Remarks by Onion CEO Ben Collins to ABC News last week claiming his company had the highest bid in the auction to buy Infowars were categorically false, according to documents filed in court this week.
🚨BREAKING: InfoWars' Auction Fraud Exposed In Bombshell Federal Court Filing–– Read The Full Filing Linked Below NOW & Watch Alex Jones Break It Down On The Alex Jones Show Today
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) November 18, 2024
FULL FILING: https://t.co/Q5bSUMtwld
WATCH LIVE: https://t.co/T4WBTI0D68 pic.twitter.com/ahf3kD6j80
In a motion filed in US Bankruptcy court Monday seeking to disqualify The Onion’s bid due to shady auction practices and malfeasance on the part of the US court-appointed trustee assigned to Infowars owner Alex Jones, a lawyer for First United American Companies, LLC, (FUAC) argued the company he represents had the highest bid in the first and subsequent overbidding rounds of the auction, going on to reveal The Onion’s lower bid amounts.
“Attached hereto… is a true and correct copy of the Onion’s initial bid, which the Trustee also determined was a ‘qualifying bid,'” FUAC’s attorney noted in the filing. “FUAC’s initial bid was $1,200,000 and the Onion’s was $1,000,000. There were no other qualified bids for the online live auction that was scheduled for November, 13, 2024.”
FUAC’s filing goes on to note that “After receiving the initial bids, the Trustee and [auction house] Tranzon decided to scrap the live auction and conduct a secret final and best bid process without court approval and contrary to the Sale Order.”
“FUAC’s final and best bid was $3.5 million for all of the Assets. The Onion’s bid was $1,750,000 for all of the Assets.”
“Incredibly, the Trustee accepted the Onion’s bid as the highest and best bid,” the filing notes.
The bid amounts, which were not previously disclosed to mainstream media outlets, show Onion CEO Collins brazenly lied on national television last week when he told ABC correspondent George Stephanopoulos that his company indeed had the highest bid.
Stephanopoulos asked Collins point-blank about the fact that US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez, presiding over Jones’ bankruptcy case, had halted the sale of Infowars on Thursday evening due to concerns and frustrations over the so-called auction process.
“Overnight, the judge in charge of this put a hold on your purchase raising questions about the process, raising questions about transparency in the bidding process. What do you make of that? Are you confident that’s still gonna go through?” Stephanpoulos asked.
🚨#BREAKING Listen to CEO of The Onion Ben Collins stumble over himself, trying to answer HOW their bid on INFOWARS was allowed to win even though it wasn't the highest bid!
— In2ThinAir (@In2ThinAir) November 15, 2024
I don't even know what's real anymore. 🤣
I'll say this 100 times, we live in the fken Twilight Zone.… pic.twitter.com/mfX4AGVqUo
“Yeah, look. We won the bid. We own Infowars and we are very excited about that,” Collins stated.
“But, is it true that you didn’t have the highest bid?” Stephanopoulos followed up.
“Uhh, we, we did,” Collins stammered. “We did have the highest bid when you take into account the families’ concessions here. They made a concerted effort to make this the best and highest bid for everybody involved…”
The former NBC News propagandist-turned-Onion owner’s reference to the “families’ concessions” refers to an unspecified credit amount added to the bid by the “Connecticut families” in the form of a “Distributable Proceeds Waiver” (DPW), a change to the auction sales process which FUAC’s lawyer argued they were not informed of, was not offered to them, and was not approved by the judge.
Furthermore, FUAC’s lawyer maintained the families’ DPW currently has no value whatsoever, and is currently being appealed by Jones, rendering any rewards to be paid out to the family incalculable.
“The DPW offered by the Connecticut Families provides the estate no additional dollars or value whatsoever,” FUAC’s attorney wrote, adding, “To be clear, the Onion’s final bid for the Assets is only $1,750,000 cash.”
“As of today, there simply is no way to determine the amount of the Connecticut Families’ claim – it is not allowed and it is subject to appeal. It is impossible to value. Thus, the distribution to which the Connecticut Families may be entitled to in the future is pure speculation.“
FUAC’s lawyer continues, “The DPW is the equivalent of ‘monopoly’ money. It simply has no value. It is also the product of impermissible collusion with the Onion in an effort to ‘rig’ the auction with the goal of achieving a specific result desired by the Connecticut Families.”
“This is a text book example of collusion and demonstrates in an attempt to rig the bid process so that the Onion could acquire the Assets for only $1,750,000. This was not simply collaboration, this was outright collusive bid rigging.”
Judge Lopez appeared to agree with FUAC’s arguments.
Last Thursday, Lopez convened an emergency hearing discussing how the court-appointed trustee without the judge’s approval went ahead and ordered the shutdown of the Infowars.com website, as well as its sister video site Banned.video, immediately after filing the results of the fake auction/private sale with the court, while admitting to the US bankruptcy judge that The Onion’s was not the highest bid.
Via the AP:
…[T]he judge in Jones’ bankruptcy case said Thursday that he had concerns about how the auction was conducted and ordered a hearing for next week after complaints by lawyers for Jones and a company affiliated with Jones that put in a $3.5 million bid.
[…]
At a court hearing Thursday afternoon in Houston, the trustee who oversaw the auction, Christopher Murray, acknowledged that The Onion did not have the highest bid but said it was a better deal overall because some of the Sandy Hook families agreed to forgo a portion of the sale proceeds to pay Jones’ other creditors.
Furthermore, the court-appointed trustee admitted he’d “never seen this before in any other case, and we did a lot of research, and we’ve never found it;” however, he argued, “But I’ve always thought my goal was to maximize the recovery for unsecured creditors, and under one bid, they’re clearly better than they were under the other.”
Judge Lopez said he will soon hold an “evidentiary hearing” to “figure out exactly what happened, adding, “No one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction.”
In a filing Monday, Jones’ court-appointed trustee claimed FUAC’s motion to disqualify the Onion’s bid was “a disappointed bidder’s improper attempt to influence an otherwise fair and open auction process.”
How will the bankruptcy judge rule in the face of such blatantly obvious collusion to defraud the court and its efforts to ensure a “full and fair process”?
Stay tuned!
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