Something tells me he can afford it, and I imagine he thinks it’s money well spent for the opportunity to make that Epstein quote on record. That was truly excellent!
I really don’t know what to think about the verdict. I mean, they accused the families of lying, so the claims have a lot of substance. The fact that he’s a personality who makes loads of money from talking about conspiracy theories also pretty well solidifies the fact that he did in fact profit from slandering them.
The only thing that seems to fall short is the requirement that the person doing the slandering had done it intentionally. For example, to cite a case everyone here knows well, Ventura won against Kyle because Kyle obviously knew he was telling a lie. Had Kyle simply been repeating a story he had been told, that he believed to be true, it wouldn’t have been slander. I.e. “gossip” and “fake news” aren’t slander.
But Jones is a reasonably sophisticated person with decades of experience as a broadcast journalist, so you could easily argue that he was negligent. I.e. he “should have known better.” But there’s also the assumption amongst the general public that Jones is unhinged and 100% believes the stuff he says.
I could also see Jones having fallen into a sort of psychosis where he can no longer distinguish what’s real and what’s not. I think a lot of people into conspiracy theories are in that place. The level of insanity in terms of what’s turned out to be factual is so high, that an informed person like Jones could honestly be forgiven for no longer being able to intuitively know what’s possible and what’s stark raving BS. I mean, over his career, he’s been vindicated on several counts that were, at the time, so unbelievable that any rational person would have classified them as stark raving BS. Once you find yourself living in a world where your industry, media, and political figures are all worshipping a giant owl statue and having mock (we hope) human sacrifices, you know, after a while, flat earth stuff might start to sound not so impossible to you.
Another burden I don’t think was met, though, and the most important one, is the claim that the families were damaged by Jones. Perhaps they experienced some emotional distress, but reputationally they weren’t damaged at all. 99.99% of people out there don’t even know about Jones and his ilk or their claims about the Sandy Hook conspiracy. And the ones who do, the vast majority of them only have more sympathy for the families as a result of that awareness. They haven’t faced any reputational repercussions as a result of this (like losing a job, being ostracized from their community, etc.).
Also for anyone who doubts the veracity of the event itself, this is a great deep dive into Lanza:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-J5yNtwo7A
The primary argument for the alleged conspiracy is that Lanza didn’t exist, and of course you have to ignore a mountain of evidence to arrive at that conclusion. The guy who did that video is a shining example of outstanding journalism, and I highly recommend watching it.