The Onion’s purchase of Infowars is being reviewed after complaints from Alex Jones and his lawyers

Onion’s winning bid for Alex Jones’ Infowars platform is being reviewed by a US bankruptcy judge after Jones and his lawyers complained about the way the auction was conducted.

The news outlet was announced as the winner Thursday in an auction that is part of Jones’ personal bankruptcy.

Hours later, Infowars headquarters in Austin, Texas, and its websites were shut down and Jones was broadcasting from a new studio he had founded before the bankruptcy auction. By Friday morning, Infowars and its websites were back up and running for reasons that were unclear.

In an emergency hearing in Houston on Thursday, Judge Christopher Lopez ordered a retrial next week. He wants to know what happened at the auction and how the bankruptcy trustee chose The Onion over the only other bidder – a company linked to a website that sells Jones’ products.

Court hearings are usually held after a bankruptcy auction to finalize the winning bids and the sale, as well as to hear any objections, so the process in the Jones case hasn’t deviated from the norm — until now.

Here’s a look at the bankruptcy auction and what might happen next:

Why was Infowars put up for auction?

Jones announced his engagement in late 2022 after he was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut who sued him for defamation by calling the repeated massacre a scam aimed at increasing gun control.

Relatives of 20 first-graders and six teachers killed in a 2012 shooting say Jones’ supporters harassed and threatened them because of his lies. Jones has since admitted that the incident was “100 percent real.”

As part of the bankruptcy, the assets of Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Jones-owned Free Speech Systems, were to be auctioned off, with the Sandy Hook families and other creditors of Jones receiving the proceeds.

How Onion was named the winning bidder

The bankruptcy trustee overseeing the sale chose from sealed bids. He got two.

Another was from a company affiliated with Jones, First United American Companies, which provided $3.5 million, the trustee said in court Thursday. The other, from The Onion, was modest but contained an incentive for some of the Sandy Hook families to give up a portion of the proceeds from the auction and give it to some of Jones’ creditors, said the trustee, Christopher Murray.

Murray said he decided Onion’s offer, while unusual, was the best, because it would provide more money to Jones’ creditors than the other bid. But he also said he could not put a dollar on The Onion’s bid when the families were counted.

The judge stated that he expected prospective buyers to be given a chance to cheat after the bids were closed.

His 20-page order on sales procedures in September, however, makes this bidding round optional. It also gave Murray broad authority to conduct the sale, including the power to reject any bid, no matter how high, that was “contrary to the best interests” of Jones, his company and their creditors.

Infowars reopens after shutdown

Murray had the Infowars website and studio shut down Thursday as he began the process of acquiring the assets, the trustee’s attorney said in court Thursday. But by Friday, Infowars and its websites were back up and running.

On his show, Jones told listeners that Murray told him it was wrong to close Infowars before the sale was completed. Murray and his attorney did not immediately return phone messages and emails seeking comment.

What’s next in court?

The judge said he had concerns about the auction process and its lack of transparency. Both sides are expected to testify at the hearing next week.

Jones and an attorney for First United American Companies allege that Murray improperly selected the Onion’s bid and abruptly changed the sale process on Monday after the sealed bids were sent, by deciding not to hold a bidding round on Wednesday. They also questioned whether The Onion’s request was legitimate.

Murray said he denied doing anything wrong and said he followed the judge’s rules at the auction.

Lopez will decide whether the trustee conducted the auction properly and selected the Onion as the winning bidder. If not, opportunities include reopening the sale and holding an auction where potential buyers can’t outbid each other. The judge has the final authority to accept or reject any sale of Infowars.

An exact date for the trial had not been set as of Friday afternoon.

What are The Onion’s plans for Infowars?

The Onion – which carries the banner “America’s Finest News Source” in the headline – was founded in the 1980s and for decades has distorted politics and pop culture. It hopes to relaunch the Infowars website in January as a game for Jones and other conspiracy theorists.

“Our goal in a few years is for people to think of Infowars as the funniest and dumbest website out there,” Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion, told the Associated Press.

“It used to be the dumbest website out there.”