Thread by @MoString

Hey y'all. We have a livestream of the sanctions hearing against Reynal, Alex Jones's attorney in the Texas Sandy Hook case.

My view is very weird because I am looking right at Mark Bankston's powerpoint. Mark Bankston is seeking sanctions for a frivolous motion based on Reynal's motion for a new trial.

Bankston says that this case is no longer about his client's story, but it has become about lawyers. He is talking about the revolving door of lawyers that InfoWars had.

Bankston is going over all the lawyers that InfoWars has had and how none want to take responsibility for the case.

Bankston: This case has been a 24/7 gravy train, and the train is coming to the station. You cannot treat this like a free meal ticket and disrespect the court and these proceedings.

Bankston calls the motion for a new trial a train wreck. All 50 pages contain false statements.

Bankston will show they made false statements in the filing and did so in bad faith.

Bankston points out that it is not the young lawyers who typically commit sanctionable conduct it is the old ones who are looking for shortcuts to their money!

Bankston says it is likely this will be the last hearing in this specific case before Judge Maya because Alex Jones's lawyers have filed a notice of appeal, so any proceedings before Judge Maya will be done by April 26th unless something crazy happens.

Christopher Martin, the attorney for Reynal, declines to do an opening, so Bankston is continuing. He calls Reynal to the stand.

Bankston approaches Reynal with Exhibit 2 to Bankston's Motion. This is the application that Reynal made to the bankruptcy court to be paid by Jones estate in bankruptcy.

Bankston points out where it says the Reynal Firm has "extensive experience and knowledge with Texas litigation practice and procedure." Reynal says the bankruptcy lawyers drafted that. Bankston says yes, but it comes from his own declaration attached to that motion.

Judge Maya interjected because both lawyers talked over each other there. Bankston also objected for non-responsive when asked if it came from the declaration. Reynal says he has to see the declaration, so Bankston is finding it.

Reynal now reading from that exhibit that states that Reynal Law Firm will serve as appeal counsel, motion for a new trial, etc. to save the money, and he is hiring Chris Martin's firm as well.

Bankston asks if he knew anything about Martin's firm and what was his familiarity. Reynal "that's a lot of questions, which one do you want me to answer." Bankston: "I don't really care, pick one."

Reynal is being very cagey with Bankston. My opinion is that he is taking this very personally. Bankston now is asking about reasonable inquiry into the facts of the case.

Reynal says that he did not have access to every transcript in the case. Bankston points out that he had access to every filing in the case though through the Odyssey portal (online access to docket in Texas state courts).

Now Bankston points out that Reynal had a duty to look for contemporaneous objection to see if that error was preserved. Reynal points out that is not the end of the inquiry. Perfecting an error for appeal is not necessarily required.

Bankston asks if Reynal has a duty to not make allegations of impropriety against a judge without factual basis. Reynal says he is not aware of that code, but it sounds reasonable.

Bankston is now dunking on the citations to the trial transcripts. He says the citations listed are things like, "p. 11 1.16-1.19." But Bankston believes that is supposed to be an L for line in the "1.16-1.19" instead of a one. Bankston asks if Reynal drafted that.

Reynal says that he and Martin have other attorneys in their firms. Bankston asks, "Would you believe me if I said you only had 5 citations to the record?" Reynal says he does not trust Bankston who replies, "as many barbs as you can throw in."

Bankston zeroing in on prior court orders about discovery sanctions. He also points out that one of the orders stated the entire procedural history of the discovery.

Bankston asks Reynal if he read that. Reynal says not recently and asks Bankston if he wants him to read it. Bankston retorts, "No, I wanted you to read it before you filed the motion." Bankston withdraws that statement.

Reynal says that his argument was that the court failed to adequately consider alternative sanctions prior to the death penalty sanction. Bankston points out the motion says the court failed to consider alternative sanctions.

Reynal's motion states the court never took measured sanctions to impose against Jones. To me that reads as sanctions that were not unduly harsh.

Reynal says he did not read the particular order in 2021 for sanctions that lists procedural discovery history of the case in prep for the motion for new trial.

We are now onto the part of the motion for new trial where Reynal stated that Defendants produced more that 300,000 pages of documents and 100,000 emails. Bankston asks if this is true. Reynal says that statement is based on research of Chris Martin's firm.

Judge Maya directs Reynal to answer. He says that he has no personal knowledge. Bankston asks if he could see the range of Bates label numbers (these are the numbers each page of documents is numbered as).

Reynal says the Plaintiffs were uncooperative and the discovery was complicated. He brings up records produced during the trial that were not labelled. Bankston points out Reynal did not mean to produce those.

Somehow Reynal seems to be stating that the text messages disclosed were not accidentally disclosed but rather Reynal doing discovery, but just some of those documents were not meant to be produced.

Oh boy. Now we are going to where in the motion Reynal stated that "ex-Supreme Court Justice Craig Enoch." Bankston points out that "ex-Supreme Court Justice Craig Enoch" never repped Alex. It was Mark Enoch, and Enoch was not sanctioned. Alex was.

Reynal says that Martin drafted this, and he reviewed it. He confused Craig Enoch with Mark Enoch because he was familiar with Craig Enoch being a justice.

Bankston points out that the argument in the motion is that the lawyers were scared to give Jones a defense because they'd be sanctioned.
Reynal: the irony here is apparent.
Bankston: I don't know what that means.

Bankston is pointing out that the lawyers were not sanctioned. Reynal gets a barb in at Bankston by saying that pleadings are not for grandstanding or making public statements.

We are on morning break. Bankston says he will be done by lunch time.

I actually do believe that Reynal did not draft a large part, if any, of this motion. It does not have his vibe. It feels very much like other personalities were involved that I am familiar with. But Reynal signed it.

I think Bankston is also making a point of trying to hold lawyers, who farm out work and don't bother to read, but sign off on it and accept a check for it, accountable.

Back in session. Bankston is asking about the place in the motion where it states that the trial was to exact revenge on Jones for supporting Trump. Bankston brings up how Reynal crossed the therapist witness about how he ran for Congress and was a democrat.

Bankston points out that he never asked other witnesses about that. Reynal says that he did not bring up Trump because that would go to causation. Jones being targeted because of his support of Trump was a Norm argument. Just putting that out there.

We are now onto COVID-19 being blamed for why Jones could not comply with discovery. Bankston says most of the sanctions happened before COVID was discovered. Reynal says he is in no position to agree or disagree.

Bankston points out in Reynal's motion it says "the Cancel Culture" caused banks to cancel Jones's accounts, so business records were difficult to obtain. Bankston asks where this is in the record. Reynal says Martin took the lead on the motion and he has to ask Martin.

Bankston points out that Reynal asked for $800/hr from the BK court because of his expertise and familiarity with the record.

Bankston asks if he was barred from the court by arguing Jim Fetzer (a SH conspiracy theorist) defamed the plaintiffs. I think Reynal makes a fair point here that this would go to causation.

Bankston is saying this would go to mitigate damages. However, I think that the line between mitigating damages and causation can be very fuzzy.

Well. Now Reynal is blaming Hillary Clinton. Reynal says that Clinton put out an ad that Jones made up the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory and this exposed more people to the theory.

Bankston asks where that is in the record. I do not think that this was part of an ad, but I think this was Clinton doing a town hall, but my recollection of that is fuzzy.

Bankston does make a good point here where the motion says that the court did not allow Jones to put up evidence that the Sandy Hook conspiracy came from other sources, but Reynal actually did cross Becca Lewis, the disinfo expert, on that.

Now we have George Soros. Bankston asks if his client was saying that Soros was funding this trial. Reynal says Soros is a point of concern for his client, but Jones justifiably upset by the court's rulings acted inappropriately.

Bankston points out where Reynal states things that happened in the trial, but there is no citation to those things happening.

Reynal says that the court sat through the trial, so it can know what was excluded.

Judge Maya interjects and says "it was frustrating to read, you did not even change the verb tense, it was sloppy and it was a waste of my time." Yikes.

Reynal says Martin charged the client for drafting the motion and he charged the client for reviewing it.

I would immediately start crying and throwing up if a judge said that about anything that I did.

I think this comes down to "someone else did the work, but I still want to get paid." You would be shocked at how many lawyers have this mentality.

Judge Maya interjects, "I'm sorry did you just say that you did not review the record?" RE: expert witness.Reynal says he did not review the record on this point. Reynal asks Bankston to repeat the question. Bankston: I'll have to ask it again, won't I. Maya tells both to chill.

We are discussing the expert testimony of Dr. Pettingill, who was the net worth expert. Alex referred to him on his show as "Gribble Pibble of the Scribble Scrabble."

Weird thing that I have noticed. I am only getting an audio stream, but is Reynal's lawyer even here? There has not been a single objection on Reynal's behalf.

Now we are talking about the part of the motion where Jones attorneys discuss the cameras in the court and outside the courthouse. Bankston points out that they actually said they welcomed the media. Reynal: I stand corrected.

Bankston says it was his client in front of the cameras. Bankston asks if he recalls a time when he, Bankston, was in front of cameras. Reynal says yes, as he can recall.

This is strange to me besides all of it. The Jones motion claims that the jurors were not anonymous, so they were intimidated? But I do not recall the jurors' names being disclosed. Also, the threat they would be scared of would be from Jones.

Bankston asks if an anonymous jury has ever been empaneled for a civil jury. Reynal says he does not know what Bankston means by anonymous. Bankston says in your own brief you say there was a failure to empanel an anonymous jury.

Now onto the response to Bankston's motion that Martin drafted but Reynal signed off on according to Reynal.

Bankston takes issue with Reynal stating Bankston would not cooperate with him in discovery. Bankston once had a "colorful exchange" with Reynal so it seems after Reynal understood that Bankston wouldn't cooperate ???

Reynal says he could not ascertain the ID of the prior lawyers but could not. Bankston points out that this info was available to Reynal through Odyssey. Reynal says but BK lawyers and Norm Pattis are listed but never were involved. Bankston says he should have known their roles.

Reynal says that this motion by Christopher Martin that he signed is strong work product given the complexities of the case. I have read their motion. It is BONKERS.

Bankston is done asking questions. Judge Maya asks a question about receiving info from defense counsel and asks who that is. He does not know.

Bankston has one more question about finding out all the information of the case. Reynal says the budget to retain him would not allow it. Bankston points out during the trial Reynal made $100K per MONTH for the case and now is billing at $800/hour.

We are on break.

Bankston plans on calling one more witness. Christopher Martin is not calling any witnesses and only doing an argument.

Reynal is in a bad position. He signed off on a BONKERS brief that he claims Chris Martin drafted, but from my understanding Martin is at a pretty notable firm, so Reynal does not want to throw him under the bus too hard.