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Sunday, May 10, 2026

The Alex Jones Verdict Exposed an Important Legal Truth - The Atlantic

The fabrication-industrial complex is skating on thin legal ice.

The Third Rail examines the disputes that divide America. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

On Wednesday, two extraordinary things happened. First, a Connecticut jury awarded almost $1 billion to the families of eight Sandy Hook victims, imposing a massive legal liability on Alex Jones, a far-right media personality who had claimed that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax and that Sandy Hook families were “actors” who were “lying” and “manipulating” the public.

Second, many of the right’s most popular voices were outraged, but not at Jones. They viewed the verdict not just as a direct attack on free speech but as evidence of the power of what they called the “Regime”—the amorphous, elite American establishment—to cancel and persecute the American right.

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, tweeted to his 1.7 million followers, “This isn't about calculating real damages from Alex Jones. This is about sending a message: If you upset the Regime, they will destroy you, completely and utterly, forever.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted to her 1.1 million followers, “No matter what you think of Alex Jones all he did was speak words. He was not the one who pulled the trigger. Were his words wrong and did he apologize? Yes. That’s what freedom of speech is. Freedom to speak words. Political persecution must end.”

Kirk and Greene were hardly alone. In the hours after the verdict, person after person...



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