I don't know, that's a big penalty, the actual money and it is, it is a big thing. Like that's, that's a big hit after write that out of your check. And because of a lot of cases, if you're a lawyer, and you get sanctioned, you're usually doing it because you did something on your client's behalf. And so you can tell your client behind the room like, Hey, you're gonna pay the sanction, you're gonna pay me the money to pay the sanction. You can't do that because Jones isn't in bankruptcy. And they'd have to ask the bankruptcy court to let Jones pay for it. No, that's

Dan (00:45:56.000)

even. Even without the bankruptcy. Alex doesn't pay

Jordan (00:46:00.000)

now. Yeah, no.

Mark Bankston (00:46:02.000)

I, well, I don't you say that man, but he has bled money into his attorneys hands over the course of these last four years. I mean, just, if you can say like, one of the nice things about the fact that we've been able to like, kick these people off the carousel, like in a revolving way, like constantly is nobody is really spent that much time on the carousel. So it's not like any one of these 24 lawyers is going to walk away with a giant reward off the end of this. Right, right. Somebody's bankruptcy lawyers getting paid quite a bit. But if there had just been one lawyer throughout the whole case, that guy would be the winner or woman. I know, I can't even imagine a woman representing Alex Jones that, like fries. I can't even let me have

Dan (00:46:42.000)

that one woman for a bit. There was at least in the dough. You're

Mark Bankston (00:46:47.000)

right. There is a woman in the trial court mix. There was Jacqueline blood. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was I mean, well, that's, if I had to picture a kind of woman who would write that. She said,

Dan (00:46:58.000)

there's so many people who are on this carousel, you forgot?

Mark Bankston (00:47:01.000)

Yeah, I'm not worried about that, man. I mean, we had a sanctioned period where I literally counted them off for the court, like we listed them all out, because it became an issue on this. And if you count the people who are now involved in the bankruptcy, we're talking 24 lawyers. I think we were at 14 when we hit right on trial. So like, it's, it's, I mean, it's good. None of those people have that concentration of getting all of that money, but it is just like, it's like you have this image of those remoras or whatever. They're attached to sharks, you know, like, these little things attached to this big bloated Alex Jones shark.

Dan (00:47:34.000)

You know, who came out ahead? Probably the biggest winner is media star Bobby Barnes. I

Mark Bankston (00:47:40.000)

would, I'd say it's either memoranda answer, right. One of those two probably

Jordan (00:47:44.000)

that's that's the fucked up part of this. That is is really fucking with my head is that I, Erica Lafferty has a GoFundMe. Now, Erica Laverty has a GoFundMe for cancer tree, right. And there are, I suppose the shittiest people on the planet making hundreds upon hundreds of 1000s of dollars every single day. I mean, obviously, not every single day. But you know what I made the point, the point stance, like it is incredibly fucked up. And that's part of why I say that nobody at the bankruptcy court is equipped to handle this is because that's absurd. Every part of this is absurd. America Lafferty has a GoFundMe because Alex owes her millions of her millions of dollars Alex should be paying for that, like the bankruptcy court should not exist. Unless it's paying that GoFundMe. Do you know what I mean? Like that doesn't exist in a world that makes even half of the sense that it should?

Mark Bankston (00:48:35.000)

Yes. I mean, none of the white people are frustrated. Yeah. I'm one of them. But maybe it's just that I've lived inside the system long enough to know that the little bits and pieces that you can tear from unconcentrated hands is about the only justice you really ever get and hear. This one ain't bad. Yet. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like, look, you've got, you've got everything that the public trial was meant to do, it did. And then now you have a situation where Jones has been punished really severely, and will eventually it's gonna have to pay a giant on money. But it isn't complete, because you're right. There's all these things that permeated that are endemic to our system, about how people with wealth can operate through it and how the legal profession exists to sort of just skim off the top of that whole process. That's, it sucks, man. You're right. And I really am glad to have brought in now I've gotten like I'm brought sanctions against two different lawyers who have got up against the ropes. So at least they're paying some of that consequence. But you're right, there's a giant cast of characters here who will shrug this off and move on to their next project and it it's a bigger problem that I'm equipped to handle, but you know, at least

Jordan (00:49:51.000)

I realized that yelling at you to fix it probably isn't going to do it.

Dan (00:49:54.000)

Again. Those interview chops.

Jordan (00:49:56.000)

Let me try this. Fix it Did that work? Did you? Do you have the power now, though, shit.

Dan (00:50:05.000)

So there's another thing that I wanted to bring up. You were saying earlier when I was asking you about the other possible trials, you were saying, hey, it's something that is very important for plaintiffs, especially in this sort of circumstance to have their day in court and be able to, you know, talk, say to Alex's face, you know, like this is, this is my experience, this is the truth of things. And it was, it was wonderful to be there and see Neil and Scarlets ability to stand up to him and what have you. But Alex decided to try and steal that a little bit with his story that he told about Scarlet crying, and telling him that he was right about everything. And recently, we discovered an apology video that he put out that you featured prominently in or a letter that you sent him was featured in this, and I wanted to ask you about it because this was not something that I felt really got publicized at all. I'm not saying that's like, shortcoming on you or anything. But like, I pay attention to Alex quite a bit. And it wasn't something that was in the news. Nope. Didn't see anybody tweeting about it. There wasn't any real coverage of Alex makes a pathetic and sort of backhanded apology. Retraction video. Yeah, I found that really interesting.

Mark Bankston (00:51:37.000)

Yeah, I think the people I think some of the mainstream have, like, approach to level thinking that he's pathetic in the aftermath of this, that they're not going to focus any more attention. And maybe they found it too granular. But to me, it was, it was quintessential Alex Jones. And then it was both hilarious, and then also, like, sort of infuriating at the same time. But, but so I sort of give some background here. I don't know. Do you want me to lay this out? Yeah, please, please. Okay, so So as as you know, what went on the trial essentially, was there was a period where Jones went on his show, and said, You know what, maybe I think I was probably wrong about Neil hustlin Neale Hurston seems like he was a real person. And then he says that Neil, he says, Well, the reason I was fooled like I understand this now because, you know, he's slow. He's, he's on the spectrum. He's autistic. And and he's been he's been manipulated by some some some very bad people. And he's really slow but his wife is not she sharp and and these bad people are manipulating him to say these things because this point Scarlett hadn't testified right. It's manipulating say all these things and all this so So essentially, what the message here is, is that is that Neil's dumb guy has some sort of intellectual disability and that is evil ex wife Scarlett has gotten with these evil plaintiffs attorneys and some I don't know like some some people from Mike Bloomberg office or done some like, like crystal hypnosis on Neil or like, whatever like manipulated him in some way.

Dan (00:53:16.000)

That was That was definitely the underlying subtle message it was unfold really

Mark Bankston (00:53:24.000)

good at that man. He's so good at doing that without saying it right like textual Lee saying it but it says it with these weird things of like these weird juxtapositions of like, he's slow the wife is not like, here's what's going on. Yeah.

Dan (00:53:37.000)

It's like she's a real person. You know, she is but also I'm going to insinuate that she's really sneaky and calm with these lawyers.

Mark Bankston (00:53:47.000)

Yeah. And it was it pissed both my clients off because like both Neil and Scarlett The truth is they're both really sharp. And for Scarlett, she knew immediately what he was saying. And for Neil was upsetting because like, I don't know noon Scarlett, they have a great relationship on some level, but like, oh, people who are not married, right? It feels like the idea of Scarlett is gonna manipulate me like ridiculous, absolutely stupid, stupidest thing I've ever heard. Like, I'll let that woman manipulate me I manipulate her like no, that's that's the end Scarlett was like really unlike Mark I feel like what like even now even now when he's supposedly saying it's real Neil was real he can't help himself but say that I'm deep state. Now that I that I'm that that's what I am is like, maybe that I'm like, she was like maybe like that even that I'm a real bomb or whatever. But like that I'm part of a deep state thing that's manipulating Neo or something. And she was just so in on it. And she was like, Look, Mark, when can I talk about it on the stand? And I said, Look, talk to Wes. He's in charge of your I'm not you. That's you doing the opposite. So you're in Westwood and had a conversation about it. Should we play this clip? And then they decided, yeah, like we needed to play this because she wants to talk about how she felt about what was said about Neil, and how that related to her. And so it was, it was a good little moment. Well, Jones takes this. And he, he's in his mind. He's like, Well, look, I said, Neil was Rios that it really happened. So like the lawyers lined or like I said, it happened to see that has to be right. So there was a point in the trial, of course, we're Scarlet went up and handed him a bottle of water after he was coughing to the whole testimony.

Dan (00:55:32.000)

Well, actually, there's another thing. When Alex was on the stand, he said, You need to go watch my show. Yeah, see the full context of this? Yes. That's an important part of his arguments. Like,

Mark Bankston (00:55:43.000)

yeah, I was trying to point to Scott, I mean, like, you need to these lawyers are tricking you need to go watch it all. And she's like, I've watched the segment like, I know. Like, it's not, it's not that long of a segment, really. And so he was trying to put in so what Alex now says, After the trial, is that when Scarlett came up to hand him a bottle of water that Alex said, you know, you know, basically like, I hope you watch my video or whatever. And Scarlett was like, Yes, I went and saw what you said, and my lawyers lied to me. And you were right. And you were right all along. And like, I'm crying because he was crying, and was crying about this. Yeah. And it's. So Scarlet, obviously is like, No, this is not okay, this is this is this sort of like post verdict stuff to try to, like, have this view that he's reconciling himself with the parents against the evil lawyers who manipulated them. Like that's what this whole thing is. She didn't want to let that stand. She was like, Mark, can we sue him? And I'm like, Well, hold on a second, because he's in bankruptcy right now. So just like pump your brakes for just a second. Because what we first have to do under the law is we have to demand a retraction from the guy. And that would give us the ability to see like, you can't, it doesn't matter whether he retracts it, but you can't sue him before you demand the retraction. Okay. And the effect of a successful or sufficient retraction and correction is that that plaintiff can't get punitive damages in the suit. Right but they can still sue even if you do the retraction. So we write him a pretty lengthy letter because as I remember Yeah, no this is because he appeared on Piers Morgan to say all this

Dan (00:57:24.000)

well he did it on his show a couple times and then also Piers Morgan

Mark Bankston (00:57:29.000)

I don't I don't watch your show and you know I'm a religious Piers Morgan watcher I true true and I get enough of Piers Morgan accent, it gets whatever is it I don't even know where you see piers, but it sounds some sort of weird European streaming channel I think at this point like I have Alex

Dan (00:57:43.000)

Alex says it's the number one rated news show in the UK. Well, okay, number one rated because he was on it. It says the

Jordan (00:57:52.000)

most important shows that's ever been

Mark Bankston (00:57:55.000)

I mean, is that like, right after like Lord Pickle Bottom, Schreier, our like, yeah, like, No, this is not

Unknown Speaker (00:58:01.000)

our British listeners. Scattered.

Jordan (00:58:05.000)

Sorry, guys. Sorry, guys.

Dan (00:58:07.000)

It's actually after the Gribble pebble hours.

Mark Bankston (00:58:12.000)

You know what I just want everybody know who knows about that reference that our expert Dr. Bernard Pettingill. Really, really thought that was funny. He really thought that was funny. That's

Dan (00:58:25.000)

so that insult didn't land.

Jordan (00:58:29.000)

That was pretty funny.

Mark Bankston (00:58:31.000)

No, but so Alex was on Piers Morgan and said all this stuff. And so we wrote him a letter saying, Hey, you, you everything you said he was false. You did imply that that Scarlett was a deep state person manipulating Neil, that's what she was pissed about. That's what she called you out. But you need she never went up to you and said any of these things you say she said she never did any any of that. And so you need to retract all that and under the law and also preserve all evidence relating to those communications and videos, etc, etc. And part of what he needs to do in order to do that is to publish your attraction in a manner that's reasonably calculated to reach the nice number of people. So that's why he kept saying we're making requests to get on Piers Morgan show we keep making requests to get on the show.

Dan (00:59:11.000)

See, I took that as a I just want to get rebooked. Oh, yeah.

Mark Bankston (00:59:15.000)

Oh, no. It's actually legally important. And it may become legally important in the future. Is that is that by simply just going on? Infowars you know, now what he can say is that he didn't even do

Dan (00:59:27.000)

it on his own show. Yeah, that's what's messed up. Exactly. Yeah, it was just a video on his website. Yeah.

Mark Bankston (00:59:32.000)

If you want to like so that's strike one and two against why the retraction would be, you know, worthless. And that's

Jordan (00:59:38.000)

before we get to the 15 strikes within the retraction. actionable definitely,

Mark Bankston (00:59:48.000)

you'll notice that there was definitely a part of it that was scripted for him. That was written by somebody else. Yeah. Probably. Probably one of these lawyers like Mr. Rain or somebody all written

Dan (00:59:59.000)

it. was all scripted. He wasn't riffing any of it, but there was a discernible kind of like, Alright, here's what seems like a normal apology, and then he decided to play some clips.

Mark Bankston (01:00:09.000)

And then he went into his clips. You're exactly right. He read what was clearly a prepared attorney statement.

Dan (01:00:14.000)

Yeah. And then he said, but

Mark Bankston (01:00:17.000)

that was literally all he said. But it was everything that happened that like the I can't imagine what they had to do to get him to read this because they were I can tell you, the attorneys gave that to him because they were terrified of what I might do, because while he's in bankruptcy, the idea of me bringing new suits against him repurposing that, and even having that hanging over his head, like a sword of Damocles is, is pretty nasty. And they don't, they don't like it. But Alex put them in that position. So they're, like, run out here, do this retraction. Which I mean, honestly, I don't even know why they did it. Because if I'm gonna sue them, I don't care about the punitive damages. Like why even do it? But they go out and they do this retraction. But then Alex, probably as a condition of doing it was like, Yeah, but I get to say X, Y

Jordan (01:00:58.000)

and Z. Right. And basically do apologize, but I get to say that I was right in that I shouldn't have to apologize. That's why they call him

Dan (01:01:05.000)

the great negotiator. Yeah.

Mark Bankston (01:01:07.000)

He's basically like giving a speech about how he's going to respect Scarlett Lewis's lived experience. Like he's talking like, he's, he's on Tumblr in 2014. Like, it's really weird. I will defer to her memory. Yeah, like, but it's, it's all couched in such a way as to say that like, no, she's wrong. I'm right. She's, she's mine.

Dan (01:01:26.000)

It's definitely at least insinuating that fairly heavily.

Mark Bankston (01:01:29.000)

Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's, it's pretty, it's a pretty terrible apology. And it doesn't ever take on head on what he actually did, and why she was upset. And, of course, he doesn't want to have to confront that. In the middle of his trial, he tried to say that the person suing them was slow and autistic. And that's why he thought he was a crisis actor and not a real parent. That's not a great thing. You want to keep repeating out loud. Maybe

Dan (01:01:56.000)

it doesn't, it doesn't play well. I think

Mark Bankston (01:01:58.000)

even among his own audience, I don't think it even you know what I mean? So like, he wanted to make it this other thing, and he's still so desperate to have this idea that I think on some level, it really matters to him. That Scarlett and Neil like him.

Jordan (01:02:13.000)

Yeah, because he's not a bad person. He doesn't believe he's a bad person. Everything about his choices is I don't want to believe that I am a bad person.

Mark Bankston (01:02:22.000)

It's I'll tell you I got this vibe with him too. And I didn't. I didn't see it so much in his his relations with Chris Mattie up in Connecticut. Because Chris Matty, he absolutely despises to the core like Chris Matic feel no sense of human connection with the he what he would, if given the opportunity, he would strangle him with his hands like he would he has no control over his own feelings about Christmas at Christmas. It pushes his buttons in a unique way. Well, I only

Dan (01:02:50.000)

put out a hit on him. Yeah, exactly.

Mark Bankston (01:02:55.000)

You never offered I did some weird stuff to the guy. He never, ever let anybody put his hat on. And I always got the sense down to the very bitter end, even to the moment where he said, What is your Perry Mason moment? Like, the guy wants me to like him? And he wants me to think that we have he thinks that if I could just see that we had some common ground. He could sway me over to his way of whatever from there. There's something he wants me to think that he's cool. I mean, I would

Jordan (01:03:20.000)

almost argue it's more like it's more like Batman never kills the Joker. You know, like they just keep doing the dance. They just keep doing the dance. There's a certain love triangle. There's killed Killer Croc either. Wow. Yeah. Buddy, I just said that. But I'm talking about the neverending love between arch nemeses.

Mark Bankston (01:03:39.000)

They are a dramaturgical dyad Yes, exactly. They must exist with each other all that all that potential should they taught us in college Yes.

Dan (01:03:47.000)

But then the implications of that is that Alex sees you as his dramatic foil totally whereas with Matty he doesn't he doesn't maybe it's to business like for him like yeah,

Mark Bankston (01:04:00.000)

he views Maddie like I think he would view like a black site interrogator like he doesn't there's no humanity shared Yeah, he's

Jordan (01:04:08.000)

got no soul he's got no Yeah,

Mark Bankston (01:04:13.000)

yeah, exactly. Like it's not it's that's not how that relationship plays out. But here's what here's what's weird

Dan (01:04:18.000)

about that though. I've listened to the depositions that Maddie did with with Alex and there is sparring there is like as much as you had a back and forth with him. Maddie does as well but I know. It is different. You are right, but it but there is still the sparring. It's more about the way that Alex is engaging with that back and forth,

Mark Bankston (01:04:39.000)

I think and also at the time you're hearing that deposition. That deposition and particularly the last parts of it are I think, what really pushed Jones over the edge and hating Chris Matty. That deposition does not is not comfortable and does not go well for Jones. And, and he's already had a few uncomfortable depositions by that point. He, He just hates the guy like on a visceral level. And and I can't, I can't wrap my head around, like why Jones really wants to ingratiate himself to some people or vindicate his views to some people and not to others. It doesn't always make sense to me. But the way he treated us is so, so different. It's, it's,

Dan (01:05:20.000)

I guess, my guess is it's like he sees him as a like ivy league kind of suit and tie lawyer, whereas you're more of like a rock and roll lawyer. Maybe.

Jordan (01:05:29.000)

I mean, let me let me let me because

Dan (01:05:33.000)

you work at the beard law firm. And

Jordan (01:05:36.000)

the two of you, the two of you are both very, very smart, but I am I am a creature of pure emotion. So let me try and explain this. From Alex's point of view. If I can get you to get mad, at least in a little bit, then I can understand your emotion. I can understand what you're saying, because I'm a big dumb dumb, but if you're if you're giving me anger, you know, then I'm like, yeah, now we're in a situation where I understand this person. But if you're just calm, I'm gonna lose my fucking mind. I'm gonna go crazy. I'm gonna try and act even crazier.

Dan (01:06:08.000)

I guess something. I guess especially if you're sparring calmly. Yeah.

Jordan (01:06:12.000)

Oh, my God, if you spar calmly with me, I'll fucking kill you off.

Mark Bankston (01:06:17.000)

And yeah, something like I think there is also just something Jones is. He's one of those weird boomers, or I guess he's, it's he's not. He's sort of late Gen X. But he's one of those. Oh, no,

Dan (01:06:30.000)

no, he's from the silent generation. Yeah.

Mark Bankston (01:06:34.000)

He's Yeah, in the chasm there. Because that's what that's what always gets to me. We have this weird relationship that I often forget. He's just a couple years older than me like, he's not

Jordan (01:06:45.000)

like me. So

Dan (01:06:48.000)

I think that he's 10 years older than me. It freaks me out. Yeah. No, you should be silly.

Mark Bankston (01:06:54.000)

But he is part of that cohort who, wow, it was very early adopter to the internet. And he never really took to it and quite, but they have this innate respect for those who are very internet bred or whatnot. And it's like, because that's how our school debates Right? Like he's always he, you look at like his communications, right? Like, and it's in, it's always he really, he's sort of reminds me of Elon Musk in this way. He really wants to understand memes. But he can't like he really wants to understand how some of this internet stuff works. And he can't. And so I think when he was dealing with somebody who he knew, understood his world, on that level, like he was he was he that was different from somebody he felt was outside of his tribe.

Dan (01:07:36.000)

You're not You're not giving enough respect to the conflict that he lives in because he doesn't understand memes. But at the same time, on the streets, they call him the meme machine. He's the meme is the real machine. People keep making memes about him, and yet he can't understand them. Now imagine the turmoil and conflict you'd be living in. If you were the meme machine. And you didn't understand?

Mark Bankston (01:07:58.000)

Yes, name, dude, I remember, I actually remember him in text messages sending memes of himself or people would send memes of himself to him that that all parties involved just abject ly did not understand. And that is hilarious to me. That he said around it.

Dan (01:08:15.000)

So back back to this apology video. Oh, yes. Yeah. I don't see too many apology videos in my day. I don't know how many retractions or like, you know, in your line of work? Do you come across many, or is it something that happens a bit?

Mark Bankston (01:08:33.000)

I mean, it has to happen in nearly every defamation case, right. Like they at least have the opportunity to do it. And so yeah, I see some. I mean, well, look, I saw one in Fontaine, right. Infowars published a retraction a day late, but they did it and Fontaine and it's a fairly normal looking retraction on an article saying the stuff in yours that was in

Dan (01:08:53.000)

print, though, right? Yeah, that was exactly yeah, that seems a little bit less insane than this. Yes, that's that's what I'm kind of getting at is like, I don't have a lot of experience so I can't graded against other ones. But it seemed like this was one of the strangest attempts at what it's trying to be like as the retraction apology video, it seemed like it worked against the goal that it was ostensibly trying to present right?

Mark Bankston (01:09:19.000)

Yeah, that's this is what gets me about it. Somebody I don't know who spent a pretty fair amount of time right and some good legal language for him to say and then he completely threw all that time that that guy spent in the trash by what he did right afterwards right like it he might have just was not said any of if he was gonna do that.

Jordan (01:09:38.000)

What's so funny about that is that is the one thing that he did that I understand completely, like, that is so clear to me, because he agrees like I can. This is one of the few things where I can see directly into his mind, because I share it which is just that a lawyer's apology is worthless, like it means nothing. If you let a lawyer write your retraction, you might as well sit on a piece of paper, it means nothing to anyone, right? So he knows when he reads this that no one's gonna believe that he cares. He's gotta juice this up totally, totally. He's nobody's gonna believe what he's saying. So in his mind, I swear to you, in his mind, he's like, I am going to make this apology sincere. That was his idea. But

Mark Bankston (01:10:21.000)

no, I think, I think that Jones thought if he just had to read what his attorneys wrote, and that was it, that would be capitulation. And Jones ain't capitulating on this point, or to me on anything at this point, like, there's no value in it. He doesn't see any value in it. He doesn't see any value on losing any more either. It doesn't matter to him anymore. All that matters is ego. So he is he can't capitulate. He has to prove that No, I was right. I did say you lied your client, you did X Y, like he had to, I can to like he does not care. I really believe this. When all this was happening, didn't care about New York strong at all, didn't care what they think don't care. The only thing helpings cares about is whether he can use them as props to sign to try to look better and that they like or when he doesn't actually care what they think or what they think of the apology. The part of the apology that is lawyers didn't write where he was talking. That was addressed to me that was telling him x&y was true, and I've got a suit against you. And that was him telling me no Bankston, you're wrong. Look at these videos, I'm gonna prove you wrong backs and right.

Dan (01:11:23.000)

It wasn't funny. If he had the just the lawyers written thing and then at the end was like, also, fuck you, Mark.

Jordan (01:11:31.000)

I would have taken that as legitimate. That would have been legitimate. I would accept that.

Mark Bankston (01:11:34.000)

I've been mentioned enough times on the show that I can I can do without it. But what's what's nice about it is like, look, it doesn't really matter in my mind, if, if he apologizes or not that cause of action is still on the table like he's Scarlet has a year from what you sent that letter to follow that cause of action. And I

Dan (01:11:52.000)

real quick, I agree with you on the capitulation part, but there's a sense that I get that there's a motivation to make weird actions seem justified. I think that is the like, what is underneath it. There is a what he did is unacceptable. I think almost anybody would recognize that saying that scarlet came up and was crying and all this in the middle of the trial. And after the trial, you know, continuing on making a prop of this person who you have, you know, more or less terrorized for many years. Yeah. You know, like, that is a behavior that I think anybody would look at and be like, there's no reason to do that. That is monstrous shit. And the videos, you know, there is the angle of it. That is like, maybe I'm right, or whatever, right, there's that. But then if you take a step back and read it in the most generous light, I think you could just see it as him being like, there's reason for me to have maybe misheard something. So at least the the time not a bad person. But yeah, the telling of the stories gives like some sort of plausible justification for like,

Jordan (01:13:15.000)

I made a mistake. I made a mistake. It's a mistake. People make malicious acts all make mistakes. I'm not a bad person who did something actively evil towards another human being.

Dan (01:13:26.000)

I'm being overly generous. Yeah.

Mark Bankston (01:13:29.000)

Yeah. When you say that Jordan, that this is all part of a statement of vindication of his central morality. I'm a good person. We all agree, I'm assuming that that is just a knowingly false statement for public relations, image management persons, that we you don't think that Jones psychologically trying to reconcile himself that he's a good person? Yeah, totally. Cuz I don't. I don't I don't anymore. I believe I can, I can actually see that on some level of this idea that some of the things that Jones, I thought that he did, he had, he had round himself up in a way to make this roundabout circular bullshit log to convince himself that he was a good person. And I no longer believe that. And part of that is, look, I've read so much of his personal communications. I think Joe's knows exactly what a vile person he is. I think there's a lot of self loathing there about it. I think that's true of a lot of people who do some bad stuff and people. I don't necessarily think people are good or bad like that. I believe that like, their social patterns, and the determinism of their social media leads them into these horrible patterns of behavior that they can't escape from anymore. And he that's long gone for Jones, and I feel like the things he does some of the things he does, he knows they're wrong. He knows. Yeah.

Dan (01:14:42.000)

I would agree with that. And I think that one of the difficulties is that there is such a thin line between someone you know, psychologically convincing themselves that they're a good person and acting in ways that give the public presentation of life. They do insisting that they're a good person. Like it appears very, it would appear very similar and it's really hard to do and I almost I almost think it doesn't it's a matter for a psychiatrist. So yeah, I call it

Jordan (01:15:12.000)

like a personal professional line kind of situation in his in his personal life and his who I am as a human being, there are limits to what he'll accept as yeah, like I am a good or bad person, but But honestly, fuck them. But I like that kind of thing.

Dan (01:15:27.000)

I'm more in line with what Mark saying I think that he does know that what he does is bad and a lot of things. Yeah, sure.

Mark Bankston (01:15:35.000)

I think it's actually well, though, that kind of speaks to the the richness of your subject matter for this podcast, is that y'all been doing it for years, I've been looking, it's five years ago, I brought this lawsuit. Right? And I've been I've, I've spent more time interrogating Alex Jones personally than anybody on the planet, right? Like nobody's nobody has had the amount of time where he has to answer in the ways that he's had to answer than he's had with me. And here, the three of us are sitting around, trying to deduce what's going on with this guy. And we still don't get it. Like it's still more to figure out there is still more to analyze. There's still he is he is one of the most complicated dumb guys I've ever run across.

Dan (01:16:16.000)

Yeah. And I think that there's an element of luck. I think that we started the show when we did it as much as like we're well up to speed by the time there is now but like, I think that history will show him to be like, a unique figure. He is a unique figure in American history, for better or worse. And our modern our modern time. No one's making a podcast for six years about Rob do knows what it is.

Jordan (01:16:45.000)

Nobody's making a podcast for six years about me or it's not an ego thing. I do know, you know, it's not like that. Yeah. But

Mark Bankston (01:16:56.000)

after those depositions, think about the sheer amount of silence that would be in that podcast over its run, it would just be long, punctuated silences.

Dan (01:17:05.000)

I'd gone back and watched some of his like Infowars, nightly news stuff to try and find something to like, let's do it, do it.

Jordan (01:17:12.000)

Do it, do it. So no, no, no, good.

Mark Bankston (01:17:15.000)

There's no juice there. And Shroyer doesn't have the juice, none of them have it? None of them have what? What it is there? And he can't you just can't do it that way.

Jordan (01:17:24.000)

I suppose I suppose that's the that's the question that I think I'm really interested in, you know, by no, as you as you pointed out, you know, like the three of us, we've been doing this for so long. And we still don't have a clear like, Oh, I know what's going on with this guy. But there is something that we do know, which is that he cannot stop himself. That is not a thing that cannot happen. And in order for him to be stopped something will have to intervene to stop it. You know

Mark Bankston (01:17:54.000)

how many times in this case I have said the words all that Jones had to do and then X or Y situation was being normal for like 20 or 30 minutes and he can't do it. He can't do it literally can't do it. And it's there's no off switch. i It was weird. Like I got so wrapped into this what's going on with this guy that I briefly during the suit convinced myself that he was like maniacally smart. Like he's really, really label test cated that he's initially letting on and that there's this weird thought process. No. And then I realized this just one of the most complicated dumb men ever do exist. Yeah. And you're right, that is so unique that when when this I don't think people who didn't live it really like who were seeing it, really understand the vibe of Alex Jones 2016 to 2018. And what he was in this country, and then the effect that he plays, because whatever you might want to say for what for his audiences right now, it is not that and what he does, he does not have that cultural influence, footprint, any of those things he does not. He is not. He's there's something like, again, I hate to use those, like the word like this, but he's like Zeitgeist II for 2016 2018. And he was at the height of his powers. And so like I there was there could have been a lot of things I could have taken on at that point in my career, but seen that opportunity. I was like, This guy's unique. And if you do damage to him, you you actually do something. You change trajectories and stuff. And maybe we did. I don't know. I know. He's not at the height of his powers. And I know we defend him.

Dan (01:19:22.000)

Well, I know one thing you did, and that is you fucked me on getting a painting show. As much as I appreciate everything else you've done for the plaintiffs on the family. Yeah, yes, unforgivably do.

Jordan (01:19:36.000)

We do appreciate the work you've done. But what have you done for me lately? And the answer to that is fucked us with a painting show. So

Dan (01:19:43.000)

it will just imagine an easel. Alex is sitting there, blank canvas, just from his mind. He said, I don't know. I would create fake accounts in order to like try and buy those paintings. I would. I'd have a gallery of Alex Jones. Original it's black

Jordan (01:20:00.000)

and it stands for abortion.

Mark Bankston (01:20:03.000)

We're gonna make we're gonna make some nice natural fluffy clouds. None of these these globalist seed planted flat clouds. We're not gonna do that. No, no, no

Jordan (01:20:10.000)

come trails here. If you make a happy tree, I will

Dan (01:20:12.000)

kill you. Here's a here's a nice lake. Oh, fluoride in there, baby. Well, maybe one day, maybe one day, maybe one day, he'll do that. Just not as a scam.

Jordan (01:20:24.000)

You know, I was I was just thinking when you were talking about earlier, like, oh, the nuclear option is he destroys everything to do with Info Wars. And I'm like, oh, yeah, baby, give me that painting show. None of this if we get rid of it. The only way he's going to really branch out is if you get rid of everything else. Take away all of his options. You got to kill your darlings, barrel and then make him paint.

Mark Bankston (01:20:44.000)

I mean, let me let me emphasize something intrinsic about nuclear war. Is that Alex Jones ain't the only one have his finger on the button. You know what I mean? We got options too. And yeah, a lot of things to

Jordan (01:20:57.000)

do it press the button. Press it now why are we not pressing buttons?

Dan (01:21:02.000)

Do we have buttons neighbors? Sorry. Jordan over eager perinuclear I'm sorry.

Jordan (01:21:09.000)

I'm bad. I'm not a good president. For at DEF CON for it. That's close enough burn up. Right, you're not a football guy. I'm not a football guy.

Dan (01:21:22.000)

So Mark, we should probably wrap this up because we're getting deep into the evening now. Yeah, we always do. But this has been a delight. Is there anything else on your mind or radar that you think people would find interesting?

Mark Bankston (01:21:35.000)

I was gonna try and see like you that's the thing is normally when I'm on the show, I'm like, you know, I'm like a comic doing plugs with you know, we got a hearing coming up on this day make sure there's there's there's nothing everything dead in the water in the in the state courts right now. Because everything's in the bankruptcy courts. I don't I don't know. You can call in and tune in and listen to those bankruptcy hearings if you if you really want to, but spare yourself the pain and I'll do a shout out here to Morgan stringer. Yeah, yeah, she is. If there's anything going on in those courts, she's gonna thread it and you're gonna find out about it. Yeah,

Dan (01:22:05.000)

it's very helpful in keeping up and you know what I mean, she does a great job. But also I still don't really fully know if I understand everything that's going on. Right? Yeah, me too. Me too. But that's a deficiency of my understanding, not of the tweeting.

Mark Bankston (01:22:18.000)

That's about that's all that's going on. Now. Of course, everybody should be sort of waiting on bated breath for you know, this HBO documentary of all these cameras that were in our courtroom.

Dan (01:22:29.000)

You'll we're preening you're inside actually going to turn into something?

Mark Bankston (01:22:38.000)

Oh, yeah. No, yeah, look so so for those who don't know that that HBO documentary is being helmed by Dan Reed, who is he was director like, finding leaving Neverland, that HBO documentary on Michael Jackson. And he's done a lot of like, really highly awarded work. And so this is legit stuff like HBO hired this guy to be their document, exclusive documentary guy for the next few years. And he did six hours at the Capitol. You might have seen that too, which is that J six documentary and so guy. He is he's been around the subject matter for so long. He was following us through hearings. Watch it up. Yeah, watching this Preen to these areas and, and really understand the subject matter. And so I'm really excited to see what his take on it is because it's not just going to be a I mean, I don't I don't think it's gonna be boring. Right. Like,

Dan (01:23:30.000)

he did not ask me for an interview. So we know.

Jordan (01:23:33.000)

Yeah, my interaction with him, I believe was the elevator. No, no, no, that was a different. No, no, I believe I made fun of him on Twitter one day, and then the next day in the courtroom, he came up and he was like, you can stop calling me HBO documentary guy. And then I forgot his name. We shook hands and he left and we never spoke again. But yeah, he's still HBO documentary guy, because on an interview, he didn't interview me.

Mark Bankston (01:24:00.000)

But I expect that'll come out later this year, of course, depending on some events, you know, like, it'd be nice if it was an ending.

Jordan (01:24:07.000)

It would be nice. Yeah. You know,

Dan (01:24:08.000)

that's, that's one of the things that I think we've made peace with somewhat just by the nature of an episodic podcast, it kind of is, is what it is. But like, narratively, this just doesn't add just one stop trying to make a documentary about a discrete section of of something. It's with Alex, it just doesn't work. Now.

Mark Bankston (01:24:29.000)

If you had told me in April 2018, that in April of 2023, Alex Jones would still be a major feature of my life. I would have laughed at you. I just said no way.

Dan (01:24:41.000)

You'd be talking to a couple of ding dongs. late into the evening about Alex Jones.

Unknown Speaker (01:24:48.000)

Well, it is always a pleasure though. Gentlemen, I'll tell you that

Dan (01:24:51.000)

amen. Give your best to the lizard and wish you good luck with the

Mark Bankston (01:24:59.000)

death I borrow notes fight subreddit just gonna be spammed with requests for lizard pictures.

Jordan (01:25:06.000)

Oh yeah. Yeah, you better have a pic of Bill shirtless to that one we'll go over pretty well. Bill shirtless with the lizard in the garden and today's newspaper otherwise no one will believe it's real. Oh, that's fair. That's fair.

Dan (01:25:22.000)

Well, thank you again, Mark. We I hope we can talk again soon and I hope everything goes as smoothly as it can, I guess.

Mark Bankston (01:25:30.000)

Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. I'll see y'all soon. Bye. Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. Thanks for holding. Oh, Alex, I'm a first time caller. I'm a huge fan. I love your work.