MARK BANKSTON (NEIL HESLIN'S ATTORNEY): When it comes to private individuals, you can't just lie about them. You cannot just spread lies that hurt their lives. And in this case, sure, defamation's sometimes hard to prove against media outlets because most media outlets have some semblance of journalistic integrity. Here, this is textbook defamation. He made unequivocal, false statements about both of our clients. And the consequences of that are so severe that I don't believe I've ever seen anything like this. And it's our opinion that this is the most vile act of defamation in the history of American media.
In 2013, Jones called the shooting “staged” and said, “It’s got inside job written all over it.”
In March 2014, Jones said, “I’ve looked at it and undoubtedly there’s a cover-up, there’s actors, they’re manipulating, they’ve been caught lying, and they were pre-planning before it and rolled out with it.”
In December 2014, Jones said on his radio program, “The whole thing is a giant hoax.”
Jones continued: “The general public doesn’t know the school was actually closed the year before. They don’t know they’ve sealed it all, demolished the building. They don’t know that they had the kids going in circles in and out of the building as a photo-op. Blue screen, green screens, they got caught using.”
Making it clear he didn’t view the occurrence of the shooting as an open question, Jones explicitly said that the Obama administration was behind the shooting, noting, “It took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake.”
1st amendment doesn't protect scumbags lying about citizens, from those citizens.
