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Lawyers for Jones, who owes a $1.5 billion judgment to Sandy Hook families after spreading false claims that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax, argued in court documents that The Onion's winning $1.75 million bid was "flagrantly non-compliant" and designed to "rig the process," according to NPR.
Jones called for the bid to be disqualified in favor of a $3.5 million cash offer from First United American Companies, which is affiliated with 50-year-old Texan and his online supplements business.
Jones said the trustee changed the auction's rules at the last minute to help The Onion win the bid. However, U.S. bankruptcy trustee Christopher Murray, who oversaw the auction, defended the process as "fair and open," per Bloomberg News.
Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families, told Bloomberg that they planned to continue to move ahead with the sale.
“At every step, the families we represent have sought to hold Jones accountable to the fullest extent of the law and to protect others from his lies,” he said. “They will not be intimidated, and they look forward to bringing this process to a just conclusion at the earliest possible date.”
The Onion's CEO Ben Collins called Jones' lawsuit disappointing but not surprising when he spoke to Bloomberg.
The Onion's leaders have said they plan to turn InfoWars into a comedy site satirizing conspiracy theorists like Jones who've found footholds online.
Jones is also using the new lawsuit to raise cash from his followers.
He called his listeners "insane" if they didn't support him in his fight against the "deep state" by buying his T-shirts and other merchandise in recent broadcasts of his show, per NPR.
"I need your support now. We're fighting the deep state at point-blank range," he pleaded during one of his live streams earlier this month. "There's one variable on whether I keep fighting, and that's you. Keep me in the fight now."
Twenty children and six adults were killed on a cold December morning in 2012 in Newtown. Jones repeatedly called the Fairfield County shooting a hoax and called the grieving families crisis actors, which led his supporters to harass them online and in public for years. Some moved multiple times to try and the sick campaign against them.
Jones now says he believes the shooting happened and has repeatedly said he never claimed otherwise despite the multiple, well-documented clips to the contrary.
Many of the children victims would likely be in college today if not for the killing.
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